Jitter Press published horror for nine issues. The whole archive is open now, free, no subscription, nothing to sign up for. That is a lot of stories to walk into cold, so here are thirteen to start with.

These are the ones that actually frightened us. Not the most polished, not the most literary — the scariest. They are ranked, and we will defend the order.

1. The Blinking Man by Rory Say

A very tall stranger knocks three times, smiles with bad teeth, and says nothing. Then he does it again at the next apartment.

Cosmic body horror.

2. Under the Skin by Trent Phillippe

An exterminator takes a spider call at a house deep in the woods, and meets the very calm old woman who phoned it in.

Creature horror.

3. Watch Children by Joshua Begley

Every child in the mining town gets a gold watch. Nobody wants to be standing nearby when one of them stops.

Folk horror.

4. The Path by Jeff Dosser

A family hikes a mountain trail in a drought year. The silence is the first thing that is wrong. The dead dog is the second.

Animal attack.

5. Bump in the Night by Marcus Hawke

A tired mother lets her scared six-year-old climb into bed with her, and then hears her husband’s voice coming from underneath it.

Domestic monster.

6. 33 Long Nights at the Lake House by C.J. Heckman

The thing on the porch has eyes the size of tires and legs like a spider’s. It will not move and it will not leave. It is waiting to be asked in.

Creature siege.

7. Mr. Madfhy by Dan Thorn

Brett comes home in a hailstorm and sees a faceless man in a green golf shirt standing in the living room window. Six days later, his family is not his family.

Possession horror.

8. The Big Peel by A. Poythress

Twice a year her skin comes off in sheets. This year it does not stop there, and worse, she starts to enjoy it.

Body horror.

9. Mother Love by Alyson Faye

Eight weeks after the baby died, Mother is still rouging his cheeks in the parlor every morning, and she expects her older son to come and sit with them.

Gothic domestic horror.

10. All Dolled Up by Kristi Petersen Schoonover

She writes fake haunted-doll backstories to move junk on eBay. Then one of the dolls starts typing corrections.

Cursed object.

11. The Sisters of Mercy by Matias F. Travieso-Diaz

A mining investor ignores the letters accusing him of blood money. So somebody mails him a cake.

Body horror.

12. The Moat by Samantha Curreli

The old man in the Florida condo says there is a Mud Man in the retention pond, and that it already took a five-year-old. The gator people found nothing.

Creature feature.

13. Trophies by Christopher Waltz

Natalie stops by the Porter house to see Silas, the boy her friends broke. Silas’s mother has had three years to get ready.

Revenge horror.

Five more, if those did not do it

  • The Organ Trail by Haley Ruth Spencer — the best-written thing in the archive and the hardest ending. Not the scariest. The most devastating.
  • The Scarecrow by Phillip Englund — Halloween night, teenagers going missing one at a time, straw in a dead boy’s hair.
  • Where the Hell Is Amy? by Joseph Cusumano — an antique mirror that goes soft when you touch it.
  • The Rat by Kemal Onor — a hungover man decides something crawled into his mouth while he slept, and sets out to poison it.
  • Slow No Wake by Jeff C. Stevenson — a widow’s walk, a bait sign, and a debt of one hundred for ten.

Read the rest

Jitter Press is closed to submissions, and the archive is not going anywhere.