Once again the days shorten, the shadows lengthen, and the ghouls come out as Halloween rolls around. To help you celebrate this sinister time of year, we offer thirteen stories lurking in our crypt—er, archives—guaranteed to send a chill down your spine, from tales of the unearthly to depictions of evil that is purely manmade. We trust you’ll enjoy reading these (with every light on in the house).
Marco Candida trails two campers who pitch a tent and seal their fate in “Dream Diary,” translated from Italian by Elizabeth Harris.
Johary Ravaloson’s Malagasy cab driver picks up a truly deadbeat passenger in “Water in the Rice Fields up to My Knees!,” translated from French by Allison M. Charette.
Image: Photo by Michael Mouritz, courtesy of Unsplash
Zheng Xiaolu finds social intrigue rippling through the annual ritual honoring the dead in “The Festival of Ghosts,” translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping.
Sakumi Tayama channels a young girl, recruited by a phony medium, who discovers her own uncanny ability in “Spirit Summoning,” translated from Japanese by Mark Gibeau.
Rodrigo Rey Rosa tracks the frantic father of a lost child in “Some Other Zoo,” translated from Spanish by Daniel Hahn.
Image: Photo by Janko Ferlic, courtesy of Unsplash
Maritta Lintunen’s librarian grows obsessed with a mysterious visitor in “The Message Bearer,” translated from Finnish by Emily Jeremiah.
Okamoto Kido drops in as a woodcutter and his son entertain doubts about an unexpected guest in “The Kiso Wayfarer,” translated from Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori.
Ana María Shua’s new mother is blissfully unaware that her baby is not who—or what—she thinks in “Octavio the Invader,” translated from Spanish by Andrea G. Labinger.
Image: Hospital nursery, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Dejana Dimitrijević’s expert in crochet finds a project takes on a life of its own in “The Cover,” translated from Serbian by Alice Copple-Tosić.
Takako Arai sees the ghost of a factory worker haunt two young sisters in “Wheels,” translated from Japanese by Jeffrey Angles.
Aldolfo Albertazzi’s mischievous demon terrorizes a monastery and defies the prior in “The Devil in the Decanter,” translated from Italian by Traci Andrighetti.
Image: Monastery cloister, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
Aziz BineBine’s political prisoner assists a dying comrade and discovers he retains more than memories in “Tazmamartyrs,” translated from French by Lulu Norman.
“One afternoon, in La Plata, I found a woman’s letters in a corner of the closet.”
Ricardo Piglia’s bilocational writer improbably discovers both sides of an epistolary romance in “Hotel Almagro,” translated from Spanish by Sergio Waisman.