The question I pose is a pretty simple one:
What is the scariest book you’ve ever read?
It doesn’t need to be horror, of course, though I expect a good bit of horror to creep and skulk through. And you can talk about comic books, too, if you’re so inclined.
Note: I’m not asking about your favorite scary book. I’m asking about the one that scared you, or freaked you out, or disturbed you on some fundamental level.
I get more than a little freaked out by serial killer books. Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite is an early one that got under my skin. Recently, worth noting Mister Slaughter, by Robert McCammon — pre-Revolutionary War serial killer tale, with tension so taut it was like a rope around my neck as I read it. Or, consider the last two Lauren Beukes novels: The Shining Girls and Broken Monsters. I’m only halfway through the latter but dang can she a) write and b) freak you the fuck out. For non-serial killer novels, while the film version didn’t spook me, the novel of The Exorcist is a pretty amazing read, and if you’ve never read it, well, now’s the time.
Anyway —
Your turn!
What books have really gotten under your skin?
Maybe it’s not a book, exactly, but a particular scene.
Let’s hear it.
(We’ll do movies next week, and maybe games after.)
mambutcher says:
The Color Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft kept me awake for weeks…
October 13, 2014 — 7:13 AM
Dan Schwent says:
Jack Ketchum’s Girl Next Door really freaked me out. The unflinching depiction of torture put me off Ketchum ever since.
October 13, 2014 — 7:16 AM
Veronica Sicoe says:
This post / question is so timely for me, it’s downright creepy. I NEED TO KNOW — so I can’t wait to see the comments.
*prepares list*
October 13, 2014 — 7:16 AM
inkoherent says:
Carrie by Stephen King. I read it when I was 17, and that scene on the stage, the build up – my heart was hammering, my hands were shaking…I still remember it so clearly 30 years later.
October 13, 2014 — 7:22 AM
OzFenric says:
Jay Anson’s “Amityville Horror” is one of the only two novels that have ever really scared me. I don’t know precisely why; perhaps it was the matter-of-fact descriptions. I was seized with an utter certainty that this was a true story and that the world is not as safe as we like to think it is. The movies it inspired certainly never had that effect on me.
The other is “Traitor’s Knot”, book four in Janny Wurts’ “Mistwraith” series. One particular scene, involving a lengthy necromancy ritual, actually had me dizzy. Of course, it could simply have been the lack of sleep and the crowded train, but it took some time for me to finish that one. It’s not even a particularly scary book, otherwise.
Apart from these, I can read and appreciate scenes of torture, of mysterious happenings, of bumps in the night, and rarely raise a pulse. More’s the pity.
October 13, 2014 — 7:33 AM
Mozette says:
I second that emotion on ‘Amityville Horror’… it freaked me out so much I actually refused to keep it within my home and got rid of it as soon as i could.
October 13, 2014 — 8:45 AM
magicant2000 says:
Blindness by Jose Saramago. When I’m reading “horror,” my brain is kind of wired to expect what’s thrown at me. But Saramago’s tale of widespread illness and the collapse of civilization gave me chills. While not necessarily the most realistic depiction, thinking about what I believe would really happen sent my mind into some dark spirals.
October 13, 2014 — 7:35 AM
momsmitty says:
Salem’s Lot. Eleven might have been a little young for Stephen King! Loved It, though.
October 13, 2014 — 7:35 AM
Ken Preston says:
Eleven! I read Salems Lot as a teenager and again as a forty something, and it scared me both times!
October 13, 2014 — 9:24 AM
portlandorange (@portlandorange) says:
Me too, in my teens and thirties! I was really impressed how well it stood up: I think it’s one of the scariest and one of the best horror novels I have.
King’s short story “The Man in the Black Suit” is also, simultaneously, one of the simplest horror stories and one of the scariest things I’ve ever read.
October 20, 2014 — 7:49 PM
Mark Matthews says:
Some body mentioned “The Girl Next Door” by Ketchum. This book snuck up into your psyche in such a devious way and is based on a true story. It features the worst types of monster and the most dangerous animal in any zoo: those humans. After reading it, I plotted a revenge story where the ghost of ‘the girl next door’ possessed the body of Ketchum, who then sought revenge on the perpetrators (those still living) in a way only a Ketchum could. Hoping for such justice was the only way I could find God in the merciless world this book created.
