Strange Tales: Spine-Tingling Stories

Strange is in the eye of the beholder. As proof, we submit for your consideration the twenty-five stories collected in Strange Tales, a smorgasbord of the weird, bizarre, and—yes—strange. Each story is unique in its approach to its horrors, terrors, and strangeness.
            If it’s true that every reader has his or her own definition of strange, then it’s just as true that all readers know strange when they see it. We’re confident that you’ll agree that stranger tales than these have never been written.
 
The Sistrum—Alice Perrin. The artifact from the curiosity shop made a perfect conversation piece—unless one was foolish enough to sleep in the same room with it.
 
A Tough Tussle—Ambrose Bierce. The living have certain expectations for corpses. Movement is not among them.
 
The Bunyip—Rosa Praed. No one traveling through the brush had actually seen the legendary Bunyip, but all knew the tales of horror told about it.
 
The Gentleman from America—Michael Arlen. Puce was staunchly American in temperament, but his resolve dissolved as quickly as anyone’s would when faced with a haunt.
 
The People of the Pit—A. Merritt. The man’s account of his escape from a slug-like subterranean race seemed too preposterous to believe. But how did one account for his hideous injuries and the restraint that bound him?
 
The Loved Dead—C.M. Eddy, Jr. A funeral parlor employee must work closely with the dead, but this one did so with an unhealthy passion.
 
The Left Eye—Henry S. Whitehead. The swampy island was the perfect refuge for a fugitive from murder, but Nature provided its own judge, jury, and executioner.
 
Ooze—Anthony M Rud. The ruins of the Alabama “Dead House” suggested the unholy outcome of an experiment gone monstrously wrong.
 
The Rats in the Walls—H. P. Lovecraft. Exham Priory had a rat problem—but how do you exterminate an ancient family heritage?