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.)
N. K. Jemisin says:
Stephen King’s novella “The Mist”, which I was stupid enough to read on a dark foggy night, in a suburban town full of superficially nice people who I always suspected would turn child-sacrificers in a heartbeat.
October 13, 2014 — 9:50 AM
Sara Crow says:
Superficially nice people are terrifying anyway. When you feel that horrifying ELECTRICITY under their sweet smiles that says, “I’d burn you and sing over your ashes if you did something I thought was wrong”…ah, god. Terrifying.
October 13, 2014 — 11:35 AM
Elizabeth Ditty says:
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, for sure — and it was mostly the art that did it. Too bad it’s been redone now.
I also devoured R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books. My favorite was the Fear Street Saga trilogy — definitely got under my skin.
But I think the novel that set the stage for all of this was The Dollhouse Murders by Betty Ren Wright. Wonderful, terrifying, haunting book.
October 13, 2014 — 10:03 AM
xxinkblotsxx says:
Oh my God! I thought no one else had read The Dollhouse Murders! I ordered that from Scholastic when I was 12 and I LOVED it!! I read it so many times it eventually fell apart.
October 13, 2014 — 12:11 PM
Karen Jeanne says:
The Dollhouse Murders was one of my favorites when I was a kid, too!
October 13, 2014 — 4:44 PM
Neal says:
I am almost never scared by books, but for whatever reason, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark also stuck with me since I first read it over 20 years ago. Specifically, the tale of the drummer boy who is ultimately abandoned by his mother and given to an old drone with a glass eye and a wooden tail. That shit disturbed the hell out of me when I was a kid and I still think about it from time to time.
For the record, I get along just fine with my mother! 🙂
October 13, 2014 — 4:52 PM
threeoutside says:
Many years ago, I was the weekend dj at a small-town radio station, high on a hill outside of town, surrounded by cornfields. I had the 4 to midnight shift Saturday, and 5 a.m. to 1 pm shift Sunday morning. Someone left this goofy-looking book by the dj’s control desk. It was The Shining. Did I mention a blizzard settled in just before dark and kept up all. night. long? Did I mention I was all alone? Once I’d signed off at midnight, do you think I went out in that blizzard, in the dark, to get in my frozen car and go home? Nope nope nope. I read the whole book, it took me all night – possibly because I kept stopping to make the rounds of all the doors and windows over & over again. Scared? I was NEVER so glad to see the sun come up!
And then there’s The Haunting of Hill House.
October 13, 2014 — 10:06 AM
susielindau says:
It, by Stephen King. I had nightmares and couldn’t finish. I saw the movie years later. I think the garbage disposal scene did me in. And clowns…
October 13, 2014 — 10:08 AM
kakubjaya says:
I’m glad you mentioned comic books. Because while horror generally bores me terribly, the scariest thing I’ve ever read was a comic. The Nazz by Tom Veitch and Bryon Talbot, a four issue series from about 1990, it was both about a messiah and (I think) a bit of comment on superpowers in general. However you interpret it, the psychological effects being all-powerful have on the main character (one hesitates to use the word ‘protagonist’) are absolutely terrifying in a way that would leave even Doctor Manhatten saying “now wait a goddamn minute.” It didn’t so much have one jump out and say ‘boo’ seen, but a slow burn that left me shaking and off-kilter and a little sick to my stomach for the whole rest of the day.
October 13, 2014 — 10:10 AM
Sara Crow says:
Clive Barker’s Next Testament series is a recent release series that is mortifying along the same lines as what you mention here (though leaning more toward the gut-wrenching horror of an immature god). The limited run JUST finished a couple weeks ago, so I’m sure a trade is forthcoming. I highly recommend it. Beautifully illustrated and nauseatingly great story.
October 13, 2014 — 11:56 AM
Heather Milne Johnson says:
It, by Stephen King. More than 20 years later and I’m still uneasy when I have to close my eyes while washing my face. Too close to the drain…
October 13, 2014 — 10:11 AM
jbrayweber says:
Classic short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. Not a horror story, but it disturbed me enough to stay with me.
