DOWNLOAD: Spend Halloween with Vincent Price and friends [MP3]

"It ... is ... later ... than ... you ... think ... "

Chances are, you're already blitzed with plans for the evening. Lord knows there's enough groovy ghoulishness to go around tonight. But if you're stuck at home handing out candy to the kiddies (or if you're just too overwhelmed by the options, or too shiftless to even THINK about getting a costume together), here's a little treat for you.

Inspired by this weekend's old-timey radio production of "War of the Worlds" by the Post-Meridian Radio Players, here's a smattering of spooky audio delights. (Note: This stuff has a pretty long shelf life -- hell, some of it's been around since 1938 -- so feel free to indulge even after All Hallow's Eve has passed.)

DOWNLOAD: Arch Oboler's "Lights Out" - "Murder Castle" [MP3]

A childhood vintage-radio junkie, I had a particular fondness for "Lights Out," which always delivered on its promise of the grim and macabre (oh, all right, and occasionally the downright goofy). But you don't need to have cut your teeth on Arch Oboler and company to appreciate this track -- anyone who gobbled up Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City will enjoy this tale based on the real-life serial killer H.H. Holmes and his secret slaughterhouse mansion.

DOWNLOAD: "The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall," from "A Hornbook for Witches" [MP3]

As rapper D-Tension, the star pupil responsible for October's "Homework" assignment, knows all too well: There's no such thing as an unlistenable Vincent Price monologue. Even when he's slogging through the sloppiest B movie, Price and that velevety purr of his are always solid gold. This one's partly a reading of poems by Leah Bodine Drake, and partly a reading of the John Kendrick Bangs story "The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall." (Hearing Price do the mouthful-of-marbles voice of the Water Ghost is a true pleasure.)

DOWNLOAD: E.F. Benson's "Caterpillars," from "Tales of Things That Go Bump in the Night" [MP3]

A ghastly, gothic little tale about an infestation of creepy-crawlers, from one of my favorite horror story collections ever. The word "pincer" has never seemed so nauseating.