Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleatings, and Happy Mother’s Day, my lovely tribe! I thought it might be nice to celebrate this joyous event by scarring you for life with some hideous horror stories about pregnancy and parenthood.

We begin with the numerous horrors of pregnancy…enjoy!

This is about an actress who is stressed about her career and also her fertility issues. She and her husband have had some bad luck in this area, but finally things start looking up when she becomes pregnant and it seems that things are on track. However, things get weird very quickly. She’s seeing odd people, receiving cryptic messages, and generally feels watched at all times. Of course, her husband won’t listen, and nor will the police. What in the hell is going on here?! Read the novel to find out!

Ah, Rosemary’s Baby. It’s a classic for a reason. One of my favourites, and a tremendous story of the true horrors of pregnancy. Her husband is dismissive of her concerns, the neighbours are overly invested in her unborn child, and things don’t feel right. Rosemary grows increasingly terrified, and it can’t be put down to pregnancy hormones…

A couple move to a town they hope to be safe and unaffected by a new contagion ravaging the continent. Wifey is midway through her pregnancy and hopes to come to full term peacefully. The contagion in question is very peculiar, in that it causes extra skin growth, a major problem because it tends to grow over bodily orifices. You can imagine the problems with hearing, sight, eating, breathing…and yes, birthing a child.

Now we move on to a combination of pregnancy/parenthood horror. Very jolly, is this dystopian, political nightmare about enforced slavery and religious extremism. The Handmaid’s Tale is probably familiar to many of you, thanks to the excellent TV adaptation. We follow June, a woman who’s been forced into being a handmaiden – a role that requires her to conceive the child of her slave master, carry, birth, and nurse the baby, only to have no rights or even communication with the child again. In this universe, children of various ages were also taken from their parents and rehomed with wealthy assholes. Excellent piece of work, absolutely horrifying story.

Next up, something a little lighter. Sort of. The Vessel (by Adam Nevill) tells the story of Jess, a single mother who works as a carer, and struggles to keep her job because of childcare issues. She’s on the poverty line here, has no support system, and to round things off, her current client, Flo, is a horrible old woman that will attack Jess if she gets within reach of her. Weirdly, Flo seems to take a shine to Jess’s daughter though. The two of them have secretive little conversations and all sorts. Do children just bring out Flo’s nice side, or is her fondness for this kid due to some sort of dark, diabolical plan?

You didn’t think I’d leave out The Exorcist, did you? If ever there was a story that encapsulates the fear that parents must face when it comes to the medical, psychological, and spiritual safety of their children, it’s this. A true horror for the ages, and probably the best of its kind to this day. I’ve seen toddlers behaving as if they’re possessed (I used to work in kid’s entertainment), but actual possession? No, thank you.

Next, I present to you a story about a different type of parental fear. And that is the fear of your beloved darling child growing up to do something truly heart breaking. Maybe a couple of truly heart breaking things, actually. A young man is in a coma following an attempt on his own life, which initially seems like the worst possible thing a parent could learn about their child. That is until she discovers why he did this in the first place. That information is possibly worse. A fascinating and ballsy story told through very unique methods, and it confronts a horrid possibility that I had never even considered before.

But what about the panic that something in your home might be a danger to your child, I hear you cry? What if you, the parent, are potentially the danger?! Oh boy, do I have the novel for you. Follow Orla, a mother whose husband just made a house-moving decision for them, and isn’t concerned about the weirdness of the house himself, because he’s always away and hardly ever there. Orla spends her days isolated, fearing for her safety and the safety of the kid. Something happened to someone that previously lived there, something hideous, and Orla worries that history is trying to repeat itself. Fantastic, contemporary gothic story.

Following on in this “I am the one who knocks” line of thinking, I now present to you something a little different. This is Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud by Lee Murray, and I cheated a bit because it’s not a novel, it’s a short story collection. It looks beautiful and uses the fox spirit’s nine tails as gateways into each story, so it seems like it would be a pretty and wholesome read, but oh no no no, my lovelies. This follows several Asian women living in New Zealand, several of them including children, and it is one of the most harrowing reads I’ve ever picked up. A lot of it is drawn from true stories, really really dark stuff. Not for the easily distressed!

And finally, a little absolute mental health f***ery for you, in Gemma Amor’s Full Immersion. What a unique story. A woman is at the end of her rope, she simply can’t cope any more and has exhausted every medical and psychological option available to her. Her last hope is an experiemental, secretive new form of therapy, that involves a lot of weird technology. Will things go awry, though? Why yes, of course they will. This is horror.

And that’s all, folks! I hope something on this list piqued your interest. To those celebrating, I sincerely wish you a glorious Mother’s Day. Happy reading!

Bleeeeeat!