The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley JacksonToday is the USA’s creepiest holiday, Halloween.

Oh, sure, there are cute costumes, pumpkin-spice everything, candy, harvest carnivals and bobbing for apples, but there also ghosties, ghoulies and scary noises. And, haunted places.

Houses, or interiors generally, can be haunted by entities, or they can absorb death, despair and evil themselves, radiating those back at hapless humans who enter the space.

The Little Stranger by Sarah WatersOne of my favorite haunted buildings in fiction is Hill House, in Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. This mansion has both an evil ghost and evil oozing from its wainscoting and walls.

Several decades later, the decaying “stately pile” in Sarah Waters’s The Little Stranger is another brilliantly creepy example of a haunted building.

What is your favorite fictional haunted place? Let’s not limit it to buildings. Is there a haunted spaceship you love? Let us know. If you want to share a personal experience in a real-life haunted place, we’d love to read it.

One random commenter will choose a book from our Stacks.

Author

  • Marion Deeds

    Marion Deeds, with us since March, 2011, is the author of the fantasy novella ALUMINUM LEAVES. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthologies BEYOND THE STARS, THE WAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, STRANGE CALIFORNIA, and in Podcastle, The Noyo River Review, Daily Science Fiction and Flash Fiction Online. She’s retired from 35 years in county government, and spends some of her free time volunteering at a second-hand bookstore in her home town.