The Black Cat

This one is about a man who dotes on his pets until drink gets hold of him, and the fondness in him turns to something cruel. His black cat is the one who bears the worst of it, and watching that change happen is far more unsettling than anything supernatural on the page.

The fear here creeps rather than jumps. It's the horror of a narrator talking himself into what he's done, one excuse at a time, and the sense that a house holds onto things its owner would rather forget. A second cat comes into it later, oddly similar to the first, and unsettles him in ways he can't quite explain even to himself.

Not a shock a minute, so I'd keep it for a slow evening when you want something to sit with, lights low and a drink of your own that isn't whisky. It's the sort of story that gets better the second time, once you can see exactly where his mind is heading.

It's proof that the most ordinary front room can hold the darkest thing going, long before anything ghostly gets a look in.