It is officially fall, my favorite season! I was feeling fall-ish a couple days ago and started rereading some of my favorite old horror anthologies from childhood. I've only ever written about one of them here apparently. The others were adulthood reads.
So I thought I'd dedicate a post to these five childhood faves. These are even still my original copies.
I'm going to mention each story and the gist of it, so if you don't want spoilers, don't read all this.
I'm going to start with Haunted Tales. This isn't a well-known one at all. It's a skinny little book from 1989 that only has 7 stories in it.
The opener, "Give Me My Gold," is a spin on the classic ghost coming to get whatever someone posthumously stole from it.
"Dream Spell" is by far the best story in the book. It's always the one I remember most. Three kids wake up from nightmares where they've been tortured by an old woman, and all three have various injuries: one has burns on her legs, a second welts around his neck, and the third has three broken ribs. The doctor connects their last names and weaves a tale from 300 years ago. Three bored young girls blame a local woman to cover their asses after they've pulled some pranks on the town. It smacks of Salem and the woman is sentenced to death. Her spirit has come after these descendants. Two of them are down the line of two of the girls and the third comes from the judge's bloodline. When asked about the descendants of the third accusing girl, the doctor reveals that it's his family. As the father of one of the kids scoffs, a nurse bursts in and says the doctor's daughter has been in an accident. She looks as if she's been run over by a large wheel, which is exactly how the poor woman died 300 years earlier. If you've ever read Lois Duncan's "Gallows Hill" or watched "I've Been Waiting For You," you'll see some similarities. But this story was written 8 years before Gallows Hill. And in my opinion, did the theme better justice.
"The Crazed Camper" is your typical kid bullied at camp turns into camp ghost legend.
"The Reflection" is a decent revenge story about a self-centered judge.
"The Ship in the Bottle" is a neat one. A young boy finds a ship in a bottle, then finds himself trapped inside it, like everyone who's opened the bottle. All the kids are forced to work on the cursed pirate ship, including the kidnapped daughter of the witch who placed the curse over a century before.
"The Wedding Feast" is okay. The wedding of a murderous couple doesn't end well.
And "The Cry of the Cat" is about the revenge of a murdered reclusive cat lady.
They're not the strongest stories overall, but it's worth the quick read just to check out "Dream Spell."
Oh, yes, Tales For the Midnight Hour! These were the other welll-known horror books aside from the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. J. B. Stamper did some excellent work.
The initial book is actually surprisingly old. It published in 1977, so it's even older than me!
"The Furry Collar" is an interesting twist on the murderer hiding in the house with two young female friends, but it doesn't have the most logical ending. Like how did the surviving friend live?
"The Black Velvet Ribbon" is a version of the take off the ribbon and her head falls off story.
"The Boarder" is creative. A boy is unnerved by his family's boarder, follows him one night, learns he's a burglar...and accidentally on purpose kills him, then grows up to become him.
"The Ten Claws" is about a series of murders where the victims are killed by ten sharp claws stabbing them in the neck. Sort of a version of the witch hidden in plain sight ends up mutilated when she's injured in shapeshifted form, but more open-ended than other versions of this.
"The Jigsaw Puzzle" was very predictable and a bit weak.
"The Face" is a Western tale. Not bad, but not great.
"The Mirror" I don't care for.
I'm sure it's no surprise, but "The Egyptian Coffin" is my favorite of the book. It's got a destructive museum night watchman getting his comeuppance, but it's just written well and I love the details. Although there were no fox-headed gods. That's a jackal, J. B.
"The Old Plantation" and "Phobia" are okay, I guess. Not into either.
"The Train Through Transylvania" has the main girl worried about vampires and naturally she's attacked by one, but only after thinking another person was the vampire, not the one that actually turned out to be him.
"The Attic Door" was predictable, but I liked it anyway. Mad scientist experiment stuff.
"The Tunnel of Terror" I enjoyed. It's a little bit comedic.
"The Fortune Teller" is less supernatural horror and more a crime tale.
