AHH! That's What I Call Horror: An Anthology of '90s Horror

PRAISE FOR AHH! THAT’S WHAT I CALL HORROR

Nostalgia comes home to die in these fourteen stories, re-examining a horrifying decade without rose-colored glasses. The early days of the internet and the last gasp of a century on videotape all delivered in pulsing neon prose.

ANDREW F. SULLIVAN, AUTHOR OF THE MARIGOLD AND THE HANDYMAN METHOD

"Fans of The Midnight Club, My Best Friend’s Exorcism and The Pallbearer’s Club will love AHH! That’s What I Call Horror: An Anthology of ‘90s Horror. This book is jam-packed with dial-up internet nostalgia, creepypasta-inspired monsters, occult rituals, Camaros, camcorders, weed, time travel, flannel shirts, Lisa Frank imagery, VHS weirdness, and a whole lot of nineties music."

CHRISTI NOGLE, AUTHOR OF THE BEST OF OUR PAST, THE WORST OF OUR FUTURE

"AHH! That's What I Call Horror is a thrilling ghost train ride through everything you can never forget about the ‘90s. In terms of nostalgia, it hits all the right spots—and for me, growing up away from the Anglo world, brought up several new curiosities—without being about the nostalgia so much as about the humanity. Beneath that bright, bubble-gum flavoured surface riddled with psychics and toy crazes and sitcoms and videogames, there's this overall question that I loved, so different from the usual what's coming next? of horror stories: What happened there?. What happened to us then, in the chaos of a decade that for many of us, may as well have been the big bang that created everything our world revolves around today? How far did our obsessions, and gullibility, and fears, and desires, take us? And, ultimately, since nothing is ever wasted, what have those obsessions and fears turned into, since?

An absolutely wonderful read today, and no doubt one that'll only get better, more relevant, and more bittersweet over the following decades."

ALEX WOODROE, EIC OF TENEBROUS PRESS AND AUTHOR OF WHISPERWOOD

"AHH! That’s What I Call Horror is an anthology that pulls on the most familiar and iconic elements of the ‘90s and draws it into a kaleidoscopic flurry of atmospheric stories that emphasize both the eerie and the uncanny. With witty characters, vintage backdrops, experimental formatting, and quirky but dark narratives, the stories breathe new life into pulp horror. It allows for a glimpse into the darkness of a time when I had just been born, but even so, these characters make me believe that I have known them all my life, have walked past them down the road, seen them watching me through the window across the street."

AI JIANG, AUTHOR OF LINGHUN

AHH! THAT’S WHAT I CALL HORROR

AN ANTHOLOGY OF ‘90S HORROR

Edited by

CHELSEA PUMPKINS

Copyright © 2023

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

Editing by Chelsea Pumpkins.

Formatting by Carson Winter.

Cover art and design by Cassie Daley.

Interior art by P.L. McMillan and Jenny Kiefer.

All stories are owned by their respective authors.

This one’s for the goths, the geeks, the flannel skaters,

gel pen collectors, trapper keeper decorators,

the gamers playing ToeJam & Earl,

the latchkey kids, and valley girls.

For the ones whose screennames are too shameful to shout

and the kids painting their nails with sharpies and white-out.

For the Macarena dancers, the punks, the slackers,

Tamagotchi caretakers, and Lunchable snackers.

For fans who swooned over Scully and Mulder,

who watched Saved by the Bell and In Living Color.

For the teens in JNCO jeans hanging long and wide,

and the ones who were always kind enough to rewind.

For the peeps who can beatbox the dial-up connection,

I hope you totally dig this horror collection.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Madame Crystal

S.E. Denton

The Harvest Queen

Bridget D. Brave

Who in the World is the Hat Man?