October 13, 2014 — 10:19 AM
mangacat201 says:
We had The Lottery as a reading assignment in one of my writing classes, I remember how utterly horrified it made me to realize the unbelievable acts a human community is capable of if trapped in a belief system and how unbearably psychologically realistic it felt, especially because it turned so many human values on their head. That one sure stayed with me me as well, and I think it totally deserves a place here.
October 13, 2014 — 12:03 PM
susanhughesspencer says:
I totally agree! And you should read more by Jackson. She’s amazing!
October 13, 2014 — 2:44 PM
Anthony says:
We went over the Lottery in class. To introduce the unit, the teacher had us all draw lots. She then, very convincingly, explained that the town we lived in judged teachers off of quotas and that ALL the grades would be thrown out if the town believed that the teacher was giving people easy As. Unfortunately, our class – despite the tough curriculum – were still averaging a B+ which was too high. Because of that, the person who “won” the lottery would be getting a F for the work so far to balance the curve out for everyone else.
The poor girl who ‘won’ was in tears. Two students were complaining in the principal’s office before the teacher could explain that it was an introduction to the next story. If for that masterful handling of our class alone that story has stuck with me.
October 13, 2014 — 6:25 PM
Ryan V says:
Ugh, the Lottery is horrifying.
October 13, 2014 — 6:42 PM
smkay70 says:
I was just thinking of that one. Read it in seventh or eighth grade. Freaked me out. People are scary.
October 14, 2014 — 12:12 AM
Dangerfield5 says:
When I was little, maybe six or seven, I read The Witches by Roald Dahl and it scared me so much that I begged my parents to get rid of it, because even having it in the house was too much for me.
As an adult, it tends to be the situations that scare me more. As a parent of a baby, Gone by Michael Grant freaked me out so much that I couldn’t finish it because I couldn’t stomach thinking about all the pre-verbal, pre-mobile children left in their homes with nobody to think to look for them.
October 13, 2014 — 10:21 AM
Pat F. says:
Arghhhh! Why did you have to mention Gone?! NOT COOL. (Right there with you on the not-finishing thing.)
October 13, 2014 — 8:29 PM
Veronica Sicoe says:
Just added Gone to my wish-list. I have a 1yo daughter. This should make for a horrible reading… (Thanks! 😛 )
October 14, 2014 — 2:17 AM
christophergronlund says:
The first story to ever scare me was Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Pet Cemetery (Zelda!) scared the hell out of me as a kid. Most recently, there was a creep factor in Matt Durabont’s The Nigh Swimmer. Not that the book is scary, but there’s a bit with a lighthouse and a thing with a goat that just creeped me out…probably because I wasn’t expecting it from a literary read.
October 13, 2014 — 10:23 AM
Jodi says:
House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski.
Friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago if I’d read this book, and when I said I’d never even heard of it, he proceeded to send me screencap after screencap from a post on Reddit of people saying just how truly terrifying this book is. How it made them lose sleep, have the worst nightmares they’d ever experiences etc.
So, like a donkey chasing a carrot, I bought it. I’m only 100ish pages into the 709 page tome and it’s had me from the introduction. The book is ONLY in print because of the odd formatting: colored words, stuck out passages, boxes of text in the middle of a full pages of normal text, two lines at the bottom of some pages, handfuls of pages with only one word, sideways text, footnotes that are entire stories in themselves and span four pages…So far, I’ve found the order in which you read the text before you adds to the craziness of the story.
So far, it isn’t the story itself that is scary (but I can see it coming), but rather the things your brain does with it after you’ve closed the book for the day.
Here is the book’s goodreads page:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24800.House_of_Leaves?ac=1
Happy Reading
October 13, 2014 — 10:26 AM
Sara Testarossa says:
I know where you’re coming from. Enjoy it and the descent into madness! I also recommend the album that his sister Poe wrote and recorded as a sort of companion piece, “Haunted”. It’s very different, but through the lyrics, you can see connections to the book.
October 13, 2014 — 10:30 AM
Jodi says:
I did not know that. Thank you, checking youtube right now.
