4 New Horror Novels Full of Ghosts, Monsters and Other Terrors

Nicholas Belardes’s THE DEADING (Erewhon Books, 280 pp., $28) opens with good intentions: All Bernhard wanted when he poured poison into the Pacific was to protect his oysters from a deadly invasion of Atlantic driller snails. But things went south after his intervention. Yes, he killed a lot of snails, but many survived, migrated ashore and started attacking every living thing they found.

Now people are “deading”: dying and then coming back to life. The term came from a social media trend where people collapsed and pretended to be dead, but through an infection from the snails, the resurrection phenomenon has become real. And those who die and come back are not the same.

Soon, the town of Baywood, in San Luis Obispo County, California, is quarantined. People aren’t allowed to leave and government drones use lethal force to keep residents in place. Eventually, a group of death worshipers known as “Risers” threatens to take over with their strange rituals and beliefs. Blas, a bird-loving Latino teen, and his brother Chango are among those unaffected by the deading, and for them, survival hinges on escape.

“The Deading” is dystopian eco-horror that perfectly balances social critique, lyricism and ghastliness. It’s a claustrophobic mosaic of a novel, and an outstanding debut.

Cherie Priest’s THE DROWNING HOUSE (Poisoned Pen Press, 418 pp., paperback, $16.99) is a delightful horror novel that also embraces mystery.

Growing up, Simon, Melissa and Leo spent their summers together on the small, empty Marrowstone Island, on the western end of Puget Sound. Over the years, though, the trio drifted apart.

When a storm hits the island, several things happen: A mysterious house washes ashore; Simon’s grandmother dies next to it; and after he reports her death, Simon goes missing. Melissa and Leo return to Marrowstone to look for him, but their investigation only reveals more questions. Also, a strange man seems to be hunting the two friends, who will have to find answers quickly if they want to stop the awful thing trying to return to Marrowstone.

Priest has a knack for creating a palpable atmosphere of dread in her books, and that’s on full display in this novel. The story is also livened by the witty, often emotional exchanges between Melissa and Leo that are peppered throughout. But ultimately, it’s the spooky elements — whispering ghost children, magic runes on a basement wall, an eerie message left in the crumbling house — that make this an immersive, memorable read.

Chuck Tingle’s BURY YOUR GAYS (Tor Nightfire, 294 pp., $26.99) is a scream against the awful trope from which the novel takes its title.

The story follows Misha, a screenwriter working in Hollywood. He already has a great career and he has just received an Oscar nomination for a short film he made, which he hopes will help elevate his status in the industry. Unfortunately, a studio executive who oversees Misha’s long-running television series asks him to make two of his favorite queer characters straight, or to kill one of them. It’ll help the show’s streaming numbers, the executive says. Misha refuses. The studio pushes back.

That’s when Misha starts seeing characters from his horror scripts in the real world. At first he thinks they’re just poorly timed stalkers. Then, when they start harassing his best friend, he starts thinking it could be a plot from the studio to make him crack. But neither of those is true. The evil entities Misha imagined are real, and they’re coming to get him.

In “Bury Your Gays,” Tingle criticizes Hollywood’s relationship to queer characters. The narrative is more mature and even more gripping than Tingle’s previous novel, “Camp Damascus.” Fast-paced and brimming with queer representation, it brings fictional monsters to life while exploring the real-life evils of homophobia. This book  is Tingle’s declaration: Love is real, and so are monsters.

Clay McLeod Chapman is known for publishing excellent grief horror, and his new novelette, STAY ON THE LINE (Shortwave Publishing, 49 pp., paperback, $11.99),  illustrated by Trevor Henderson, is no exception.

After a Category 3 hurricane devastates a small coastal town and kills many people, the community’s residents discover that they can use an old pay phone outside a local bar to communicate with the dead. Soon, there are long lines in the parking lot because everyone wants to talk to a lost loved one. Then people start disappearing. Some of them are later found dead.

For a woman who lost her partner, the father of her child, talking on the phone is a balm. But then things take a turn. The voice on the other end of the line is not the man she knew, and just like every other voice coming through the phone, it wants something.

“Stay on the Line” is a quick, unnerving and brutal story about how loss makes us desperate. Chapman is fantastic at pulling at the reader’s heartstrings while also delivering supernatural chaos, and Henderson’s artwork, always dark and gloomy, is the perfect accompaniment. This book is a literary punch to the heart.