The Call of Cthulhu

This is a short story, so it fits into one evening with a strong coffee. It first appeared in a pulp magazine, Weird Tales, in February 1928, and it is the sort of thing you can finish before the tea goes cold.

Its fear is not a man with a knife. It is the slow, sinking feeling that the world is much older and much larger than you were told, and that you are not in charge of it.

It is not gory and nothing jumps out at you. The scares are quiet ones, the sort that stay with you when you turn the lamp off. If you like your horror built from atmosphere and unease, this is your kind of night. If you want a fright every five minutes, it will feel a bit stately.

Read it on a rainy evening with the flat gone quiet and the good blanket on. It is dense, old-fashioned prose, so give it a little patience. Lovecraft can make a few pages feel like a door has opened in the floor.