October 13, 2014 — 11:29 AM
Sara Testarossa says:
Yay! They were both inspired by audio tapes of their father’s voice found after his death… of lectures and conversations…
October 13, 2014 — 11:48 AM
Courtney Cantrell says:
That book screwed with my head so much, I don’t think I’ve ever recovered. And I read it only once about 5 years ago. I won’t spoil it for you, but the scenes toward the “end” of the “story” will stick with me forever. More than 3 years ago, I loaned the book to a friend, who has yet to read it or give it back. Maybe not so strangely, I haven’t asked for it back.
Although, talking about it now, I kind of want to read it again. Screwed with my head, for sure.
October 13, 2014 — 1:09 PM
Pat says:
Chelsea Cain’s series with detective Archie Sheridan and serial killer/torturer Gretchen Lowell had me checking locks on the windows and doors. I read them with ALL of the lights on or in daylight hours. A friend actually cringes as she reads them. I’m grateful this author lives on the West coast because if she ever loses it whole neighborhoods are gone. Before this series, S. King’s IT was the one.
October 13, 2014 — 10:27 AM
schrei_machine says:
Funny, but Stephen King never frightened me much. For me it’s definitely “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Perkins-Gilman. It made me scibble creepy patterns on every piece of paper I could find – for months. It’s been some years since I read it but every once in a while I find another slip with that pattern. It’s really unnerving …
October 13, 2014 — 10:35 AM
Hillary says:
HOUSE OF LEAVES by Danielewski was one of the few books that made me want a shower after reading it.
October 13, 2014 — 10:49 AM
Jodi says:
😀 I’m reading this right now.
October 13, 2014 — 11:25 AM
Sara Crow says:
SUCH A GOOD BOOK! One of my favorites, in fact. That is another one that made life outside the book absolutely mortifying. I wanted to tape rulers to my ceiling.
October 13, 2014 — 11:32 AM
Sara Testarossa says:
If you’re up for it, check out the album that his sister Poe wrote and recorded as a sort of companion piece, “Haunted”. It’s very different, but through the lyrics, you can see connections to the book. It’s somewhat creepy, but a lot less so.
October 13, 2014 — 12:00 PM
Hillary says:
I think my reply got eaten. If this is doubled, apologies. I love Poe. Saw her live a few times (opened up for Depeche Mode and I nearly cried big emo tears of joy.) Wish she wasn’t trapped in contract Hell.
October 13, 2014 — 12:35 PM
Sara Testarossa says:
Oh, awesome! A friend introduced me to both Poe and House of Leaves at the same time, haha.
October 13, 2014 — 1:27 PM
Puck says:
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. Somehow that book terrified me. I was reading it while on a trip with my grandma when I was 14 years old and when I finished, I hid it at the bottom of my suitcase and tried to pretend it didn’t exist.
October 13, 2014 — 11:05 AM
Hayden says:
‘Casting the Runes and Other Ghost Stories’ by M.R. James. I’ve read that book several times over, and I still get the chills. Favorite story: “A Vignette”.
October 13, 2014 — 11:09 AM
RSAGARCIA says:
My Bones and My Flute by Edgar Mittelholzer. I’m from the Caribbean, and he’s a Guyanese novelist who was the first successful novelist to come out of the region. It’s ghost story in a Gothic style that really captures the darkness of Guyana’s interior. IT by Stephen King. Still have the shudders when I think about clowns or eyeballs. The Stand (unabridged version) by Stephen King scared me because of how entirely plausible it was, from beginning to scary ending, even when it was discussing the nature of good and evil and how it all comes back around. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys was a very disturbing retelling of Jane Eyre–from the crazy wife’s perspective. It was less about the supernatural and more about the horror of losing oneself in this one for me.
October 13, 2014 — 11:12 AM
Becca says:
The Stand by King first. I was 13 when this came out And was scared silly of anyone with the flu after that. I think I was equally scared of Salems Lot. I still get the willies if I hear scratching on a window screen at night. Don’t frickin open the curtains!!! There’s a little boy floating there, pressing his face to the window….
October 13, 2014 — 11:15 AM
Heather Milne Johnson says:
I read ‘Salem’s Lot as a teenager and my bed was right next to my window. I was terrified to look out the window for ages because I didn’t want to see anyone there asking to come in.
