Ah! The great outdoors! Fresh air. Babbling brooks. Communing with nature. Peace and quiet…

NOT!!

After reading these tales of horror, you’ll be looking over your shoulder the next time you go hiking. And whatever you do DON'T GO ALONE!

Ramsey Campbell

The Darkest Part of the Woods. New York: Tor, 2002.
In England, the lives of the Price family are inescapably intertwined with the ancient forest of Goodmanswood, where something old and powerful lurks.

Midnight Sun. Tor, 1991.
Children's book writer Ben Sterling inherits an old house on the edge of a forest where both his parents and grandfather died under mysterious circumstanced. He soon falls victim to a menace that wants to use him as a gateway to world domination.

James Dickey

Deliverance. Dell, 1994, 1970.
The menace here is all too human as four middle-class, middle-aged men go on a canoe trip in the Georgia wilderness and become embroiled in a very deadly game of hunter and hunted.

Raymond E. Feist

Faerie tale. Doubleday, 1988.
The author of the Riftworld fantasy saga (Magician, etc. ) turns his considerable talents to the horror genre in this tale of a family who, after moving with their parents to rural upstate New York, are targeted by a not-so-nice elf inhabiting the nearby enchanted woods which serve as a gateway to the land of the Faeries.

Greg Gifune

Deep Night. Delerium, 2006.
A group of young men take a vacation to the Maine woods but their lives are altered by the appearance of a bloodied young woman who brings an ancient, inhuman evil intent on taking their souls.

Owl Goingback

Evil Whispers. Signet, 2001.
Robert and Janet Patterson think they have found the perfect vacation place the a remote Florida town. Until their daughter’s mysterious disappearance is attributed to a legendary evil creature that lives in the nearby woods.

Ruby Jean Jensen

The Haunting. Pinnacle, 1994.
Move away from the doll! A young woman moves into an abandoned house in the woods with her sister and young niece and unwittingly unleashes a horrifying evil.

Stephen King

The Tommyknockers. GPPS, 1987.
Roberta Anderson, a writer of Old West novels, discovers what seems to be a flying saucer on her remote wooded property and when she begins to excavate it, bad things happen.

Dreamcatcher. Scriber, 2001.
Four childhood friends reunite each year during hunting season in the Maine woods. But this year a strange dazed man stumbles into their camp with a secret just, um, bursting to come out. Think Aliens and Invasion of the body Snatchers.

Jay C. Kumar

Dark Woods. Berkley, 2004.
When he and his fellow hunters wound what they believe to be a large animal, Deputy Frank Vaughn follows its bloody trail only to discover an unimaginable creature that is now hunting him, thirsty for revenge.

Michael Laimo

Deep in the Darkness. Leisure, 2004.
Dr. Michael Cayle leave the Big Apple behind and moves his family to a small New Hampshire town where he takes over the practice of the recently deceased (in a brutal dog attack) doctor. But Ashborough turns out to be anything but idyllic. Not only are the townspeople on the strange side, Michael soon discovers that something dwells in the woods.

Sarah Langan

The Missing . Harper, 2007.
During a school trip to a neighboring town destroyed by an environmental catastrophe, a child awakens an ancient horror in the nearby abandoned woods, transforming its victims into something malevolent, hungry, and inhuman.

Richard Laymon

Darkness, Tell Us. Dorchester, 2003, 1991.
You know there’s going to be trouble when college kids fool around with a Ouija board. Sure enough, they make contact with a spirit called “Butler” who lures them into a hunt for a buried treasure in an isolated mountain area, where bloody chaos ensues.

No Sanctuary. Leisure, 2003, 2001.
Two storylines (one featuring some young hikers being menaced and the other about a woman who likes to live in other people’s houses without their knowledge but this time picks the wrong house) converge in the Sierra mountains.

Elizabeth Massie

Sineater. Leisure, 1998, 1994.
In the backwoods of Virginia people practice an old time religious custom in which a “Sineater,” redeems the souls of the dead by “eating” their sins and thereby allows them to ascend to heaven. But Avery Barker, the Sineater, pays a heavy price for his “gift.” He is regulated to living in the woods and not be looked upon by the living, not even his family. And when a movement is begun to end the practice, death follows. Winner of the Bram Stoker Award for first novel.

Richard Matheson

Hunted Past Reason. T. Doherty, 2002.
Part Deliverance, part The Most Dangerous Game, this psychological horror story has novelist Bob, who needs some background material for a book, going on a hiking trip in the northern California woods with his friend Doug, an actor and expert outdoorsman. But right from the get-go, Doug seems to undergo a drastic change in personality and Bob soon finds himself in a terrifying life-or-death battle for survival.

Frank Peretti

Monster. Westbow, 2005.
Looking for a peaceful break from the hectic life of the city, Reed and Beck go on a “survival weekend” and are hiking in the woods where something—something much faster, more relentless, and definitely not human--begins to stalk them.

John Saul

In the Dark of the Night. Ballantine, 2006.
For the Brewster family, a summer vacation at Phantom Lake turns to horror when their teenage son and his friends stumble upon a mysterious secret room in their rental home, a room that has a strange influence over the boys.

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