A Pile of Spooky Stories! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Vampires

Stephen King's second published novel (after "Carrie"), "'Salem's Lot" hit a new standard for vampire stories in the spirit of "Dracula" more than half a century before it. It follows a group of people in the small Maine town of Jerusalem's Lot as they are beset upon by a vampire kept in the cellar of the old Marsten House. As the story progresses, more townspeople fall victim to the creature to the point where the town is, virtually, beyond saving.

"'Salem's Lot" was published in 1975 and has, since, become one of King's most lasting novels (and one of his lengthiest). It has been adapted several times over with the most iconic version being a CBS miniseries released in 1979.

Answer: Vampires

The 2004 Swedish novel "Låt den rätte komma in" was the debut novel from John Ajvide Lindqvist and it gained enormous attention when it was adapted into an award-winning horror film in 2008 (and then an American remake called "Let Me In" shortly after).

Much more subdued than other books in the vampire canon, it follows two children-- one a human and the other a vampire who's already lived for centuries-- as they meet and develop a relationship in Stockholm.

Answer: Vampires

Written by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son), "NOS4A2" was a bit of a weird one, blending otherworldly Christmas imagery with the obvious vampire reference (Nosferatu). In this novel, a young woman is able to pass through a gateway to 'Christmasland', but when she involves herself in solving a mystery that involves a serial killer and the vampire children he's created in this other realm, the case gets complicated.

"NOS4A2" was developed into a two-season TV show on AMC, first airing in 2019. The title is written on a license plate found in the story.

Answer: Vampires

Spanning nearly three decades, Brian Lumley's "Necroscope" series commenced in 1986 and proceeded to include eighteen stories before Lumley's passing in 2024. Pertaining to an individual who can speak with the dead (Harry Keogh), the series follows his growth as he comes to discover the boundaries of the world and the thin line between the living and the dead (called the Great Majority).

The series builds up a vampiric threat (the Wamphyri) from another dimension that connects to earth through a portal in Romania.

Answer: Zombies

Written by Seanan McGuire (penned under the name Mira Grant), the "Newsflesh" series started with "Feed" back in 2010 and later included the sequels "Deadline", "Blackout", and "Feedback" (amongst other supplementary works). The series, set in an apocalyptic future in which zombies have infested the Earth, follows a group of bloggers as they set out to get the real scoop to prevent a problematic government from stepping into power. And yes, you read that right-- there are zombies all over the place for this one.

Answer: Zombies

Another Stephen King novel, though one from later in his bibliography, "Cell" was first published in 2006 and followed a zombie outbreak from its beginning. While most zombie stories involve the spreading of the zombie virus from bites of the undead, King flipped the script for this one, creating zombies from an electronic signal spread through cellular devices.

A film adaptation of "Cell", starring John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, released in 2016.

Answer: Zombies

Written by Canadian author Tony Burgess in 1995, "Pontypool Changes Everything" is a bit of a backlist title about zombies, but from a point of view not typically seen. Instead of the zombie virus spreading through normal means, the people of the novel find that AMPS (or Acquired Metastructural Pediculosis) is spread through language, infecting minds enough to drive people into zombie frenzies.

In the 2008 adaptation of the book, the story is set almost entirely in a radio station as news comes in (and goes out) about the virus.

Answer: Zombies

Yes, the Z stands for Zombies. In this oral history, Max Brooks outlines the events that took place after a massive worldwide zombie outbreak, and the interviews compiled therein range from people in space to people in the midst of massive battles in the Middle East to events across the United States, and it all culminates in a hope for liberation on all fronts around the world as humanity faces the brink of extinction.

The book was adapted into a feature film starring Brad Pitt which was released in 2013. Max Brooks also wrote "The Zombie Survival Guide" in 2003.

Answer: Ghosts

A book that hits the gas as soon as it starts, "Heart-Shaped Box" (which bears a bit of relation to the Nirvana song of the same name) follows Jude Coyne, who purchases, of all things, the suit that a dead man was buried in, knowing full well that it's believed the spirit of the original owner was trapped inside. What follows is a terrifying bout with a vengeful ghost who, as is discovered, has a history with Coyne that takes him into his past and down south to Florida to stop the haunting.

"Heart-Shaped Box" was the first full novel written by Stephen King's son, Joe Hill.

Answer: Ghosts

Written by Stephen King in 1998, "Bag of Bones" follows writer Mike Noonan as he heads to Sara Laughs, his and his deceased wife's old Maine vacation house, to break through his writer's block. What he discovers there, however, is that he's well-placed to help a local mother and daughter, but also that he's unknowingly getting himself immersed in the mystery behind the death of Sara Tidwell, the woman who's believed to haunt his cabin.

