On "The Shunned House" by H. P. Lovecraft (10,749 words) ****

Similar in some ways to "The Lurking Fear" this story revolves around a single house, one that holds fascination for the narrator growing up. It has a fungal problem, and occasionally, the narrator spies what he thinks is something lurking about inside. He gets the owner to agree to let him spend time in the house, and his uncle, who has an equal interest, comes along. Alas, the narrator loses his uncle to the house. I'm not giving away much, because readers learn this a third of the way into the story, though we don't discover how until the end. Lovecraft is at his best when trying to rationalize the irrational, and the most of this story is just that. But as with so many of Lovecraft's story's the final horror is a bit disappointing in its attempts to be horrifying. Sometimes the unknown is scarier. Read the story here.