It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, Christmas hasn’t come early, it’s Halloween! For me (and despite its name), All Hallows’ Eve isn’t restricted to just one night; rather, it takes over the whole of October. But even so, the 31st itself holds a particularly special spooky power. If you’re looking to maximize the fun and frights of Halloween this year, I suggest immersing yourself into a few horror stories that are set on that very special night.
To that end, here are seven Halloween-set short stories and novellas that could either be devoured in their entirety on October 31st itself, or read bit by bit in the lead-up to the big day to build excitement…
The Halloween Tree (1972) by Ray Bradbury
If it’s a nostalgic Halloween atmosphere you’re after, you can’t go wrong with The Halloween Tree. The novella starts with a group of nine friends getting ready to go trick-or-treating. But then Pipkin is stolen away by a supernatural entity—to get him back, his friends have to venture though Halloween celebrations from different historical eras and cultures.
The Halloween Tree can be read as the Halloween version of a true-meaning-of-Christmas story, à la Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843). The boys think the holiday is all about candy and scary costumes, but on their mission to rescue Pipkin, they realize that Halloween lore runs far deeper than that. This spooky, whimsical, and wholesome story captures the essence of the Halloween spirit, perfectly distilled through Bradbury’s lyrically flowing prose.
It should also be noted that the 1993 animated adaptation of the story (starring Leonard Nimoy) is a Halloween delight and a classic in its own right.
Dark Harvest (2006) by Norman Partridge
Each Halloween in a small unnamed Midwestern town, a strange ritual called the Run takes place. All of the town’s teenage boys are locked up without food for a few days before the 31st and when they’re unleashed (and incredibly hangry!) they’re tasked with hunting down and killing the October Boy. This creature has a jack-o’-lantern head and a candy-stuffed body made of vines.
Dark Harvest requires a higher than usual suspension of disbelief. The story behind this bizarre ritual is drip fed to the reader through gossip and rumor, and even when some answers are revealed, there are still question marks over certain plot points. But those who are happy to leave their questions at the town’s outer limits will be rewarded with an action-packed and gore-soaked story.
The novella is very different to the 2023 film adaptation. Not only do the two plots massively diverge, but the October Boy’s design in the movie doesn’t hold a candle to the description in the book.
“The October Game” (1948) by Ray Bradbury
“The October Game” is only a few pages long, but it’s one of Bradbury’s darkest tales. It’s told from the POV of a man who absolutely despises his wife, Louise, and feels nothing towards their eight-year-old daughter, Marion. The family are hosting a Halloween party—there are jack-o’-lanterns in the windows, guests in scary costumes, and the apple bobbing is in full swing—when the disturbed narrator comes up with a horrific idea for how he can make his wife suffer as much as possible.
Many readers will be familiar with Bradbury’s science fiction and even his works of dark fantasy, but “The October Game” may come as a surprise, grounded as it is in the evil of humanity. Bradbury doesn’t actually describe anything horrifying; the story simply ends with the implication of something horrific, and the reader is then left sitting with that inescapable implication as it grows dark wings and takes flight through their mind.
Originally published in a 1948 edition of Weird Tales, readers can find this short story in the collections Long After Midnight (1976) and The Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980).
“Bone Fire” (2018) by Storm Constantine
Storm Constantine’s “Bone Fire” is inspired by the Celtic origins of Halloween (called Samhain), which I personally adore as a Scot who grew up learning about those origins and always said “guising” instead of “trick-or-treating.” The short story follows two fourteen-year-old girls, Emlie and Jenna, who have donned their guises to confuse the spirits on All Hallows’ Eve. As they go from house to house collecting edible offerings for the ghosts, they encounter a mysterious skeleton-clad boy who changes the course of their night—and their lives.
This spooky folklore tale was first printed in The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories (2018), but can also be found in Constantine’s collection Mythotenebrae (2020).
“The Folding Man” (2010) by Joe R. Lansdale
William, Jim, and drunken Harold are driving home from a Halloween party when they see a strange-looking black car full of nuns. Jim decides to moon them as they pass by, but instead of his bare butt evoking the expected mildly annoyed reaction, the nuns—who maybe aren’t regular nuns after all—are so furious that they speed up in hot pursuit. The rest of the story is a wild ride that is teeth-clenchingly tense and goes to some horrifyingly weird places.
The story was first printed in 2010 in the Haunted Legends anthology, but it can be read for free on Nightmare Magazine’s site.
“With Graveyard Weeds and Wolfsbane Seeds” (2017) by Seanan McGuire
The centerpiece of “With Graveyard Weeds and Wolfsbane Seeds” is the creepy Holston house—a grand mansion that has been sitting empty and abandoned for years. Strangely though, the house has never fallen into disrepair, and its imperviousness to the elements has added to its unsettling aura. Of course, such a house has inspired a ghost story, a local legend featuring a young girl called Mary Holston, who is apparently doomed to wander the house forever.
Too old for trick-or-treating, but too young for alcohol-fueled parties, a small group of bored teens decide to investigate (i.e. break into) the Holston house on Halloween night. Although they’re looking for some suitably Halloween-y scares, they definitely get more than they bargained for.
First published in the Haunted Nights (2017) collection, this story is also available for free on Nightmare Magazine.
“Universal Horror” (2015) by Stephen Graham Jones
“Universal Horror” is about a group of friends—whose ranks have gradually thinned over the years—who play the same Halloween game every year. Each person gets a costume category—animals, superheroes, age-inappropriate, etc.—and they have to do a shot for every trick-or-treater at the door who fits the description. Rachel gets Universal Monsters, horror staples such as Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Invisible Man. But as well as getting progressively drunker as the night goes on, she also finds herself getting progressively more freaked out by a kid in a mummy costume who keeps coming to the door.
The story first appeared in October Dreams II: A Celebration of Halloween (2015), but it’s another one that’s been published for free on Nightmare Magazine.
I hope you treat this list like a spooky fiction pick-n-mix! Please feel free to recommend your own delectably dark Halloween-set stories in the comments below.