On a lighter note, and speaking of possessions: When I was 12, I read a book called “Watseka”, about a supposed ‘true life possession’, and it is one of the most unforgettable scary books I’ve read, largely due to when I read it.
October 13, 2014 — 7:46 AM
Sara Testarossa says:
I haven’t read many scary books as an adult. As a kid, I read some RL Stine novels and a few of those creeped me the fuck out, as did some of Lois Duncan’s novels. But the most scary book I can think of that left its mark on me is House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski, which I read as an older teen. It is not your typical “horror” book but it is definitely chilling and full of mindfuckery, especially as the both the internal and external stories descend into madness.
October 13, 2014 — 7:48 AM
Andy Cowley says:
I think the one that really got me most as a kid was the short story “The Mezzotint” by M.R. James. No idea why, scared the shit out of me.
It’s out of copyright, so if you want to read it: http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/mezztint.htm
October 13, 2014 — 7:55 AM
Maddison says:
The Shining …. Flip a page .. Ooh … No …. Close the book … No … Need to know … What was that noise .. That creaking upstairs ? Should. Not. Read Horror … alone in big old house when one is young …
October 13, 2014 — 8:06 AM
jrupp25 says:
Me too! I couldn’t read it unless my roommate was at home with me. At the time, it was winter. I was in college and working at an old resort hotel in the banquet department. There was a 1940’s bar downstairs complete with a mirror behind the bar. They didn’t use it anymore cuz it was old. They just stored stuff there and sometimes they sent me own to get more glasses. I wouldn’t go alone. Scared the crap out of me!
October 13, 2014 — 10:22 AM
Sophie Fillmore says:
Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. An odd choice I know but horror or suspense has never got to me, while the combination of the approaching plague and the inner turmoil makes me shudder every time I remember it, incredibly claustrophobic, or like a train crash happening really slowly, and I read it rather young.
October 13, 2014 — 8:08 AM
Bernice Mills (@jaggedrain) says:
Not exactly new but have you read Phantoms by Dean Koontz? It was the first book to ever legit scare me, and it still does.
October 13, 2014 — 8:08 AM
Melinda VanLone says:
The Amityville Horror scared me out of my wits as a kid. It didn’t help that my parents were contemplating moving into a house that looked exactly like it! I put up such a fuss about the red eyes I could see in the upstairs window (MY bedroom) that they didn’t buy the house.
October 13, 2014 — 8:16 AM
booksbrainsandbeer says:
The book that most freaked me out was Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. His vision of utter ruin and the extremes of human depravity seemed completely plausible to me. I was in a foul mood for weeks after finishing that book.
October 13, 2014 — 8:19 AM
Adrian says:
Mute by Gene Wolfe, a short story that appears in Wastelands. I’m pretty sure I’m going to wake up screaming one night, as I finally understand what it’s about.
October 13, 2014 — 8:19 AM
Paul Weimer says:
I don’t read and haven’t read a lot of horror fiction
But what got under my skin when I was young was a series of choose your own adventure type books called “Plot your own horror”. Maybe because they were in a second-person POV, those scared me more than any horror or suspense fiction I read.
One particular scene, in “Nightmare Store” has you, by accident, finding yourself in a trash incineration chute…
“…and you start falling. Down and down toward the roaring flames.”
Yeah. Scared the crap out of me
October 13, 2014 — 8:24 AM
Michael Martine says:
The Shining.
Staying up all night to read that made me feel real fear right down in my bones. Never looked at hotels or topiary the same way again. Later I read King talking about writing it, saying he wrote it in a white-hot heat, barely stopping for anything, and I can totally see that.
October 13, 2014 — 8:33 AM
wildbilbo says:
I nearly shat myself reading Alan Dean Foster’s Aliens novelisation. However that’s mostly because I was 14, reading at midnight and the exact moment the aliens started coming out of the walls, a possum decided to fall down our chimney flue & freak the hell out – scratching, screaming – terrifying.
(No, the fireplace was not in use at the time).
October 13, 2014 — 8:36 AM
Debbie says:
‘Salem’s Lot. I was a teen when I first read it. I didn’t hear my mom come into the room while I was reading it. She tapped me on the shoulder. I almost hit the ceiling.
Shame they’ve never been able to do a decent adaptation of it.
