11 Ghost Stories To Scare Your Friends With This Halloween

Ramon keeps seeing the same homeless woman, pushing her squeaky cart through the streets of Vancouver. But he can't escape the feeling that this woman is somehow connected to La Llorona, the legendary ghost-woman who roams the world, forever searching for her drowned children. But he left La Llorona and all those superstitious stories back in Potrero with his family... or did he? You'll just have to read "Lacrimosa" to find out.

If you're already a little bit scared to climb darkened staircases in drafty old houses, then I invite you to psychologically terrorize yourself and everyone else you know with "Click-clack the Rattlebag." It's the story of a man taking a little boy up the stairs to bed. That's it, that's all that happens. But in the hands of Neil Gaiman, that's more than enough to create a compact, bone-chilling haunted house tale.

Being on a ship at sea is already an existential terror. In "The Upper Berth," however, things get even creepier when one particular berth seems to compel its occupants to fling themselves overboard. If you're looking for a classic, old school ghost story with a nautical flare, this is the one for you.

A man sees his brother, drinking and carousing with the other folks in their village, behaving as though everything is normal. But that's not possible, because this man killed his brother just last week. "His Face All Red" is a gorgeously illustrated ghost story made to be read on a computer, and guaranteed to freak out all of your Halloween guests (and their brothers).

Why are black cats supposed to be scary, anyway? Well, possibly because of Edgar Allan Poe's infamous ghost cat story, "The Black Cat" (and, you know, due to misogyny because of their historical association with witchcraft). Read it for an oh-so-classic tale of one man's irrational hate and fear towards a sweet cuddly kitty.

Imagine the Ghostbusters, but instead of a group of goofy people banging around NYC busting ghosts, they were one person stalking through the remote wilderness, hunting an invisible apparition of unknown origin. That's the basic plot of "The Damned Thing," a classic of the "remote cabin ghost" genre.

Let's be really clear, here: I'm issuing a blanket "NO THANKS" to any and all media involving statues that move when you're not looking. However. If you're going to torture yourself with a haunted statue story, Kelly Link's "Stone Animals" is a funny, upsetting, delightfully creepy option.

Ah, a good old fashioned Victorian ghost story. Sure, the Victorians were uptight imperialist goofs, but they sure knew how to tell a tale of Gothic woe. "The Old Nurse's Story" follows a phantom child wandering across the cold, desolate moors, as fairy tale characters begin to gather in the dark of the woods...

Not every ghost story has to be wall to wall terror. "Old Habits" introduces us to a bunch of ghosts who live in a ghost mall, where they are forced to relive their traumatic deaths once every day. If your Halloween get-together is less about scares, and more about laughs and contemplating the bleak truth of mortality, then this is the spectral shopping mall for you.

Shirley Jackson is the immortal queen of horror, so it should come as no surprise that her short story, "The Daemon Lover," is a masterfully spooky tale that will convince you to stop dating entirely. A young woman awaits her beloved groom on the morning of their wedding day. But as the day goes on, it's looking more and more like her lover isn't going to show... and like he maybe never existed at all...

Who needs Advil when you have a shadow man who comes and "takes away your pain"? Of course, things aren't quite that simple in "He Who Takes Away the Pain." It's part ghost story, part plague story, all creepy. It'll make you feel angry about healthcare and stare into the shadows in your bedroom at night, looking to see if He's there.