Ray Bradbury’s The October Game is one of the few times when Bradbury went dark. Yet its grisly elements, its horror, is never actually shown — except in the reader’s mind. Like those great Val Lewton produced films of the 1940s, the horror is left to the reader's imagination; implied, rather than shown. Bradbury showed that vulgarity and disgusting carnal acts, sometimes carried out by children in "modern" horror books, is not horror, just horrific. In October Game, which is about as dark as Bradbury ever went, evil and its manifestation is only inferred, as this great writer schooled other writers in how to tell a disturbing story without blood and gore, and without explicitness in showing such. Bradbury proved those elements were unnecessary to create a truly chilling story.

From the opening moments on a crisp October day at Halloween, we are in the head of a husband as his wife prepares for the arrival of children and guests to a Halloween party. We quickly learn that he loathes his wife, Louise, so much so that simply killing her isn’t going to be enough; he wants her to suffer. With growing trepidation from the reader of this short story, it gradually becomes clear that eight-year-old Marion, blonde and blue-eyed, and quiet, might be in great danger.

A party game at Halloween, a pitch-black basement, and a final line that leaves the truth about the matter entirely to the imagination of the reader, make this a suspenseful and — perhaps — grisly masterpiece of short fiction. Both Bradbury and Cornell Woolrich hold the distinction of being two writers whom no one else ever wrote like. Here, Bradbury schools writers on how to tell a gruesome and genuinely creepy tale by using the imagination of the reader. Much darker than Bradbury usually went, but unforgettable.

Though I have this and actually read it, there is a good audio reading of this short story I discovered on you-tube that only takes about twenty minutes to listen to if you don’t own the printed version. Here it is — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owjA3O-liS0 ( )

Stories like this really do portray exactly how close and cut of the same cloth Stephen King and Ray Bradbury both are. This is a short but horrifying story, easily read with them or under an hour. Nonetheless it does just the right amount of horror much like a Stephen King short.

I can see the inspiration that hit Stephen King and kept him going to this very day it's clear as can be that this guy inspired everything that King became. And with each story I listen to of Ray Bradbury I just fall a little bit more in love with the world he created it's just such a great idea the things he tells the stories he weaves. I definitely recommend listening to this even if you know what's going to happen and even if you've listened to it once hearing in a second time just makes the build up even better.

A very solid short horror story definitely for those people who adore Halloween. 4.5 out of 5 stars. ( )