October 13, 2014 — 8:40 AM
annekearneyblogs says:
For me it was the “Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark” series by Alvin Schwartz hands down.
The art in the books is brilliant and inky and macabre. But there was this one story that stuck out about a group of farmers and the living scarecrow that one of them built and abuses. Of course it doesn’t end well for that farmer but for months after reading the story I had nightmares about that scarecrow with his shiny eyes who made a new scarecrow out of very familiar skin.
October 13, 2014 — 8:41 AM
Amber says:
As a kid, my mother had a variety of horror and thriller books on the shelves that I would sneak off with and read in my bedroom late at night. The one that absolutely terrified me to the core, which I’ve reread several times and still manages to freak the hell out of me, is The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. That book is the perfect suspense novel – building and building and disturbing you on such a guttural level. If you want to be afraid – truly, deeply afraid and not that “BOO SCARED YA” kind of horror that’s so commonplace these days – read this book.
October 13, 2014 — 8:48 AM
Debbie says:
Wait,wait–I have another one. (You mentioned comics.) When I was around 8 years old I had a Superman comic that featured Bizarro World. That’s scared the crap out of me. I couldn’t deal with the idea of a world where everything was the opposite of what I knew. I threw it in the bottom of my closet. I woke up my parents in the middle of the night and begged them to remove it.
October 13, 2014 — 8:48 AM
prunesquallor says:
‘The Devil of Nanking’ aka ‘Tokyo’ by Mo Hayder. The air of decay and menace is very creepy and there is one particular character that is absolutely terrifying. She is half-seen and the gaps in the description make her truly frightening. Even now I can’t think of her if I’m alone in the dark. There is also a really horrible back-story, so all in all, a brilliant read!
October 13, 2014 — 8:50 AM
Ashlee says:
Anne, I completely agree that the Scary Stories book is frightening – and made even more so by those freaky drawings. There was one story (the details are hazy so many years later) about some dead guy who grabbed onto a guy on a boat and held onto him as they sunk into the sea. The dead thing was laughing the whole time. Terrified me.
October 13, 2014 — 8:52 AM
Kathy Palm says:
As a Stephen King fan… The Shining. The lady in the bathtub. Hedge animals still creep me out. And IT. For months, I took showers, while staring at the drain waiting for blood bubble up as a voice told me, “We all float down here.”
October 13, 2014 — 8:52 AM
Alena Dausacker (@geistesgift) says:
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. That was set-the-book-down-and-don’t-dare-to-pick-it-up again scary.
October 13, 2014 — 9:01 AM
Sara Testarossa says:
House of Leaves is the one I listed, too! I love it, though, and would like to reread it, as I last read it about ten years ago, and think I would appreciate it more. Did you know his sister who goes by the stage name Poe wrote a companion album, “Haunted”, that goes along with the book? Though, the album focuses more on her relationship with their deceased father, but has a lot of links to the books.
October 13, 2014 — 9:19 AM
Devon Lynn says:
Agreed. I remember being so freaked out one night while reading it that I got up to measure my closet.
October 13, 2014 — 10:11 AM
UrsulaV says:
Loved loved loved the main story, hated the narrator and his framing device. Stop talking about your stupid drug habit and hook-ups and get back to the house! The house is too fascinating for your crap!
October 13, 2014 — 10:15 AM
Sara Testarossa says:
That’s actually part of what I enjoyed about the book. As much of an unlikable character the narrator was in some ways, I got a kick out of watching how he changed as he read the manuscript…
October 13, 2014 — 10:31 AM
SamIAM says:
Severed by Scott Snyder is one of the newest stories to make me uncomfortable when I try to sleep at night. But The Shining will always stay with me.
October 13, 2014 — 9:01 AM
Christopher says:
The earliest scary story I remember was the short by Stephen King, “The Raft.” I think it’s in the Night Watch collection. I lived near a lake as a teenager at the time, so i didn’t go back in the water for weeks after that. I think “the mist” and the story “night watch” (ya think) are in that collection, too. Good one.
Someone mentioned “Phantoms” by Koontz. He’s got some good ones. Another great one by him that had some excellent creepy scenes was “Watchers.” There’s a few parts when the creature is closing in. Oh man!
The most disturbing book that got under my skin was “American Psycho.” Entertaining read in it’s bizarreness and psychopathic humor, but the murder scenes just got SO gruesome by the end that I just started skimming. Still, stayed with me.
