First published 1990
Lighthouse keepers face more than storms and isolation in these seventeen horror stories. From Rudyard Kipling's traffic disturber to Ray Bradbury's fog horn, each tale transforms coastal beacons into sources of dread. Robert Bloch collaborates with Edgar Allan Poe on a lighthouse mystery, while Jack Vance explores terror under five rising moons. Anonymous authors and celebrated writers alike populate remote stations with secrets, ghosts, and creatures that emerge from fog and darkness. George Toudouze's Three Skeleton Key traps its keeper with deadly visitors, and Joe R. Lansdale spins horror from something caught by hair. These isolated sentinels who tend the lights discover that their greatest fears come not from shipwrecks or weather, but from forces that lurk in the spaces between land and sea. Each story captures the vulnerability of humans stationed at the edge of civilization, where help cannot reach and escape proves impossible.
Genres: short-stories, mystery, horror, supernatural
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: isolation, vulnerability
Setting: Lighthouse
Period: 19th-century, 20th-century
256 pages · Paperback · Down East Books