Horror…
is the stranger crouched in the forest, watching you walk to your campsite.
Horror fiction is the flashlight that reveals the stranger to be nothing but an old, rotting tree stump—and also the eerie, childlike cry that wakes you in your sleeping bag at midnight, then leads you to a tunnel freshly dug into a hillside a few yards away from your tent. At the mouth of the tunnel, resting on a fallen leaf, lies a perfectly crafted, gleaming glass eye.
In the real world we would pack up our gear and get the hell out of there. Maybe call 911 from the highway.
But as readers, we walk into the tunnel. We follow the plaintive cry into a dreadful, dangerous new life…
(and aren’t we having the best time?)