October 13, 2014 — 9:20 PM
Sara Crow says:
There are lots of conventionally scary books out there (NEVER read King’s The Stand during flu season!), but I’m reading A Mirror for Witches by Esther Forbes (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1042146.A_Mirror_For_Witches) right now and it’s scaring the crap out of me. The book isn’t structured like the typical horror novel, but the psychological torture from the community that has resulted in the mental imbalance of the main character is realistic to the point of being terrifying. I posted a paraphrase from Sir Thomas More in my last reading update that said, “this book does an exquisite job of explaining how we first create witches and then burn them.” We create and then burn LOTS of different witches in this culture. It seems like humans feel like they need their demons, of various shapes, regardless of their religious bent, because they need something to vilify, regardless of whether the focus of that hatred is actually worthy of that designation. And this is absolutely mortifying to consider.
October 13, 2014 — 11:31 AM
Jessie Lee says:
I have two. Communion: A True Story by Whitley Strieber because aliens freak me out and I was 12 when I read it. I had to sleep with the lights on for a week.
Also, Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders by Vincent Bugliosi. I had really dark dreams while reading that one. For me, there’s nothing scarier than the monsters some human beings are capable of becoming.
October 13, 2014 — 11:34 AM
Ryan V says:
Yeah, nonfiction tends to genuinely frighten me more than fiction.
October 13, 2014 — 6:44 PM
Marianne says:
Don’t have the title. I used to work with a woman who read only true crime novels. One after another. I never read them, so she loaned me one. In the first chapter some teenagers killed a guy so they could drink his blood. I didn’t get much farther than that. SHIT. This wasn’t the miasma from some twisted author’s imagination. THIS WAS REAL STUFF THAT REAL PEOPLE DID. Scared me plenty.
October 13, 2014 — 11:50 AM
mangacat201 says:
I can’t really label mine scary books, because they’re not, so I’ll talk here about scary stories.
The story that truly frightened me, in a ‘oh my god I’m so glad I didn’t read that alone at home in the night, I’m never reading that again, where’s my blanky so I can tug it over my head and hide’-way is ‘The Willows’ by Algernon Blackwood (http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11438). It probably frightened me so much because nothing truly scary happenes – at least on the surface action – in this novella, apart from the increasingly murky storytelling of an unreliable narrator. It’s all in what the mind does with the set up and the conclusion you come to once you try to dissect what’s actually going on in the story. I’ve actually reread it, kind of as a dare because I didn’t want to accept that a single story that is not even set up to be entirely realistic could affect me so… and knowing what was coming helped me brace for it, but it did in no way cure the scary stuff.
The second story I want to mention didn’t truly frighten me in the same ‘oh my god, there’s a monster in my close’ fashion, but reading it affected me in a scary way. That was Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Price’ … again, a story that sets out in an entirely ordinary setting with an innocuously bubbling narrative, until Gaiman just takes that and yanks the rug from under the reader with a single word twist. I found reading this story particularly memorable in this context, because it didn’t make me scared so much OF something as FOR something, which I find can be a powerful agent of spookiness, too.
October 13, 2014 — 11:51 AM
MattBlack says:
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. Most of the novel is inside the main character’s head, and it is utterly disturbing.
October 13, 2014 — 11:55 AM
Rebecca Douglass says:
I don’t read horror, though a couple of stories mentioned here were read long ago in school and were freaky enough: Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” and Poe’s “Telltale Heart.”
But the book which freaked me out the worst is the same as for Beth Bishop (who responded on the first page of comments): Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” That one disturbed me so much that I’ve never brought myself to read any more of her work! I think what freaked me out is that it felt so damned plausible.
October 13, 2014 — 12:02 PM
bmcox says:
I do read horror occasionally and I have to agree about Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” That is the only book that consistently disturbs me. I have read it three times now and the effect generally remains the same with the exception of when I read it in 2012 during the US election cycle. Much worse then.
It’s too bad you’ve steered clear of her work; its wonderful. Sometimes disturbing, but definitely worth the read.
October 13, 2014 — 4:49 PM
smkay70 says:
Yep on that one!