Chelsea Pumpkins

Between the Barbie and the Deep-Blue Ranger

Christopher O’Halloran

The Grunge

Caleb Stephens

Nona’s First and Last Album Drop

Edith Lockwood

The One with the Mysterious Package

C.B. Jones

Caution: Choking Hazard

Mathew Wend

Return to Gray Springs: Blockbuster Blues

P.L. McMillan

Alive and Living (Pilot)

Carson Winter

The End of the Horror Story

Patrick Barb

The Final Away Game

J.W. Donley

About a Girl

J.V. Gachs

Threshold

Damien B. Raphael

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Cover Artist

Story Illustrators

Content Warnings

FOREWORD

Watching Saved by the Bell while getting ready for school. Listening to terrible nu-metal on my CD player while waiting for the bus. Ejecting orange VHS tapes. Cutting thumb holes into my hoodie sleeves to make DIY gloves. Drawing a weird S on everything within reach. Smashing Power Rangers action figures together and making loud explosion noises. Dedicating hours of each day thinking about my Pokemon card collection. Wishing I had a dog like Wishbone. Saying bad to mean something’s good. Failing to imagine what the neighbor from Home Improvement could possibly look like. Spelling fat with a ph. Telling people to talk to the hand. Describing everything as cool beans. Stockpiling Chuck E. Cheese tokens like a grandparent who survived the Depression. Binging Christopher Pike paperbacks like they were SpaghettiOs. Marathoning judge shows while sick from school. Pushing fruit-flavored ice out of triangle-shaped packets. Stressing out about my Tamagotchi getting sick. Squeezing cold pizza sauce on a circle of hard dough. Constantly craving Good Burger and orange pop. Fantasizing about one day drowning in green Nickelodeon slime.

These are the things that come to mind when I think about the ’90s. Every decade is weird, but not every decade is as weird as the 1990s. We were in the final stretch of an entire millennium. Existing at the end of such a significant point in time does something to the brain. Everything is changing and heading down unpredictable paths. Life takes on a bizarre, almost artificial layer. What will people be obsessed over in the year 2999? I can’t even begin to imagine, but I hope it’s something embarrassing like chia pets and not something as soul-crushingly depressing like total and complete climate failure.

The stories in this anthology contain several purposes, but in the end they all share the same common objective: recapture a glimpse of the ’90s. Do they succeed? Absolutely. Reading this anthology is like popping open a time capsule. Yet it also succeeds as an excellent horror anthology. The decade plays a big part in every story but never does it feel forced. Opening a book like this, one might fear an overwhelming dosage of references. Thankfully, the authors here are smart enough to avoid such traps—unlike myself, in retrospect, upon re-reading the first paragraph of this introduction. Any brand name drops actually make sense within the context of each contribution.

I’m not going to spoil these stories for you. You can probably guess some of the things you’ll encounter while reading, just from the nature of the era the anthology is set. Yes, there are chat rooms. There are Blockbusters. There is grunge music. Okay, there is a lot of grunge music. But it works! Cobain would be proud.

Just as I am proud to now hand you over to 14 wonderful, entertaining writers. Take your time with this book. Absorb not only the stories but also the wonderful interior illustrations. And don’t forget to have some fun with it. This anthology is a celebration of fun horror at its finest.

—Max Booth III

January 3, 2023

MADAME CRYSTAL

S.E. DENTON

The glass doors glide open, blasting sterilized AC into my face. 

The atmosphere teems with harsh fluorescent lighting, flashing TV screens, and the galvanic hum of approximately 30,000 square feet of home electronics. Hootie and the Blowfish’s Only Wanna Be With You rains down from the speakers.

Best Buy. A wonderland for the consumers, a personal hell for yours truly. 

Six straight hours of this ahead for me. No freedom until 9:00 PM. And I’m late.

I cut through the CD section on the way to the break room to clock in and find Angela organizing CDs. Before I can backtrack out of the aisle, she spots me.

Hi, Adam. 

Our brief flash of eye contact makes my head swim. Her long curly hair is dyed a brazen Tori Amos red and she always smells like a Bath & Body Works store. She’s busy scoping out the tracklist of a Joan Osborne album, so she only glances at me. I make a mental note to buy it later, even though I’m more of a Radiohead The Bends kind of person. 

Hi, I say, trying to keep my voice steady. 

How’s your software thing going?

For the past eight months I’ve been writing an encryption software called CypherQuest.

Oh, you know. Not bad. I sold some copies on my website, so that’s good.

Awesome, she says, smiling in a way that makes my face turn hot. Are you going to Jason’s party tonight? 

