“And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

The above quote is the final line to one of my absolute favorite short stories, “The Masque of the Red Death,” by Edgar Allen Poe. Actually, I love everything written by Poe, but this story in particular stands out from the rest.

It has everything a good horror story needs. A despicable antagonist, in this case a prince, completely unmoved and indifferent to the sufferings of his people. A haunting and terrible plague, devastating the land and leaving a trail of terror in its wake. A celebration for unlikable nobility, held at the expense of those suffering, and in the end, poetic justice, dripping with blood and gore.

The way Poe writes, he can build with an intensity enough to drive one mad with suspense, without giving away the story.

The horror genre has been a love of mine since my youth. My dad would keep my brother and I up late on Friday and Saturday nights to watch re-runs of old horror classics on television. Some of my fondest memories are from sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, eating popcorn, while Theatre of Blood, Motel Hell, and the entire series of Night Gallery on VHS played before me.

And during the week, my dad would put us to sleep, with bedtime stories in the key of Stephen King, Alvin Schwartz, or old folk tales and urban legends.

Being an avid reader in and out of school, while my peers in elementary school read the Boxcar Children or Captain Underpants, I was diving into Mary Shelley and writing book reports on Bram Stoker.

My wife is 35 weeks pregnant. We have no clue what we are doing, but the one thing we have prepared for our child is his own shelf on our book case, filled with children’s books. Among them are some scary story compilations, the same ones I read when I was little. And when he gets older, the higher shelves are still home to the same vampires, monsters, ghosts, and ghoulies that I entertained myself with when I was little.

Our movie collection too is filled with horror classics, Peter Cushing, Vincent Price, and Christopher Lee. It is one of my dearest wishes to share my love of horror with my child, given to me by my father who shared his love with me.

I began this post with the quote from the Red Death, because the other night, right before bed, while my wife lay down, I pulled my book of Poe’s stories to me, and in a low voice, I read to my baby the first of these bedtime stories I so treasured as a child.

And though he couldn’t hear the words or comprehend their meaning, I found it good practice. I will read this story, and many others to him again. But before he is born, I want to make sure I have the perfect scary story voice.

Just like my father had when he read to me.