Books Spooky Season Spooky Stories Set on Halloween Strange rituals, haunted houses, famous monsters, scary nuns… these Halloween-themed stories have it all! By Lorna Wallace | Published on October 31, 2025 Photo by Szabó János [via Unsplash] Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Szabó János [via Unsplash] It’s the most wonderful time of the year! No, Christmas hasn’t come early, it’s Halloween! If you’re looking to maximize the fun and frights of Halloween this year, I suggest immersing yourself into a few horror stories that are set on that very special night… The Halloween Tree (1972) by Ray Bradbury If it’s a nostalgic Halloween atmosphere you’re after, you can’t go wrong with The Halloween Tree. The novella starts with a group of nine friends getting ready to go trick-or-treating. But then Pipkin is stolen away by a supernatural entity—to get him back, his friends have to venture though Halloween celebrations from different historical eras and cultures. The Halloween Tree can be read as the Halloween version of a true-meaning-of-Christmas story, à la Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843). The boys think the holiday is all about candy and scary costumes, but on their mission to rescue Pipkin, they realize that Halloween lore runs far deeper than that. This spooky, whimsical, and wholesome story captures the essence of the Halloween spirit, perfectly distilled through Bradbury’s lyrically flowing prose. It should also be noted that the 1993 animated adaptation of the story (starring Leonard Nimoy) is a Halloween delight and a classic in its own right. Dark Harvest (2006) by Norman Partridge Each Halloween in a small unnamed Midwestern town, a strange ritual called the Run takes place. All of the town’s teenage boys are locked up without food for a few days before the 31st and when they’re unleashed (and incredibly hangry!) they’re tasked with hunting down and killing the October Boy. This creature has a jack-o’-lantern head and a candy-stuffed body made of vines. Dark Harvest requires a higher than usual suspension of disbelief. The story behind this bizarre ritual is drip fed to the reader through gossip and rumor, and even when some answers are revealed, there are still question marks over certain plot points. But those who are happy to leave their questions at the town’s outer limits will be rewarded with an action-packed and gore-soaked story. The novella is very different to the 2023 film adaptation. Not only do the two plots massively diverge, but the October Boy’s design in the movie doesn’t hold a candle to the description in the book. “The October Game” (1948) by Ray Bradbury “The October Game” is only a few pages long, but it’s one of Bradbury’s darkest tales. It’s told from the POV of a man who absolutely despises his wife, Louise, and feels nothing towards their eight-year-old daughter, Marion. The family are hosting a Halloween party—there are jack-o’-lanterns in the windows, guests in scary costumes, and the apple bobbing is in full swing—when the disturbed narrator comes up with a horrific idea for how he can make his wife suffer as much as possible. Many readers will be familiar with Bradbury’s science fiction and even his works of dark fantasy, but “The October Game” may come as a surprise, grounded as it is in the evil of humanity. Bradbury doesn’t actually describe anything horrifying; the story simply ends with the implication of something horrific, and the reader is then left sitting with that inescapable implication as it grows dark wings and takes flight through their mind. Originally published in a 1948 edition of Weird Tales, readers can find this short story in the collections Long After Midnight (1976) and The Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980). “Bone Fire” (2018) by Storm Constantine Storm Constantine’s “Bone Fire” is inspired by the Celtic origins of Halloween (called Samhain), which I personally adore as a Scot who grew up learning about those origins and always said “guising” instead of “trick-or-treating.” The short story follows two fourteen-year-old girls, Emlie and Jenna, who have donned their guises to confuse the spirits on All Hallows’ Eve. As they go from house to house collecting edible offerings for the ghosts, they encounter a mysterious skeleton-clad boy who changes the course of their night—and their lives. This spooky folklore tale was first printed in The Mammoth Book of Halloween Stories (2018), but can also be found in Constantine’s collection Mythotenebrae (2020). “The Folding Man” (2010) by Joe R. Lansdale William, Jim, and drunken Harold are driving home from a Halloween party when they see a strange-looking black car full of nuns. Jim decides to moon them as they pass by, but instead of his bare butt evoking the expected mildly annoyed reaction, the nuns—who maybe aren’t regular nuns after all—are so furious that they speed up in hot pursuit. The rest of the story is a wild ride that is teeth-clenchingly tense and goes to some horrifyingly weird places. The story was first printed in 2010 in the Haunted Legends anthology, but it can be read for free on Nightmare Magazine’s site. “With Graveyard Weeds and Wolfsbane Seeds” (2017) by Seanan McGuire The centerpiece of “With Graveyard Weeds and Wolfsbane Seeds” is the creepy Holston house—a grand mansion that has been sitting empty and abandoned for years. Strangely though, the house has never fallen into disrepair, and its imperviousness to the elements has added to its unsettling aura. Of course, such a house has inspired a ghost story, a local legend featuring a young girl called Mary Holston, who is apparently doomed to wander the house forever. Too old for trick-or-treating, but too young for alcohol-fueled parties, a small group of bored teens decide to investigate (i.e. break into) the Holston house on Halloween night. Although they’re looking for some suitably Halloween-y scares, they definitely get more than they bargained for. First published in the Haunted Nights (2017) collection, this story is also available for free on Nightmare Magazine. “Universal Horror” (2015) by Stephen Graham Jones “Universal Horror” is about a group of friends—whose ranks have gradually thinned over the years—who play the same Halloween game every year. Each person gets a costume category—animals, superheroes, age-inappropriate, etc.—and they have to do a shot for every trick-or-treater at the door who fits the description. Rachel gets Universal Monsters, horror staples such as Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, and the Invisible Man. But as well as getting progressively drunker as the night goes on, she also finds herself getting progressively more freaked out by a kid in a mummy costume who keeps coming to the door. The story first appeared in October Dreams II: A Celebration of Halloween (2015), but it’s another one that’s been published for free on Nightmare Magazine. I hope you treat this list like a spooky fiction pick-n-mix! Please feel free to recommend your own delectably dark Halloween-set stories in the comments below.[end-mark] Originally published October 21, 2024. The post Spooky Stories Set on Halloween appeared first on Reactor.