Jason works in the movie section. He wants to be a director. He dubbed everyone copies of his last movie, Zombie Babes. I seriously doubt his future success. Plus, he’s an asshole. 

Nah, I say. I’ve got plans.

I don’t tell her that my weekend plans are to fix bugs in CypherQuest.

Yeah, I probably won’t go either. I should stay home.

This is the longest conversation we’ve ever had. Despite the fact that I can feel my pulse in my throat and that I’m now five minutes late to clock in, I don’t want it to end.

How come? I ask.

Angela replaces the Joan Osborne CD. 

My horoscope said that I should avoid crowds today.

Oh?

Yeah. She picks up a misplaced Portishead CD and puts it in its correct location. It might be bullshit, but my horoscopes always seem pretty accurate, so I dunno. 

What sign are you? I ask her, even though I know nothing about signs.

I’m a Pisces, she says. You?

May.

That’s not a sign, Angela says, smirking. May what? 

May 16th.

A Taurus, Angela says. A bull.

Yep. I’m a bull.

Angela smiles at me. You’re into astrology?

Yeah. Pretty much a lie. Some things, I mean.

Do you read your horoscope?

Most days. But not today.

I can’t recall ever reading my horoscope, but I know that from now on, I’ll be reading it every day. And learning everything I can about Pisces people. 

Ross, the manager, rounds the corner, sees all of us huddled together, chatting.

Adam, have you clocked in yet?

His hair is gelled into pointy spikes. He’s shorter than me, way older, and rounder. A perfectly-sculpted mustache covers his baby face. I know for a fact that he still lives with his mother. So do I, but I’m nineteen. Ross has to be at least thirty-five.

Not yet…I was just…

We’re organizing the CDs, Angela says. 

"That’s your job, Ross snaps. Adam, clock in and go sell some goddamn computers."

I continue on my way back to the aisles of IBMs, Packard Bells, and Compaqs. I should be happy here, but among all the fluorescent lighting, cutting-edge tech, and Top 40 blaring on the overhead speakers, I feel depressed. This is what I get for dropping out of community college. My parents told me I had to get a job, and so I did. This is only temporary until my software business takes off, though. Only a matter of time before I’m the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. A fucking millionaire. Then people will be buying CypherQuest in Best Buys. In the meantime, all I have to do is collect a paycheck helping old people understand what a modem is or making Microsoft Word sound sexy to businessmen who prefer to create documents with typewriters. Depressing, but easy enough.

And, of course, there’s Angela. She’s the only part of this that is bearable.

It takes six attempts to connect to AOL, but finally I’m online. 

I check my email, hoping for more orders, but it’s empty. Just as well. I already have my hands full with the two orders I do have. I’m going to have to pull an all-nighter working on bugs as it is.

Downstairs, I can hear my parents watching TV. My stomach churns an undigested cheese-and-ham hot pocket and two glasses of Mountain Dew. 

To procrastinate debugging CypherQuest, I do a quick search for horoscope sites. Several web pages turn up. Astrostar Astrology Experts, which charges money; Jenny’s Horoscope Page that looks like a fourteen-year-old’s creation; Heavenly Horoscopes, which is so obviously Christian; Angel Whispers Horoscope (same); and a few others. One in particular catches my eye: Madame Crystal. I click the link to the page.

It takes a few seconds to load, gradually revealing a twinkling celestial background and then the words Madame Crystal in bright pink curlicue font centered directly above a glowing crystal ball graphic. Below that: Welcome! You’re visitor number 6!

Six? It must be a new website. I’ve had forty-seven visitors, and I thought that was weak.

There’s another graphic of a stick figure with a flashing question mark above its head: Ever wonder what the future holds? I will tell you! No gimmicks! Enter your email address and receive your FREE horoscope every day!

I scroll down further, but there’s no picture of Madame Crystal, only a text box for entering an email address. I try to imagine what she looks like, but all my mind conjures up is a mish mash of psychics I’ve seen on shows like Unsolved Mysteries, and all of them had big glasses, bad makeup, and puffy hair. It’s possible that Madame Crystal isn’t even a woman. None of it seems very legit, but I don’t want to mess with going through any more psychic websites, so I type in [email protected], enter in my birthday, and click the pink ENTER button. 