"The Stuffed Dog" makes no sense. The story clearly says the husband dies a mysterious death and the dog dies after. The wife has the dog stuffed and this year, her grandson has to help her carry the dog to the cemetery, which she visits every year so he can hang out with his former master on the anniversary of their death. The kid is terrified of the dog, so of course it comes to life after he burns it. The grandson is found dead in the same manner as the husband, but that's what doesn't make sense. Why would the living dog kill the husband and then die? And how would a living dog create a manner of death in which the victim's "arms and legs were sticking out stiff from his body?"
"A Free Place to Sleep" is good. It's based on the famous Berkeley Square haunting.
"The Gooney Birds" is the final tale in the book. The last tale is always an outdoorsy camping one about a group of boys. The youngest is always named Ty. This one has them devoured by giant gooney birds after one of the idiots stabs two of their eggs.
More Tales came out ten years later in 1987. I want to say this was my first one in the series. I would have been 9, so just about the right age. I probably got the first book later on.
"The Shortcut" is about a kid riding a bike past a cemetery and coming home with a skeleton hand dangling off the seat.
"Trick-or-Treat" has an asshole kid getting his comeuppance on Halloween thanks to a vampire.
"The Hearse" is really well done. It's the elevator operator story. You know, "room for one more." Only this time it's a different vision, different setting that I won't spoil.
"At Midnight" feels like it was also borrowed from legend. Girl loves a highwayman and promises to meet him at a certain time, but she's stopped from getting there until late. He's there, but he's off somehow, and takes her back home. She's left him with some token, in this case a scarf. Then she learns he was hanged at the time they were supposed to meet and when she sees his body, he's wearing the scarf.
"The Black Mare" is a shapeshifting witch story.
"The Love Charm" is also about witchcraft. Simple little love potion story about why it's always important to follow directions.
"The Mask" has a writer bringing home a souvenir mask from Africa and not heeding the warnings of the shopkeeper. This was good.
"Right Inn" is a nice comic piece I won't spoil.
"The Collector" is my favorite story from all four of these books. It's about a kid who's taken up collecting moths and displaying them. Against the warnings of a local old woman, he captures and kills one that's supposedly cursed. Then the moths come for him...
"A Ghost Story" is great. It's another comic piece.
"In the Lantern's Light" is really weird. I'd love to know her inspiration for this.
"Footsteps" is a creepy take on ghostly footsteps.
And "A Night in the Woods" has Ty and the gang dealing with a werewolf.
Still More Tales is from 1989.
"Cemetery Road" is a version of the kids dare the new girl to do something in the cemetery and she regrets it theme. But it's not stab into a grave and actually nail your nightgown hem and die. No, she has to get the leather collar around the neck of a cat statue. And you know the cat's gonna come get it.
"The Wax Museum" is really good. There are a lot of detailed pranks pulled by an asshole kid, who then wants to spend the night in the museum. Naturally, he's found the next morning "and when Robbie reached out to touch him, he felt only the hard, cold smoothness...of wax." Stamper revisits this theme in "House of Horrors," her contribution to the awesome Thirteen YA horror anthology from 1991. However, "The Wax Museum" was a way better story.
TAILYPO. Enough said. Tailypo is my favorite of the legendary supernatural stories.
I totally took a break from this review to see if anyone made custom Tailypo plush, but none get his look quite like it is in my head.
"Words of Warning" is a great haunted house story. Bored boy is stuck in New England with his parents who want to see the changing leaves. The gardener for the inn they're staying in warns him to stay away from an abandoned house. He doesn't get why he's warned and other boys aren't, and then again why the house doesn't affect two other boys like it does him. But he also feels a strong pull to the house, so of course he goes there...only to learn he and he alone of the boys has something in common with all the ghosts.
"The Ghost's Revenge" is a take on the wartime bride who promises not to marry if the fiancee is killed, only to break said promise so zombie fiancee has to come haul her away from her wedding. Stamper reuses the name Lucy Potter in a different story. I think in the fourth volume.