Winner of the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel, "Bag of Bones" was adapted as an A&E TV miniseries starring Pierce Brosnan in 2011.

Answer: Ghosts

Pulitzer Prize-winning American gothic literature from Nobel Prize recipient Toni Morrison, "Beloved" follows Sethe and her daughter, Denver, as they deal with the literal ghost in their home in the 1870s while dealing with the ghosts of Sethe's past as a slave.

As with many great works of literature pertaining to race and identity, "Beloved" was critically renowned while, at the same time, facing bans in American schools. It was followed by the novels "Jazz" and "Paradise" and was adapted for the screen in 1998.

Answer: Ghosts

A novella by author Henry James released in 1898, "The Turn of the Screw" recounts the tale of a governess who moves into Bly Manor to oversee two young children, but what she finds as her stay begins is that there's something amiss in this large Essex home. Whether or not the ghosts of this story are nothing more than figments of the governess' mind is debatable, but the tale is commonly regarded as one of the most famous ghost stories of the late Victorian era and it's been adapted for the screen and stage multiple times over.

Answer: Slasher/Serial Killer

Written by Cameron Roubique and published in 2015, "Kill River" follows a group of kids who sneak into a seemingly abandoned water park only to discover that there's a crazed killer on the loose inside, and what is planned as a night of fun turns out to be a night of slasher terror.

A campy '80s-inspired novel, "Kill River" grew into a trilogy in the years to follow. Robique would continue to keep the R.L. Stine-inspired teen horror as his oeuvre.

Answer: Slasher/Serial Killer

Written by Dean Koontz, "Intensity" starts at a level of energy that doesn't let up; within the first chapters, a family is killed by a sadistic murderer, and the only survivor of the slaughter, Chynna, finds herself not only trapped with the unknowing serial killer, but committed to fighting back to avenge her friend, even if it means finding herself in the belly of the beast.

"Intensity" was adapted as a FOX miniseries in 1997 with Molly Parker in the role of Chynna.

Answer: Slasher/Serial Killer

Written by Grady Hendrix and published in 2021, this one was Hendrix's take on the slasher genre, especially in regard to film, and featured a cast of characters, all of whom survived grisly murders that may or may not be affiliated with horror classics you know and love, as they were set upon by another serial killer in their midst.

Hendrix, known for his passion for rare '70s and '80s paperbacks and his takes on classic tropes, also wrote "My Best Friend's Exorcism", "The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires", and "How to Sell a Haunted House".

Answer: Slasher/Serial Killer

Written by Todd Ritter under the pen name Riley Sager, "Survive the Night" was the fifth in a series of modern standalone thrillers, most of which followed the intrigue of facing off against a killer or solving a series of mysterious events. This was the one with, perhaps, the most tense plot, as it followed a college-aged woman name Charlie who shared a ride with a suspicious individual that she believed could be a serial killer.

Sager followed this up with the supernatural-leaning "The House Across the Lake" in 2022.

Answer: Cosmic Horror

The Bram Stoker Award Winner for Best Novel in 2016, John Langan's novel of loss and the cosmic beyond follows two men who head out for a weekend of fishing at a lake that's said to have the power to bring loved ones back from the other side. What they find themselves lured into, though, is a quest to aid a mysterious fisherman as he seeks to draw the Leviathan from the waters, plunging them into the machinations of a world that cannot be understood by mortal man.

Answer: Cosmic Horror

Published in 2014, this Stephen King retelling of "Frankenstein" culminates, inevitably, in an effort to bring a woman back from the dead only to unlock an ineffable space...and being...from beyond the veil. Deeply inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft (and Mary Shelley's classic, of course), "Revival" broached the common discussion about science and its opposition to religion (with an old-school revival, no less), but none of that mattered in the face of that which could not be fathomed.

Answer: Cosmic Horror

The first novel in the "Southern Reach" series from Jeff VanderMeer, "Annihilation" is the first to discuss Area X, a region that has yet to be fully understood due to its tendency to have averse effects on anyone who ventures into its perimeter, often leading to disease, mental breakdown, or outright disappearance. The first novel follows a biologist's recounting of her time there as part of the twelfth expedition and her efforts to explain what she witnesses there.

"Annihilation" was made into a film in 2018. Directed by Alex Garland, it starred Natalie Portman and Jennifer Jason Leigh (amongst others).

Answer: Cosmic Horror

Winner of both the Bram Stoker Award and the Locus Award in 1992, "The Cipher", by Kathe Koja, follows a group of people living in an apartment building who come to discover a wormhole into another world in the storage room on their floor. When one of their group, Nicholas, finds the hole starting to form in his hand, he realizes that something is calling to him from beyond.