A new screen with the same celestial background: "Madame Crystal has received your request. Check your email tomorrow for your personalized daily horoscope!"

That’s that. I sign off, and go to work on CypherQuest.

I don’t wake up until after noon on Saturday. My day starts off rocky. As I’m pouring milk onto my cereal, the whole goddamn carton slips from my grip. My bowl flips, scattering Cap’N Crunch all over the counter and half the milk spills on the floor. It takes me fifteen minutes to clean up the whole mess, wiping and sweeping everything up. By the time I’m done, I opt for some coffee and a pack of cold Pop-Tarts and go upstairs to check if I have any new orders.

You’ve got mail! blares from the computer speakers.

I click the mailbox icon, hoping for something exciting, like an email from some girl in a chat room or a response from one of the Silicon Valley jobs I randomly applied for in hopes that I’d get out of Tulsa. Instead, there’s only my horoscope from Madame Crystal: Your personalized horoscope! Open now!

The email has no design to it at all—no colored background or fancy font. Only one sentence in Times New Roman: Don’t cry over spilled milk.

I blink a few times, making sure I read it right, then scoff. 

Coincidental. Cliche. But it also feels weird.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it. That’s how horoscopes work, right? Vague enough so that whatever is said can fit anyone.

Thanks, Madame Crystal, I say, and sign off.

After programming all through Saturday night, I woke up Sunday afternoon with a stuffy head, chills, throbbing bones, and a burning throat. I call into work and barricade myself in my bedroom. As I stare up at my ceiling, shivering, I feel my body temperature rising, igniting my brain, enveloping me into the onset of a hellish fever dream. I don’t remember much after that.

It isn’t until Wednesday morning that I wake up feeling like a normal person again. Still congested and a bit weak, but decent. I snag a carton of orange juice from the fridge, offer an obligatory greeting to my mother who is reading some sort of prayer book at the kitchen table while the news blasts on the small TV on the counter.

Are you feeling better? she asks, not looking up from her book.

I love her—she’s my mother. But she’s also the woman who told me when I was in the sixth grade that demonic possession was possible for children who watched rated R movies, played violent video games, communed with Ouija boards, and listened to grunge music and rapping, all of which I had done by age twelve.

I spent the first quarter of my teen years genuinely afraid of being possessed, going to church and bible study, and monitoring myself for any strange new sensations that could be a demon slipping into my skin. She constantly filled my head with fears.

At this point, we’re practically strangers to one another. She has her bible and her church and her televangelist shows. I have my computer (I saved up for it and bought it myself), a CD collection of disturbed musicians, and my massive VHS collection of R-rated movies.

My relationship with my father is even worse. 

I go back upstairs to my room and log on to AOL. 

You’ve got mail!

Lots of mail. A newsletter from a programming club out in California. An email from my friend Charlie, who got a scholarship to Stanford (sparking the usual scorching bloom of envy in my heart), a few promotions for software and computer sales, and other crap. 

And, of course, my missed daily horoscopes from Madame Crystal.

I start with Sunday’s: a germ is a seed that births a garden of disease.

It’s well written, but sort of weird. Also, like the milk horoscope, strangely parallel to my life having just recovered from the flu.

Monday’s horoscope: right now you are dreaming, and I’m there with you.

I strain to recall anything from my fever dreams, but it’s all a sickening blur. 

Not wanting to waste more time thinking about it, I open yesterday’s horoscope: something big is on the horizon…

It’s all very weird. The germ thing, and the dream thing. I remind myself that I don’t believe this shit, but there’s a chill that starts at the back of my neck and slithers down my spine. I sip my juice from the carton and open today’s horoscope. 

There’s only one word: Kablooey.

A chuckle works itself up my throat, although it’s not exactly funny.

Kablooey, I say. Ka-bloo-ey…

Downstairs, my mother screams.