My favorite suspenseful/mild-horror novel of all time is “The Terror” by Dan Simmons. A super slow read, about the HMS Terror that got trapped in sea ice in the northwest passage in the 1850’s. It’s primarily an extremely authentic historical fiction, but Simmons adds this supernatural twist and something on the ice is hunting the crew down one by one. Oh man, it’s SO GOOD! Again, slow build, (weird ending) but Simmons is a great writer so i enjoyed it.
October 13, 2014 — 9:06 AM
curleyqueue says:
Second you regarding “The Raft.” Could not get that imagery from my head for weeks.
October 13, 2014 — 9:54 PM
mleighg says:
Edgar Allan Poe’s short story ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ really freaked me out when I read it (as a teenager). Even now, when I start feeling stressed and guilty, I can feel my heart beat pounding in my ears and I’m taken back to thoughts of having murdered and buried a man beneath my house. Because apparently I internalise fiction…
October 13, 2014 — 9:06 AM
Mikey Campling (@mikeycampling) says:
There’s an animated version with James Mason as narrator – fantastic and very disturbing.
October 13, 2014 — 9:28 AM
A Citizen of the World says:
M.R. James’ ghost stories are the ones that send a chill up my spine that doesn’t let up. He is one of the best storytellers of creepy, atmospheric ghost tales ever. And an effective ghost story trumps gore and gross-out scenes ANY day for me.
I remember being 14 and hiding under the blanket for many nights after reading it because the trouble with very effective ghost stories is that they make you truly believe that the ghost is out there. Waiting. And since they are incorporeal, you can’t harm them but they can come after you and drive you to madness.
If I can succeed it mastering that level of terror in my writing, I will die a happy author…
October 13, 2014 — 9:07 AM
Dangerfield5 says:
That bit in (I think) Oh Whistle and I’ll Come To You, My Lad where the curtains suddenly take on the shape of the awful demonic presence the narrator has summoned? I could not look at soft furnishings in the same way for WEEKS. What a masterpiece.
October 13, 2014 — 10:14 AM
A Citizen of the World says:
*Shudder*
October 13, 2014 — 10:45 AM
prunesquallor says:
There are at least two M R James short stories to make you fear soft furnishings: Oh Whistle… does to bed linen what The Diary of Mr Poynter does to curtains!
October 13, 2014 — 10:55 AM
bostonfoxed says:
Currently digesting Teatro Grottesco by THOMAS LIGOTTI. Obviously, anything by the man is downright disturbing, dreamy, and just lovely.
I first discovered him in the excellent Poe’s Children anthology, where his “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story” absolutely CHILLED me.
Teatro Grottesco is easy enough to find, for once. He’s a bit obscure.
October 13, 2014 — 9:07 AM
Nicholas Kaufmann says:
It’s very, very hard for me to be scared by reading something (and I LOVE reading horror!) because I need to see and hear things to be really scared. However, THE LIZARD’S TAIL by Marc Brandel is one book that deeply disturbed me, with a final reveal that very nearly made me drop the book.
October 13, 2014 — 9:10 AM
Peg says:
Since you specified it does not have to be horror, I have to go with Sheri Fink’s “Five Days at Memorial.”
October 13, 2014 — 9:12 AM
Beth Bishop says:
For non-horror, I say The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Reading this in college, it was the first time I’d ever thought about people taking scripture so literally and using it to control others, in particular women. I became a feminist because of this book. For horror, Pet Sematary by King. Nothing more terrifying than a murderous toddler. Especially now that I have a toddler. Oh, and his short story “The Moving Finger.” I left my bathroom sink plugged for a month.
October 13, 2014 — 9:14 AM
Jim Heskett says:
When I was a kid, I read every Stephen King, but IT freaked me out so much I couldn’t read it at night. Not so sure if it would feel the same now, though. I read Kin’g newer horror like Duma Key and don’t even get goosebumps. Don’t know if that says more about me or more about King
October 13, 2014 — 9:14 AM
Danielle Quesenberry says:
House of Leaves.
I always return to it late at night, when the lights are all out and even the animals creep down the hallway.