October 14, 2014 — 12:15 AM
xxinkblotsxx says:
There are two books that truly scared me. One was False Memory by Dean Koontz(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182425.False_Memory) it’s too likely to actually happen and that is truly scary! and the second was A Night In the Lonesome October by Richard Laymon (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/201643.Night_in_the_Lonesome_October)
October 13, 2014 — 12:05 PM
Gareth Skarka says:
I’m a horror fan, so my main reaction to scary stuff is one of interest and glee — with one very large exception: Danielewski’s HOUSE OF LEAVES, which several folks have already mentioned. It gets into your head, like a virus, and starts changing the way you think as you read it. Terrifying on that level alone.
October 13, 2014 — 12:13 PM
unsquare says:
I’d say Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk and Black Hole by Charles Burns. Lullaby has a pretty terrifying central conceit – a “culling song” that kills people if you even think it at them – and because it’s Palahniuk, it just gets more disturbing from there. Black Hole is just incredibly grotesque and surreal, and I remember needing to watch some lighthearted cartoons afterwards just to wash out my brain.
October 13, 2014 — 12:25 PM
Bill says:
The Manitou by Graham Masterton is the only book I can recall every getting me into that “jump at the slightest sound” zone.
October 13, 2014 — 12:33 PM
Lynn Reynolds says:
The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet by Stephen King is the ultimate writer’s horror story.
For more general creepiness, I love The Shining, the way the snow itself is like a character in the story, and Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. (The original film of that, with Julie Harris and Claire Bloom, is quite good too.)
And YES again to House of Leaves. Gareth’s description of it getting in your head like a virus is perfect.
October 13, 2014 — 12:41 PM
Elizabeth Poole says:
YESSS the Ballad of the Flexible Bullet! One of the greatest novellas of our time!
October 13, 2014 — 3:31 PM
commentaryfromthecouch says:
IT and The Stand – both by Stephen King – both freaked me out but in vastly different ways. Pennywise the Dancing Clown is one of the creepiest and scariest book “monsters” I’ve ever read about.
The Stand gave us a super flu and, given our (and other) government’s history I can certainly believe something like Captain Trips could possibly be very real. As the book said, “It was only the flu!”
October 13, 2014 — 12:53 PM
boydstun215 says:
Right now I’m reading Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Annihilation, the first in the Southern Reach trilogy. While I wouldn’t consider the book particularly scary, it is downright unnerving. It’s an amazing little piece of storytelling that is both captivating and completely disorienting.
Chuck, in a terribleminds post where you asked everyone to say a few words about ten books that have stuck with them, you mentioned this novel, and you said such awesome and weird things about it that I had to pick up a copy. One of the best book recommendations I every received.
I’ve always had a special place fondness for the type of scare that Arthur Machen and H.P. Lovecraft could put into me. Very psychological but also very metaphysical. These two masters of horror create experiences that, for me, go beyond the visceral to make your very soul feel all oogy.
October 13, 2014 — 1:33 PM
Courtney Cantrell says:
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe
Teacher’s Pet by Richie Tankersley Cusick
I have to list three, because all three freaked me out the most at different times of my life. As I mentioned in reply to Jodi’s comment above, House of Leaves really messed with my mind when I read it 5 years ago. A few comments up, Gareth says the book gets into your head like a virus and changes the way you think. That’s how I perceived it as well, and it was deeply disturbing. House of Leaves is one of maybe three books I’ve ever read of which I say, “This is more than a book. And, to quote the book itself, ‘This is not for you.'”
The Fall of the House of Usher got to me because of — well, because of the whole thing, but mainly the way it all comes to a point with Roderick Usher’s final words. “…Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? …She now stands without the door!” The man’s awful horror is infectious. Madeline herself never scared me; but the way Roderick turns her into an impending, unstoppable doom…. Somehow, in my head, he makes her over into Yeats’s “rough beast” that “slouches towards Bethlehem.” Horrible and terrifying.
Teacher’s Pet is in the Point Horror series. I probably read it when I was 13 or 14 — still my pre-Stephen-King days, so I was still ultra-impressionable (IT took care of that a few years later). 😉 But Teacher’s Pet got to me for two reasons: One, the main character was a teenage writer like me, and unlike me, she was immersed in a writing world I still could only dream of; two, I was spooked by the idea that you can get so very, very close to someone and not know until it’s too late that they’re murderously crazy. I haven’t re-read this book in years, but I suspect I would still get a little thrill out of it!