Two days later, I’m watching firefighters dig through the eviscerated innards of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building on a 27" Sony TV in the home entertainment section of Best Buy. Pulverized concrete, twisted metal, the occasional children’s shoe from the daycare center, rubble piled on top of bodies. My mother’s cousin, Carol, is buried somewhere within that devastation. My mom has been on the phone every few hours with my great aunt Barbara, desperate for new details. 

I don’t recall exactly which of my mom’s cousins Carol is, but the thought of anyone buried beneath tons of ruination makes my hands tremble inside the pockets of my khakis.

Adam, change the channel, Ross, the manager, says to me. He somehow snuck up behind me without me noticing. Sad shit doesn’t sell TVs.

"This just happened two days ago, Ross, I say. Less than two hours from here."

We sell electronics, Ross says. We have jobs to do.

His face sours as he watches the footage, before flicking his attention back to me.

And what are you doing over here anyway? he says. Get back to your section.

I switch over to a boring golf tournament and head over to the computers. The images from the news recycles through my mind, along with one word:

Kablooey. Kablooey. Kablooey.

My stomach twists as I stare at the five unopened daily horoscopes from Madame Crystal. I haven’t had the courage to open a single one since the bombing, but I also didn’t want to delete them. Over the past few days, I convinced myself that it was a coincidence. That seemed more likely than a psychic predicting mayhem in cryptic emails.

I open Thursday’s horoscope. It reads: don’t stop thinking about tomorrow

As soon as I read the sentence a few times, my tension lessens. Seems like another cliche billboard slogan. No harm there.

Friday’s: don’t stop it will soon be here

It takes a moment for that one to sink in. What will soon be here? My stomach clenches, but only for a second, until I realize that it’s connected with Thursday’s horoscope. 

I quickly open Saturday’s: it'll be better than before

Madame Crystal is sending me fucking Fleetwood Mac lyrics. The same song Bill Clinton used for his inaugural campaign.

Sunday’s horoscope completes the chorus: yesterday’s gone yesterday’s gone

Nervous laughter bubbles inside of me, but it doesn’t reach my throat. 

Before I lose my nerve, I double click to open today’s horoscope and immediately see it’s a completely different message than its predecessors.

It reads: Here is the UNLUCKY # of the day…(drum roll)...#16!

Sixteen? 

Despite my sense of dread, I tell myself that the horoscope is meaningless. Sending song lyrics is harmless, as is assigning some number as unlucky. Madame Crystal is either a poorly written computer program, a bored thirteen-year-old boy, or maybe a burnout hippie. 

Regardless, none of this means anything. Nothing at all.

It isn’t until I’m eating my morning bowl of Cap’N Crunch that I catch a glimpse of the headline nestled up to the other more prominent headline about the Oklahoma City bombing. This one reads, matter-of-factly: Unabomber Strikes Again.

I scan the article. The day before, a mail bomb detonated at the offices of the California Forestry Association and killed Gilbert B. Murray, 47, the association's executive director. Federal agents believe him to be the 16th victim of the serial bomber known as the Unabomber. 

today’s UNLUCKY number is…16!

Oh shit, I say.         

Adam! My mother stares at me from across the kitchen, holding a spoonful of strawberry jam. What have I said—

The cereal is already spurting up my throat. I manage to make it to the downstairs bathroom before a torrent of mushy Cap’ N Crunch splatters into the toilet bowl.

I log on to AOL, again. My stomach still threatens to retaliate, although I’m pretty sure there isn’t any more cereal left in me. 

I type in www.madamecrystalhoroscopes.com.

Instead of the celestial background and crystal ball and curly, pink font, I get a stagnant white page reading 404 PAGE NOT FOUND. I check the web address for typos. Nope. Maybe it was only www.madamecrystal.com? I try that and get the same message.

In AOL search, I type in daily horoscopes and recreate my original path to Madame Crystal’s site. I see in my history all the links I’ve clicked on, highlighted, remembering each website distinctly. The last one I looked at before finding Madame Crystal’s was one called Astro Secrets promising to deliver wisdom from the cosmos. I scroll through all the results.

Nothing. Madame Crystal has vanished.

Instead of letting it go, I spend hours visiting astrology forums, looking for any mention of Madame Crystal. I visit several chat rooms and ask if anyone has ever signed up for her daily horoscopes or talked to