"A Special Treat" is my second favorite of all these tales after "The Collector." (I love Tailypo a lot, so I can't just lump it in with everything else, because it's a legend and not an original Stamper story.) Lisa's husband won't eat red meat, which she enjoys, because his mom told him not to before she ran out of him and her husband. Well, what do you think Lisa does? Sneak feeds her husband red meat and outs him as a werewolf. His furry mom's instantaneous appearance after he's started to shift is great.
"The Magic Vanishing Box" is about another dangerous find in an antique shop. You know these characters are all like horror movie white people. Don't catch your hand in the box. Oh, too bad.
"Wait Til Max Comes" has the successively larger talking cats. It was Martin in Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. S. E. Schlosser has it as Emmet. I always enjoy this one.
"The Old Beggar Woman" is the rich woman who won't share her wealth and says the old "just as long as this ring will never return from the sea." Then it's in a fish and boom, she's cursed.
"The Masked Ball" has another (equally predictable) vampire red herring.
"Skin-and-Bones" is the deadly hitchhiker theme. Not the vanishing one, but the murdering one. A bit of the hook urban legend, too, with her hand hanging off the carriage's hook at the end.
"The Snake Charmer" is a bore white girl in India who is being driven insane by the music of a snake charmer who won't go away from his place outside her house. When he asks for a lock of hair, she gives it, which horrifies her parents when they return. They race into her room and find the charmer's snake trying to kill the doll the girl cut the hair from.
"The Snipe Hunt" has the boys enduring a snipe hunt test. Only Ty wins when he actually brings one back to the campsite...or does he?
I think this is the strongest book in the series overall.
And finally, we have Even More Tales. I honestly cannot remember if I had this in childhood. I know the first three are my original copies, but this one? I'm not sure. I want to say no, because the condition is worse than the other books and I kept my things pretty nice. So who knows when I found out this existed? It came out in 1991.
"Voices" is about a girl plagued with voices that tell her bad things are going to happen. The point of view is actually her friend...who she ends up passing the voices to.
"The Gecko" has a city dweller buy a gecko to let it loose in his apartment and eat up all the roaches. But what does the ever-growing gecko eat when he gets all the bugs?
"The Head" is an odd story that seems like a ghost story, but I'm not sure what it's actually supposed to be. City girl that just moved to the country isn't taken seriously by her parents when she keeps seeing a headless woman outside. Then they meet a lady who agrees to stay with the girl while the parents are at a school parent night...only for that lady to be the headless woman.
"Better Late Than Never" has a guy not knowing he's dead.
"The Golden Arm" is the famous legend.
"Dead Man's Cave" is a stupid kid going in a haunted cave while his younger brother tries and fails to stop him.
"The Midnight Feeding." When you babysit a vampire.
"When Darkness Comes" is about a painting showing a dark castle with one single light in the tower. And when the light goes dark, you've got problems. I swear I know this story and it could be tied to Glamis Castle, but I could also think I know this story from this book.
"King of the Cats." You guys know this one. I love it. "Then I'm King of the Cats!"
"The White Dove" is the dying wife who makes her husband promise not to remarry. Similar theme as the dead soldier coming back for his fiancee, only the dove actually lets the newer couple get married and then plagues them. She's typically shot at by the husband.
"Cemetery Hill" has kids stretching a wire across a road to yank off men's hats and scare them. But, as you can guess, they aim a little too low once...
"Claustophobia" is about a boy who is forced by his aunt to climb into the chimney and retrieve the hidden diamonds she stole years ago. He's angry when she dies and leaves him useless furniture, so he has a plan to steal the jewels off her corpse, which comes alive long enough to make sure he's trapped in the coffin with her.
"The Island of Fear" is the last tale of poor Ty. Stuck alone on a small island this time. Another camper appears and he's relieved, only to eventually realize this kid is the shapeshifter on the island that he was warned about. It's a werewolf again. Just say werewolf, Stamper.
Even More is the weakest of the lot for me. The best stories are the ones based on old legends.
So there's the first installment of my fall spooky story time!
