To find out why exactly so many of us are drawn to creepy things, from pictures to stories, both fictional and real, we spoke with Michael Grant Kellermeyer, the editor in chief of Oldstyle Tales Press, an independent publisher based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The publishing house specializes in critical, annotated and illustrated editions of classic ghost stories, weird fiction, and gothic horror from the Classical Era of Supernatural Fiction (1795 - 1935).

According to Kellermeyer, human beings, especially in today's culture, have a love-hate relationship with mortality. “In one sense, Death and the dark side of life are our greatest enemies, but in another sense, it makes life delicious and potent: we are drawn to brushing elbows with death (either in reality - say, by skydiving or doing extreme sports - or by proxy - say, by reading or watching media about people who work in dangerous jobs or who survived disasters).”

He explained further: “While in previous generations, death was ever-present - certainly not a good thing - 21st-century Westerners are much less likely to have ever seen a dead body (even the majority of funerals either tend to be cremations or closed-casket), so as much as we do not long for more death in our worlds, we do certainly have an obsession with this part of our existence which we are all fated to encounter, but which is so tidily hidden from us.”

Kellermeyer believes that as a result, “psychoanalytically, we try to touch hands with this stranger who is destined to make our acquaintance by poring over true crime podcasts, horror movies, and spooky artwork.”

The editor in chief added that “we love horror (which is by definition an artform concerned with the gradual approach of death, whether natural or supernatural) because it allows us to vicariously experience something that is so taboo in our culture, but which we all - at the final moment of our life - are destined to encounter.”

Kellermeyer argues that a good, creepy story should leave a great deal to the imagination and should focus on insinuations which leave the imagination primed but wanting more.

So he gave one such example: “The great British horror writer M. R. James was a master of the chilling tease, knowing just what to expose in order to pique curiosity, but holding back enough that we can't get a good look. In a story called ‘Wailing Well,’ he has a shepherd describe a family of zombie-like ghosts to a group of boys: ‘Rags and bones, young gentlemen: all four of 'em: flutterin' rags and whity bones. It seemed to me as if I could hear 'em clackin' as they got along. Very slow they went, and lookin' from side to side.’ One of the boys asks what their faces looked like: ‘They hadn't much to call faces,’ said the shepherd, ‘but I could seem to see as they had teeth.’”