Horror

The Witch

Post category:Quick Reads

The Witch: Short story by Shirley Jackson Although very short (just over 1,400 words), there are enough dark elements in this Shirley Jackson story to unsettle most readers. An imaginative four-year-old travelling on a train with his mother and infant sister attracts the attention of a man who recounts how much he loved his own sister. The man then relates how, after killing and dismembering his sister, he fed her head to a bear. The story turns on who or what the man is, and what effect his story may have on the boy. Themes include parental inattention, boredom, imagination, witchcraft, innocence and its possible manipulation, violence.

The Boarded Window

Post category:Short Stories

The Boarded Window: Short story by Ambrose Bierce In this short gothic horror story from Ambrose Bierce, a boarded window symbolizes a grieving and possibly PTSD affected man’s desire to shut himself off from the outside world. Murlock shows no signs of traditional mourning over his wife’s passing, so his decision to live as he does could well result from a sense of shame and/or guilt over his part in her death. As we have only his version of the night’s events, it could even be that (with or without a panther) his wild shot was the reason for her throat wound! Themes: isolation, death, shame/guilt, loneliness.

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Approximate Reading Times

Quick Read: under 5 minutes
Short Story: 5 to 30 minutes
Novelette: 30 to 90 minutes
Novella: 1.5 to 2.5 hours

Other stories you may like:

Big Brother, Little Sister
Short Story by Witi Ihimaera. When a young boy flees home one evening to escape his insecure mother’s abusive boyfriend, his seven-year-old sister follows. Within a few hours, they encounter several of the dangers that being on the streets at night has to offer.
Armistice
Short Story by Bernard Malamud. A Jewish grocer and German small-goods provider have increasingly aggressive arguments over unfolding events in Eastern Europe following the French surrender in World War Two. However, neither party feels strongly enough to terminate their business relationship for fear of losing money.
Journey into a Dark Heart
Novelette by Peter Høeg. A naïve young mathematician finds himself discussing European notions of colonial Africa with three fellow passengers on a train journey through the Dark Continent. He later learns that one is a rebel leader, another a gunrunner, and a bridge ahead has been sabotaged.
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Short Story by Flannery O’connor. A bigoted woman living in the past and her disrespectful, "intellectual" son have different ideas on racial integration in the American South. The unfortunate climax comes when the mother insults her African-American doppelganger by offering the woman’s young child a penny.
Young Archimedes
Novelette by Aldous Huxley. A farm-worker’s son befriends the child of an English family renting an Italian villa. The English boy’s father notices that in addition to being musically gifted, the Italian boy has the makings of a math prodigy. Sadly he doesn’t get a chance to develop these abilities.

The Ghost upon the Rail
Novelette by John Lang. A man who came to Australia as a convict worked hard and became rich. He disappears, and a neighbor tells everyone he has returned to England. Shortly afterwards, three men returning home late one night encounter the man’s ghost sitting on a fence near his body.
The Faith Cure Man
Short Story by Paul Dunbar. A faith healer provides the last hope for a desperate woman who has been told that medical science can do nothing more for her seriously ill daughter. Despite the narrator’s skepticism, the tragic ending neither proves nor disproves the validity of faith healing.
Luba
Short Story by Lily Brett. An Australian couple who survived the holocaust is understandably obsessive about security and the welfare of their only daughter. Against their wishes, the girl marries outside their faith and, despite five years of psychotherapy, carries some of their concerns and obsessions into her marriage.
The Eskimo Connection
Short Story by Hisaye Yamamoto. A pen-pal relationship develops between a Japanese-American widow and a young Eskimo jailed in a federal penitentiary. Thanks to her experiences in a wartime internment camp, she empathises with the man, naively overlooking hints the he may have a capacity for extreme violence.
The Looking-Glass
Short Story by Anton Chekhov. A young woman dreams about getting married and settling down happily with the perfect man. One night, she has a vision of the reality of living and raising a family in rural Russia and asks herself: “Why is it, what is it for?”