When air traffic control is held hostage by federal budget fights, American travelers lose. The shutdown-induced mess at U.S. airports demonstrates yet another consequence of leaving our skies in the hands of a politically driven, budget-dependent, and inefficient government bureaucracy.    The most recent bout of massive flight delays and cancellations is the result of the government shutdown, which has caused an indefinite delay in the paychecks of government-employed air traffic controllers—prompting many of them to decide not to show up to work. But even before that, America’s antiquated air traffic control systems were costing Americans thousands of years of lost time due to flight delays and cancellations. Those ordinary delays and cancellations amount to billions of dollars in costs annually. On top of that, inefficiencies limit the supply of flights, resulting in higher overall prices. Meanwhile, failing U.S. air traffic control infrastructure is causing communication outages, risking passenger safety. It doesn’t have to be this way. Most other industrialized countries have lower-cost, more efficient air traffic control systems that are insulated from government spending battles. That’s because they are commercialized instead of bureaucratized. Take Canada, for example. It commercialized its air traffic control system in 1996 and now has far more advanced capabilities with just two-thirds the cost of the U.S. Similarly, Switzerland’s commercialized Skyguide air traffic control system boasts 95% on-time flights—as compared to only about 75% under the U.S. system.   In an open letter to DOGE, transportation expert Robert Pool described U.S. Air Traffic Control as “a would-be high-tech service business trapped in a cautious bureaucracy.” He explained that the Air Traffic Control and Federal Aviation Administration’s reliance on annual funding means that “new systems get produced in small batches over a decade or more, with the last recipients not getting equipped before the system’s technology may already be obsolete.” Government shutdown or not, it’s time for policymakers to free American passengers and businesses from bureaucratic inefficiencies and costs by commercializing America’s air traffic control. Converting America’s air traffic control into a user-funded system has longstanding bipartisan support dating back to the Clinton administration. In 2018, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee voted in favor of legislation that would have converted the Air Traffic Organization into a user-funded nonprofit corporation. President Donald Trump supported that legislation along with even further reforms.  So long as the federal government insists on being in the business of air travel, delays, cancellations, cost, and safety will all remain in the hands of politicians and bureaucrats. The post Grounded by Bureaucracy: Another Wake Up Call To Privatize Air Traffic Control appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Virginia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger supports a climate project that actually increased the carbon emissions Virginia caused—and cost residents more money—according to the commonwealth’s Department of Energy. That project, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, “was supposed to decrease emissions, but it actually increased emissions,” Glenn Davis, director of the Virginia Department of Energy, told The Daily Signal in an interview Tuesday. He called it a “bait and switch.” The department told The Daily Signal that Virginia’s consumption of energy from the company Dominion Energy caused approximately 2.145 billion more pounds of CO2 emissions in 2022 and 2023, the years that Virginia had been part of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. While Spanberger’s campaign did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment, a climate activist group that sent her more than $1 million accused Davis of lying. Why the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Backfired The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, an interstate agreement, charges power plants for their emissions and uses the money to prop up renewable energy or other projects. Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, attempted to exit the initiative, calling it a “hidden tax” on electricity. Virginia’s withdrawal remains in limbo after a judge blocked it. The administration got a court to grant a stay, allowing Virginia to remain out of it for now. Spanberger has pledged to rejoin it. Davis previously told The Daily Signal that the initiative cost Virginians $828 million, “every dollar of which was passed on to Virginians in their energy bills.” He said other states use the initiative’s funds to offset ratepayers’ energy bills, since the program increases costs for consumers, but Virginia Democrats used the money to fund other projects, such as flood preparation projects. So, how did the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a program aimed at decreasing carbon emissions, actually increase them? “RGGI penalized utilities for emissions generated by in-state generation facilities, but it did not address any out-of-state generation facilities, so Dominion [Energy] decreased their power generation on their natural gas facilities in Virginia and supplemented it with their coal-burning facilities in West Virginia,” Davis explained. According to the Energy Information Administration, coal generation produced 2,257 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity in 2019, while natural gas generation produced less than half that amount, at 976 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour. Just How Much More Carbon Emissions? Virginia joined the initiative in January 2021 and left in January 2024. Energy demand decreased substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic, so in order to determine the impacts of the initiative, the Department of Energy focused on data from two time periods: the percentage of energy Dominion Energy purchased for Virginia customers from other states in 2018 and 2019, and the out-of-state imports and energy demand for the years 2022 and 2023. (Complete data for 2024 remains unavailable.) In 2018 and 2019, Dominion imported an average of 15.49% of Virginia customers’ energy from other states in the PJM Interconnection electric grid (a multi-state electric grid that Virginia is part of that includes portions of 13 states). The energy bought from the PJM grid emits proportionately more CO2 than energy produced in Virginia. That percentage of imported energy increased to 22.5% in 2022 and 2023. The Department of Energy estimated that while the energy Virginians purchased from Dominion required the emission of 118.86 billion pounds of CO2 in 2022 and 2023 under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, it would only have required the emission of 116.71 billion pounds had it remained outside of the initiative. While this increase only amounts to about 1.84% of the emissions for those two years, it still illustrates a climate policy leading to more emissions, not less. That means this “climate” policy led to 2,145,510,874 more pounds of CO2 getting emitted into the atmosphere. While that may represent a small number in the grand scheme of things, it demonstrates the way these policies can backfire. The department also noted a PJM study predicting what would happen if Pennsylvania joined the initiative. While carbon emissions from Pennsylvania would decrease (because Pennsylvania would produce less energy), emissions in the PJM system would remain largely unchanged, while prices would increase for consumers within and outside the Keystone State. An Environmental Group’s Response The Virginia League of Conservation Voters—which gave Spanberger for Governor $1.38 million, according to the Virginia Public Access Project—called foul. “When Glenn Davis blames RGGI for increasing energy costs, he’s lying,” Lee Francis, a spokesman for the league, told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday. “There are many reasons why natural gas is expensive, and will continue to be well into the future, and none of them are because of programs like RGGI.” “The cheapest way to keep the lights on right now is with clean energy, and RGGI incentivizes utilities like Dominion when they bring clean, renewable energy sources online, lowering energy costs while cutting pollution,” Francis added. “Davis must be trying to distract Virginians from the fact that he’s been working with Gov. Youngkin to make sure we all pay more for dirtier energy so that Republican mega-donors and the fossil fuel industry continue to profit at our expense.” Dominion Energy declined to address the Department of Energy’s claim that the initiative led to an increase in emissions. Appalachian Power Company, Virginia’s other major supplier of electricity, did not directly address the claim either. “RGGI is currently suspended in Virginia due to ongoing legal challenges,” Appalachian Power communications consultant Karen Wissing told The Daily Signal. “As such, it is not affecting Appalachian Power’s operations at this time. If RGGI were in effect, we would expect to see significant operational adjustments aimed at reducing emissions.” The post BACKFIRED: Spanberger’s Preferred Climate Policy Caused 2.1B More Pounds of CO2 Emissions appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Candy We Want Back!

