Horror, let’s face it, is basically pretty dumb. You’re writing about events that are preposterous, and the trick is to dress them up in language so compelling that the reader doesn’t care.

Then, idly scratching his nose, he walks to the bookcase in the living room and stoops before a set of drab brown Victorian volumes gathering dust on the second shelf from the bottom.How amusing, he...

She took particular comfort in certain familiar sights and sounds that marked her day: the buzz of the fluorescent lights, the pale figures sprawled silent and motionless over their reading, the reassuring feel of her...