October 13, 2014 — 2:02 PM
Katherine says:
Dracula, by Bram Stoker (pub. 1897).
I know, I know, the book is over a hundred years old and we’ve all got post-Twilight vampire fatigue, so if you read it now it won’t have the impact that it did on my pre-teen self nearly two decades ago. It was, however, the first book that really scared me.
It’s still worth a read if you’re interested in how an author can effectively use a bunch of different first-person narrators. Stoker develops several sympathetic characters with unique voices, and he’s adept at giving the audience information about jaw-clenchingly scary stuff while keeping his characters unaware of it.
Also, his vampires don’t sparkle. They aren’t sexy. And they definitely eat people.
October 13, 2014 — 2:20 PM
D.R.Sylvester says:
With you on this. I know a lot of people hated the sparkly vampires thing, but I think my rage was only sharpened to a pointier stabby edge by knowing just how good the genre can be.
Chuck mentioned Robert R McCammon; his vampire book “They Thirst” is flipping epic.
October 13, 2014 — 4:52 PM
boydstun215 says:
Second that vote for Stoker’s Dracula. If readers today still find this novel scary, I wonder what readers at the end of the 19th century experienced.
October 14, 2014 — 4:51 AM
lchardesty says:
Dean Koontz always spooks me, but two of his books that had me turning lights on throughout the house were The Taking and Fear Nothing. I need to reread them to study how exactly he did it. There’s nothing overtly scary–it’s more a sense of dread and uncertainty.
October 13, 2014 — 2:51 PM
carol gonsky says:
the haunting of hill house by shirley jackson kept me awake all night after reading it. and I don’t scare easily.
October 13, 2014 — 2:52 PM
what says:
I’ve gotta say Lolita. What makes it scary is how conversationally it’s written, and how the narrator presents himself as an awkward, quirky young man, when in fact he’s a vicious criminal.
October 13, 2014 — 2:59 PM
Richard says:
As a 10 year old I got a hold of a book of stories by Edgar Allan Poe. The Pit and the Pendulum still haunts me. Also the opening scenes of the Godfather creeped me out.
October 13, 2014 — 3:13 PM
Penquillity says:
“The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. I could not put this down; had to read it before the day ended because, if I didn’t, I was sure something awful would happen to the space-time continuum. The haunting starkness of the setting and the hopeless desperation of the characters pushed so deep into my psyche that I will never forget the images those words formed.
Jeannie Leighton
October 13, 2014 — 3:19 PM
Elizabeth Poole says:
I’ve read tons of scary books, and while many of them had me quaking in my boots during the reading of said book and long after (MISERY by Stephan King, THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Richard Matheson), there are two stories that scared me so badly I literally had to stop myself from thinking about them because it was too much.
The first is a short story by Neil Gaiman in his collection “Smoke and Mirrors”. I can’t remember the title, but it’s about a dude who’s tomcat gets beaten up every night, so he decides to stake out his yard one night and discovers the cat is fighting the Devil from getting inside…and the cat isn’t looking too good. The description of the Devil coming up his driveway…just no. Not scary in the ghost sense, but in the existential horror of there are terrible things in the world and you just might be unlucky enough to tangle with them.
The next is JOHN DIES AT THE END by David Wong. Part slacker humor, part Lovecraftian horror, the existential horror in the book disturbes me so much I have to put it out of my mind immediately or I can’t sleep.
October 13, 2014 — 3:37 PM
Lynn Reynolds says:
Jumping in again to mention a relatively unknown author (at least I think he is) – James Everington. He’s written some magnificently creepy short stories collected in “The Other Room” and a very chilling novel called “The Shelter.” Somewhat reminiscent of Ramsey Campbell.
October 13, 2014 — 4:30 PM
Lynn Reynolds says:
So sorry – the above post landed in wrong place. But meant to post here that the title of the Gaiman cat story is The Price, and there’s a kickstarter to make an animated film of it.
