Don’t have nightmares

On reading horror…

Photo by Ján Jakub Naništa on Unsplash

‘You should read this,’ my friend said, handing me a hardback copy of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. ‘You’ll enjoy it.’

I was sixteen at the time and hadn’t read much horror, or any, really. I stared at the dark and spooky front cover, then flicked through the pages, wondering about the story within.

‘I loved it,’ my friend added. ‘I’m already on to the next one.’

It wasn’t the sort of book I would usually pick up, but I thought I’d give it a go. If my friend was turning into a Stephen King superfan, perhaps I would too.

I was immediately pulled into the story of Ben Mears, who has ‘returned to the Lot to write a novel and exorcise the terrors that have haunted him since childhood—since the event he witnessed at the Marsten House. He finds the house has been rented by a newcomer, a man who causes Ben some unease. And then things start to happen: a child disappears, a dog is brutally killed - nothing unusual, except the list keeps growing...’.

The next evening, I was babysitting, so tucked the book under my arm and took it with me, looking forward to some reading time.

My babysitting job was on a farm in Yorkshire, not quite in the middle of nowhere, but away from houses and the glare of streetlights, and surrounded by fields, woods and darkness. I always walked there and back, crossing a field, with nothing but a torch to light the way.

The couple I babysat for were having some major renovations to the farmhouse, so were living in a mobile home, positioned on the edge of the field. I wished them a good night, then settled down with my book. The children were in bed. The fire was on. It was warm and cosy, and I had my book.

I read a few pages and felt my heart rate quickening. After a few chapters, I was holding my breath. After an hour’s reading, I was so unbelievably terrified I could barely move.

Outside, the wind was whipping up, rattling the cabin. It was one thing reading the book when I was at home with my parents in a house with familiar noises. It was another thing entirely to read it in a spooky setting.

I closed the book, too traumatised to read another word. For the rest of the night, I sat paralysed with fear, listening to the rain on the windows, thinking something was coming to get me.

As the clock moved closer to midnight, there was a knock at the door. I jumped so high I almost knocked my head on the ceiling.

I daren’t move.

It came again, louder this time.

I opened the door and peered into the darkness. A man with a rifle stood on the doorstep.

‘I’m the fox man,’ he said. ‘They know I’m coming.’

I slammed the door shut and stood behind it, taking a moment to catch my breath.

‘Okay,’ I shouted from behind the door.

The fox man. Who was the fox man?

In my sweet sixteen-year-old mind, I imagined him as a horse whisperer but for foxes. Then I realised. There would be no fox whispering. This man had only murder on his mind.

I wanted to race after him, wrestle the gun from his murdering hands, and save the animals. Instead, I sat in the rattling cabin, listening to the wind and, far away, deep in the woods, the sound of gunshots.

An hour later, when the couple returned, I grabbed my torch and began the walk home across the field in darkness. I walked quickly, keeping my eyes forward, not wanting to think about what might be out there.

My torch lit up the path and then caught something that made me stop. Two eyes stared back at me.

‘Not a vampire,’ I told myself. ‘A fox.’

Both of us stood still.

Then it turned and ran the way I was heading, as though it was showing me the way home.

I stumbled after it, hoping the fox man wouldn’t see or hear either of us.

Since that night, I haven’t even looked at a Stephen King novel. Horror, I decided, just wasn’t for me.

But this October, given it is spooky season, and that twenty-nine years have passed since that traumatic night, I thought I’d give horror another chance. Not Stephen King but a woman writer.

A few weeks ago, I read a review of The Hotel by Daisy Johnson, who the reviewer described as the heir to Stephen King. Daisy was born on Halloween in 1990, so perhaps she was destined to write horror. I’ve read her debut short story collection, Fen, and a few of her other short stories, which have won prizes such as the AM Heath Prize and the Harper’s Bazaar short story prize. Her debut novel, Everything Under, was shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, making Daisy (at 27) the youngest nominee in the prize’s history. I thought she would be an ideal starting point for my return to the horror genre.

In Daisy’s words, she has ‘gone full horror’ with The Hotel, a collection of interlinked stories about a haunted hotel. Think The Shining but set in the Fens. The fifteen stories are each voiced by a different narrator, including guests, cleaners, owners, and even the hotel itself.

The building tells us: ‘People came to The Hotel because they wanted to be scared. They came because they thought maybe their dead loved ones were here and wanted to speak to them one final time, to ask them if the living were forgotten or tell them they hadn’t forgotten.’

The stories were originally written for BBC Radio 4 in 2021 for a series of monologues for a cast, including Maxine Peake, Anne-Marie Duff and Juliet Stevenson. They’re available here on BBC Sounds if you fancy a listen.

I took my time reading the collection, enjoying the mood each story creates. They are beautifully written with mesmerising images. Although they are chilling, they are not terrifying, and certainly not as traumatic as my first experience reading horror all those years ago.

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Do you read horror stories? Any recommendations? I’d love to hear.

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