Ever since 2007, I’ve been sharing a list of classic horror stories free to read on the internet to provide some chills every Halloween season, and this year is no exception! The past couple of years, I decided it would be fun to come up with a theme for the season, and this year the theme is: corruption! What happens when your body gets corrupted and changed by something from outside?

The Autopsy, Michael Shea (1980). This one is rather remarkable to see freely available to read! When a number of people are killed in a mine explosion, a doctor stricken with cancer is called in to perform autopsies on the victims. However, he does not realize until it is too late that the explosion was no accident, and something horrible plans to use the doctor for its own ends. (This story appeared last year in Guillermo del Toro’s excellent Cabinet of Curiosities series.)

The Enigma of Amigara Fault, Junji Ito (2002). I was on a huge Junji Ito kick this past year, as his horror manga is surreal and graphic, and often focuses on body horror. The Enigma of Amigara Fault is a very short comic, but with a magnificently stunning ending that serves as a good introduction to his work. When an earthquake rocks the region, it opens up a fault that has been buried for ages. The fault has human-shaped holes dotting it, and people are drawn to the region with an irresistible urge to fit into holes that are meant for them…

The Seed from the Sepulchre, Clark Ashton Smith (1933). Falmer and Thone are orchid hunters exploring remote parts of the Venezuelan jungle for rare specimens. When Falmer falls ill after describing a location where a legendary native treasure is supposedly buried, Thone travels onward himself to seek it out. What he truly finds, however, is his doom.

The Voice in the Night, William Hope Hodgson (1907). Two sailors on the night watch on a ship becalmed in the ocean are suddenly hailed by a voice in the night. The speaker begs for food, which is provided, and then the unseen speaker tells the sailors his tale of woe: shipwrecked on an island only containing fungi for sustenance, where it has become increasingly unclear which is feeding on the other. This story was the inspiration for the classic Japanese monster movie Matango (1963), which is one of the only Sunday afternoon “Creature Feature” movies that disturbed me as a kid.

Caterpillars, by E.F. Benson (1912). A visit to the gorgeous Italian home Villa Cascana should be a delight, and even a ghost or two wouldn’t seem to put a damper on its charm. But not all ghosts are equal, and some can cause harm in a “very terrible and practical manner.” E.F. Benson is one of the great classic authors of ghost stories.

The Purple Cincture, by H. Thompson Rich (1925). A physician, learning of his wife’s infidelity, breeds a horrific disease that can inexorably take its victims apart, piece by piece.  He infects the man who cuckolded him and seems to get away with a particular gruesome murder.  However, guilt — or supernatural vengeance — brings ironic punishment back upon the doctor.

The Colour Out of Space, by H.P. Lovecraft (1927). One of Lovecraft’s most effective stories! When a meteorite crashes on the remote farm of Nahum Gardner and his family, at first it seems a strange non-event: scientists from the local university take samples from the fallen object and are perplexed by its properties, but they leave when the meteorite itself disappears. But something has remained, something that is so otherwordly that it can only be described by a color, and that something begins to drain the family.

Hope these stories prove entertaining, and Happy Halloween!