October 13, 2014 — 9:16 AM
Sara Testarossa says:
I’ve had the urge to reread it… someday… The companion album “Haunted” by Poe (the author’s sister) is really great music and related in some ways…
October 13, 2014 — 9:40 AM
Ed Brock says:
Song of Kali (by Dan Simmons) freaked me the fuck out when I first read it. I’ve returned to it several times since then & the creep factor is still there. Though it was published in 1985, it is still disturbing enough to guarantee I’ll never travel to Calcutta.
Stephen King’s Pet Sematary is a close second.
October 13, 2014 — 9:22 AM
Allison M. Dickson says:
Throughout my teens, PET SEMATARY had been probably the scariest book I’d ever read. And I’d read it several times. Last year, I decided to go back to it after more than ten years away, and found it to be even more horrifying. Probably because I could now see it through the eyes of a parent.
Another one that chilled me to the bone was McCarthy’s THE ROAD. Such minimalism kind of invites the reader to insert a lot of their feelings into it. It’s been four years since I read it, but I can still remember the experience of turning every page.
October 13, 2014 — 9:25 AM
Mikey Campling (@mikeycampling) says:
The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner scared me silly when my teacher read it to me 40 years ago – and memories of the Morthbrood stay with me to this day. I also upset myself by trying to read Oliver Twist when I was far too young. I thought it would be like the musical. It turned out to be a searing account of childhood poverty and exploitation.
October 13, 2014 — 9:26 AM
Braccia says:
Lots of great ones here. I love SONG OF KALI and EXQUISITE CORPSE. And Ketchum is my favorite horror writer. He wrote one short story, though, called “The Box,” that stands above all. It’s deeply unsettling and is included in his collection, PEACEABLE KINGDOM. It reads like the best Bradbury or Matheson, but there’s woe where the whimsy would be.
October 13, 2014 — 9:27 AM
angel011 says:
Misery by Stephen King. Deeply disturbing. Really got under my skin.
Song of Kali by Dan Simmons had one scene which shocked me (everyone who read the book probably knows which scene I’m referring to).
October 13, 2014 — 9:29 AM
Ken Preston says:
The Gypsy’s Curse by Harry Crews. To be honest I didn’t enjoy much of that book, and felt frustrated that it didn’t seem to be going anywhere. But the author knew exactly what he was doing. I read the ending to that book on a crowded commuter train, and I let out a gasp, my face went cold, and I had to put the book down for a few moments to regain my composure before finishing the last few paragraphs.
October 13, 2014 — 9:32 AM
Charlotte Copper says:
I read a bunch of Jack Kilborn (J.A.Konrath) novels that stuck with me last year. Four books in “A Novel of Terror” series, TRAPPED and ENDURANCE stuck with me the most.
October 13, 2014 — 9:32 AM
spicedrum says:
The hobbling scene from Misery. It was our after lunch reading period in high school. I covered my eyes with my hand, then read through a crack between my fingers.
I just discovered there is a “Misery – Fun Facts and Information” page on the interweb. This both amuses and disconcerts me.
October 13, 2014 — 9:33 AM
smithshack71 (@SmithShack71) says:
When I was 10 or 11 I read a lot of John Saul books. They all freaked me out. Then I grew older and away from time for reading. I’m happy to report I’m back to snuggling into books again.
October 13, 2014 — 9:37 AM
Rachel Rush says:
Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. I found it while browsing the shelves of my school library when I was 14, and spent the next 3 years scared to be home alone at night.
October 13, 2014 — 9:40 AM
David Lubar says:
Only two things I’ve read have ever haunted me. Both were short stories. They are Stephen King’s “The Mangler,” from Night Shift, and the Borges story, “The End of the Duel.”
October 13, 2014 — 9:42 AM
L. E. Carmichael says:
Coraline by Neil Gaiman. I read it as an adult, and it’s the scariest book I’ve ever read. I’m not the only one, though – Gaiman has said the book tends to disturb adults way more than it bothers kids.
October 13, 2014 — 9:45 AM
Fi Phillips says:
It by Stephen King. Made me too frightened to open the fridge. If you’ve read the novel, you’ll know what I mean.
October 13, 2014 — 9:49 AM
underastarlitsky says:
that’s a good way to lose a few pounds, if you’re too scared to open the fridge! i’ve never read it…maybe i should, i need to shed a couple lbs…lol
October 13, 2014 — 12:33 PM