THE NUDGE

An unknown presence stalks an Indiana man in Fink’s haunting novella.

In a secluded Winchester Mystery House–like manor, a middle-aged narrator relates his troubling plight to the hotel concierge as he’s led to his room: “This place is bigger than it looks, huh?” notes the narrator. “I’ve already lost track of the turns we’ve taken.” He describes living happily with his wife, Sharon, in a small town in Indiana; the two lived together for almost 20 years before he began to notice that she was starting to act strangely—first staring off into the distance, then smiling at him in a disconcerting way. The narrator tells of a presence taking over his spouse for periods at a time, with Sharon having no memory of it after the fact. He called this presence “the nudge” and began to realize that, when Sharon began acting erratically toward him, his life might be in danger. Among the narrator’s recollections, the concierge describes the history of the manor: The original owner, who was apparently haunted by something, built a series of twisting hallways, steep staircases, and dead-end doors into the hotel’s bizarre architecture. Fink’s writing style is reminiscent of his other works, such as Welcome to Night Vale (co-authored with Jeffrey Cranor, 2015) and Alice Isn’t Dead (2018), unnerving readers just enough over the course of the work to truly horrify them by the end. Although the story is short, it supplies just enough background on the narrator and his wife so that readers may properly mourn the deterioration of their marriage. The book could slot neatly onto a shelf next to a collection of H.P. Lovecraft’s or Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, but Hayworth’s grayscale graphite illustrations may make readers recall the feeling of first discovering a collection of Alvin Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (1981)—and then becoming too unsettled to sleep.

A novel that will resonate with classic horror fans as well as Night Vale devotees.