Happy Goat Horror

Dark bleatings, my lovelies! Today I have some recommendations for those of you that love horror about parasites, things that crawl, slithering beasts of various sizes, and basically anything you wouldn’t want scuttling around on you. And remember – don’t eat bugs. Ttthhhh.

Ya’ll want parasites? Well here be parasites! Stephen Kozeniewski’s Hematophages universe contains plenty of them. In the novel, we’re treated to a blood planet, horrible squirmy things that want to burrow into your brain, and the general horror of being in space. Where no one can hear you scream.

You will be screaming though.

Also in this universe, we have Skinwrapper (about organ stealing space pirates, it’s so bloody!), and Splatterings (short stories).

Angela Sylvaine’s chilly universe is an absolute hoot, as well as an absolute horror. A meteor crashes in a tiny town, and soon creatures and people alike start acting a little…off. Prairie dogs form gangs and chew people to death. Humans get a bit…ragey. It’s a really great time with a mixture of foes, caused by wiggly wriggly things. I also highly recommend the sequel, Cold Snap, which might be even better than the first book.

Now, this author did something truly unique with our wiggly wormy friends. I am a bit freaked out by the texture of worms, but little did I know that if they were dusty, crusty, kind of granular, I would be even more freaked out. This is a fascinating story unlike any other I’ve read, that uses very familiar things but totally subverts your expectations of them in ways that will really weird you out.

Well, the clue is in the title for this one. This fantastic body horror delivers a short but brutal shock to the system when a very nice guy has the worst day ever. His crappy landlord twists his arm into babysitting the world’s worst brat, but there’s much worse to fear than a tantrum. I felt like I wanted to shower forever after reading this!

This is one of my personal favourites on this list and it’s the one that makes me want to keep a drink on hand at all times to make sure there’s nothing dry in my throat. Oh god, the final scenes of this one! An older man meets a younger one who seems to have cracked the code to eternal life, but there’s a price. A big price. With spikey, scuttly legs. EEEEEEEEE.

I had never side-eyed ants but this book made me suspicious of them, and everything else that lives in the dirt that I normally don’t give a second thought to. A woman returns to her home town following a traumatic event and immediately stumbles upon a dead body. That is crawling with things. And things keep crawling after our main character. They just won’t go away! The book goes deeper than that, just so you know, but I now hate ants and think they’re the harbingers of disaster.

This book is so much fun, and full of things that slither…but the things are bigger than the things in the other books on this list. Quite literally, it came from the pothole! This really reminded me of one scene from The Mist. It’s absolute carnage, chaos, and is just such a good time to read. Expect blood and gore, but not in a way that will leave you feeling traumatised at the end.

This is one of the ultimate parasite books and I won’t hear any arguments about it! A group of boys scouts go to an island for some survival training, but there’s an unexpected stranger there, and he’s carrying something that wants to spread. Be warned, this is gross!

Maybe you’d rather some sentient, slithering plants? This is one of the best horror novels I’ve read and I can’t believe it took me so long to get to it. A group of friends go to visit some Mayan ruins while they’re on holidays, but once they set foot on the land, the locals won’t let them leave. And there are things there…deadly things!

And finally, the book that made me question whether or not this author is actually my friend. Because he seems so nice, you see, like a nice guy that wouldn’t intentionally curse you with nightmares. And not to sound self-involved or anything, but I’m like 100% sure that he wrote this specifically to scare the shit out of me. Anyway, there are spiders. Horrible, terrible spiders!

What have I missed? Tell me what you’d recommend in this vague category!

Bleeeeat!