And that’s probably my quota of WordPress comments for the entire month now…
October 13, 2014 — 4:34 PM
Elizabeth Poole says:
No worries! Happy to hear about a new creepy short story author! And thanks for the reminder about the name of the short story. I didn’t have my kindle handy. 😀
October 13, 2014 — 9:54 PM
mistererock says:
Non-fiction…”Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the American Meal” by Eric Schlosser. I wish it were fiction, but it’s not. It made me stop eating fast food and helped push me towards becoming a vegetarian (my wife pushed me the rest of the way.) But it also reminded me that truth is often scarier than fiction, and I should use that to my advantage. Since I read it, I make an effort to slam a lot of unsettling, truthful facts into my edgier fiction stores. However (spoiler alert) the movie based on the book sucks.
October 13, 2014 — 3:53 PM
Elena Linville says:
The Shining by Stephen King. 30 years later and I still open the shower curtain all the way when I leave the bathroom. That scene with the old lady in the tub gave me nightmares for years.
October 13, 2014 — 4:06 PM
Lynn Reynolds says:
Laughing at this because I closed the shower curtain earlier and a few minutes later the husband pushed it back again, which he keeps doing. “Because it looks creepy closed.” Ah, now I understand!
October 13, 2014 — 4:24 PM
Sandra Lindsey says:
I was beta-reading a story by Alex Beecroft & had to stay up until about 5am to finish because I didn’t actually know if the heros would survive!
Sadly it’s not yet been taken up by a publisher 🙁
October 13, 2014 — 4:19 PM
Traci Haley says:
The Exorcist (my mom bought me a copy when I was in 6th grade and it scared the bejeebers out of me), Stephen King’s IT, and The Stranger Beside Me by Anne Rue.
October 13, 2014 — 4:31 PM
Wendy Bolm says:
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II is by far the scariest book I’ve ever read. I think I’m still somewhat traumatized by it. History is terrifying.
October 13, 2014 — 4:34 PM
Ryan V says:
History is freaking scary. People do horrible sickening things.
October 13, 2014 — 6:45 PM
Jennie Kew says:
1984.
October 13, 2014 — 4:40 PM
Angharad Rees says:
The third instalment of the Shadow of the Wind Series, Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. There was one chapter in particular when I thought I would barf up my Spag Bol and I had to shower in scolding water to cleanse my skin and mind after. Brilliant series though…
October 13, 2014 — 4:49 PM
D.R.Sylvester says:
The Keep, by F. Paul Wilson. It’s about a bunch of Wehrmacht soldiers near the end of WW2 stationed in a Romanian castle. There are crosses stamped into the brickwork. Somebody prises one out of the wall, maybe thinking they can sell it, and the holy-crap-I-won’t-be-sleeping-like-ever stuff starts…
Don’t know how easy it would be to find a copy. One of my mates’ grandparents used to own a Sci-fi/Fantasy book store, so we have all these awesome 80’s fantasy and horror books floating around.
October 13, 2014 — 5:05 PM
Heather Milne Johnson says:
I remember that one! Wow, haven’t thought of that in a while.
October 13, 2014 — 9:24 PM
D.R.Sylvester says:
Glad someone else remembers it. I wonder if it’s held up over time… if I remember correctly it turned a bit little-boy-wish-fulfilmenty at the end… but most of it creeped me out hard
October 13, 2014 — 9:43 PM
dangerdean says:
Everyone’s mentioning Stephen King’s novels, but it was a short story that got me. I’ve mentioned this in a previous post, but after reading The Boogeyman, from Night Shift when I was 13, I removed my bedroom closet doors for five years.
Also, though the book itself didn’t disturb me, the Slake Moths in China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station gave me the complete chills.
October 13, 2014 — 5:47 PM
Uraniabce says:
It was “Salem’s Lot” for me. The sheer overwhelming number of things beginning to go wrong piling up. And the weak response of the town. Gives me shivers just thinking about it.
October 13, 2014 — 5:57 PM
Jasmine I. says:
“Lasher” by Anne Rice. This was the one that ended my affair with the scare genre of pages.
October 13, 2014 — 6:26 PM
Samantha Wilding says:
House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski. Never has a quarter of an inch been so goddamned disturbing, before or since. Three years since the first time I read it, I’m STILL trying to imagine that house, and failing miserably.
Also the single best book layout I’ve ever seen.
October 13, 2014 — 6:37 PM