Trump to Senate GOP: Get Rid Of the Filibuster; UPDATE: Thune Rejects

Everything's 'For the Children' Until Democrats Need 'the Leverage'

Extremely sturdy bacteria that only play dead may have hitched a ride on our spacecraft.

It doesn’t guarantee you a long life, but it is badass.

It was nearly impossible to find the X account of an epidemiologist whose study linking autism to childhood vaccines garnered millions of views. The Elon Musk-owned platform banned Epidemiologist and McCullough Foundation Administrator Nicolas Hulscher from search results after he posted a “landmark study”  affirming that “vaccines are the dominant risk factor for autism.” When users searched for his name or for his X username, many either got no results or were presented only with other accounts that had similar spellings.  [The story continues on MRCFreeSpeechAmerica.org]

Election Day is almost here, and there are three high-profile races involving Democratic candidates who have made shocking statements in their past, but if you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, or PBS, you have heard very little to nothing about them.  With early voting already underway, these are stories that could impact their races — if the elitist media didn’t tilt to one side.   In resurfaced texts from 2022 that were released on October 3, Jay Jones (who is running for Virginia attorney general) suggested he would shoot then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert over Adolf Hitler and declared that Gilbert’s wife should be forced to watch his “fascist” children be killed.  On October 16, it was reported that Democratic Senate candidate for Maine Graham Platner had made past comments where he called “all” cops bastards, said rural white people were “actually” racist and stupid, and described himself as a communist. He also wrote posts where he asked, “Why don’t black people tip?” It was also revealed that Platner had a tattoo that was linked to a Nazi symbol.  On October 28, a resurfaced video from a 2023 conference showed Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani making anti-semitic and anti-police statements: “We have to make clear that when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.”  How much time have the broadcast networks devoted to these controversial statements on their evening and morning news shows and Sunday roundtable programs? In the cases of Platner and Mamdani? Zero seconds!      Jones did garner some coverage, but not much. Since the story first broke on October 3, Jones’s heinous remarks have gotten a total of just 9 minutes and 8 seconds in 28 days. This is even after the remarks were highlighted in the Virginia gubernatorial debate and by President Donald Trump himself.  It should be noted that some of the coverage of the Jones’s texts came because either a Republican analyst like Marc Short brought it up, or it was intertwined with the Politico story about Republican non-candidates saying awful things in a group chat.  Just imagine if any of the above offensive statements were made by a Republican candidate running this year? It’s unlikely that stories would garner such little coverage. There’s no question whose side the elitist media are on during this campaign. I firmly on the pro-Democratic, leftist one.    For this study MRC analysts looked at the broadcast evening (ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News), morning news shows (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, CBS Saturday Morning, CBS Sunday Morning, NBC Today, NBC Sunday Today), Sunday roundtable shows (ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet the Press, CBS’s Face the Nation), and PBS’s NewsHour from October 3 through the morning of October 31.