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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsWhat's the creepiest short story you've read?
I'm always on the hunt for a truly effective horror story. Could you name a few?
(For the record, I'd give top price to Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find."
CaliforniaPeggy
(149,615 posts)It's called "A Walk in the Dark" and it's by Arthur C. Clarke.
I haven't looked at it in many years, and I can *still* feel scared thinking about it. It was masterfully done.
I highly recommend it.
petronius
(26,602 posts)roads at night...
sarge43
(28,941 posts)HarveyDarkey
(9,077 posts)kimi
(2,441 posts)of the creepy short story!
Yet I loved her family stories too - "Life Among the Savages" & "Raising Demons" were hilarious & I love em to this day.
HarveyDarkey
(9,077 posts)but this was the creepiest
The Lottery is always a fun read.
applegrove
(118,651 posts)alphafemale
(18,497 posts)I was. Wait? What? Amazing story.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)Here:
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:GFmxncTChcgJ:www.olypen.com/gnarl/xfer4/!data/books/books!/pdf2/Martin,%2520George%2520RR/Short%2520Fiction/Martin.%2520George%2520RR%2520-%2520SS%2520-%2520The%2520Monkey%2520Treatment.pdf+the+monkey+treatment&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShFcHnx3iMiLWC9qVjcbxAJb87WbSoBGW0mTMT9aQWesTr8-WCFx9mTRvDJTvVNY9sBn4a6KzCEp09DXjxDV9THTZN_8-tRWoc_Zh62bD7xUTNgYzj3PG9gxnJ0vSo3K9sqyuMO&sig=AHIEtbSbB9oCts7n6kghLjZi_bhLzyazNA
My favorite horror writer is the award-winning Al Sarrantonio, if you like the bizarre, like Richard's head.
I read A Good Man Is Hard To Find in English class as a college freshman in 1968. Pretty disturbing story about confronting pure evil..
I also am a fan of the horror short stories of M.R. James. They're very English and written in a wonderful old style. The Mezzotint or Canon Alberic's Scrapbook are creepy.
http://www.fadl12200.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mrjframes.html
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)That is one of my all time favorite stories.
GoneOffShore
(17,339 posts)Rudyard Kipling.
Gave me nightmares for weeks.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)It's about as creepy as you can get.
EastTennesseeDem
(2,675 posts)Those Southern lit writers just had a knack for the bizarre.
HeiressofBickworth
(2,682 posts)I read a sci-fi book that was a collection of very weird short stories. The book was "Children of Wonder". The one I remember best was written in diary form by a child who was kept in the basement. Never forgot it.
closeupready
(29,503 posts)There was one from his collection "Dark Companions", entitled, The Show Must Go On, that was particularly creepy, about an old cinema. Another from that same collection was Call First. He somehow finds a way to go places your mind doesn't want to, and his English dry wit is also on display, particularly in the way he winds his stories up.
For a classic, read Edgar Allen Poe's Hopfrog.
Enjoy!
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)was so disturbing!
RobinA
(9,893 posts)The Lottery is the most disturbing thing I have ever read, by FAR, and I've never gotten over it being read to my 7th grade class in 1971. I will never forget my shock and horror, and at that point I didn't even realize how true to life it really was.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)It seems to me it's a little over optimistic to assume everyone that age could really handle that material. I read it in college for a class and the discussion helped neutralize it a little bit.
I will never forget the horror of that one, though.
sarge43
(28,941 posts)For something a bit longer, King's Apt Pupil.
Kafka's Metamorphosis
RiffRandell
(5,909 posts)I still have the book as I loved it. Lots of good suggestions here. I loved Apt Pupil by Stephen King from Different Seasons.
annonymous
(882 posts)She definately cornered the market on creepy short stories.
pipi_k
(21,020 posts)by Jeff Strand.
Creepy, but fun.
HopeHoops
(47,675 posts)YankeyMCC
(8,401 posts)In fact you would probably enjoy any of his stories in his "Deathbird Stories" collection.
rox63
(9,464 posts)For sheer horror and gore, try "Bleeding Stones" from the same collection.
Aristus
(66,349 posts)mentalsolstice
(4,460 posts)Maybe it's not creepy per se, but it's one that always stuck with me.
nolabear
(41,963 posts)Bradbury was brave to publish a killer baby story way back in the day. Even in the late 60s when I read it, pre Stephen King, the idea of an evil infant who's not somehow saved in the end was radical.
And let us not forget Master EA Poe. He was overwrought as hell, but The Tell-Tale Heart, The Black Cat, etc. were wonderful.
Btw Flannery rocks. Southern creepy is its own rabid animal!
Raven
(13,891 posts)pink-o
(4,056 posts)I read "The Black Cat" when I was about 11, and it took me years to get over it. "The Pit and the Pendulum" made me loathe rats up to this day!
Tellin' youz, there is a huge dif between stories written before movies went mainstream, and those after. Victorian horror is so much more evocative and descriptive, and moves at a slower pace. All the great stories, like Dracula, the Time Machine, The Picture of Dorian Grey, even Dr Jekyll just suck you right into the vortex without a cadence that's based on moving picture sensibility.
But for sheer creepiness, Old Edgar can NOT be beat!
Trailrider1951
(3,414 posts)My favorite is The Tell-Tale Heart. BTW, if you have a Kindle, Amazon has much of Poe's work for free!
Raven
(13,891 posts)Paladin
(28,257 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)LeftOfSelf-Centered
(776 posts)Its not horror, it's sci-fi, and not really scary, but disturbing (at least it was for me). I remember reading back when I was in college and it had a pretty strong effect on me. It's still one of my favorite works by Gibson.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)"It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates
pitohui
(20,564 posts)i really don't know what else bixby wrote, maybe tv scripts, but this one was a keeper
oates has lots of fine short works, but that's the classic that will stick with you
she had some rather horrific short novels or novellas in her rosamund smith persona -- it's difficult to sleep after you read "snake eyes" or "double delight"
of course if you want a scary story how a small harmless action like a getting a pet could destroy a family, there are few stories more disturbing than "hamsters vs. websters" by patricia highsmith but i suspect with your handle you already know that one
surrealAmerican
(11,360 posts)----absolutely chilling-----
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Penal_Colony
harmonicon
(12,008 posts)I was reading down the thread to see if someone else had already mentioned it. Some of his other short stories, like The Judgement, are very disturbing, but I don't know if any are as frightening as In the Penal Colony.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)forgot the title, but it was set on Venus, where apparently it rains every day except once every seven years. The day the sun comes out, school is canceled, and all the kids just run and play all day.
As we approach that day, there's a little girl whose parents are being transferred back to Earth. The other kids, understandably, are jealous as hell, so they bully her. Just before the big day, they lock her in a closet.
Then the sun comes out. And they run and jump and play outside all day. Finally as the clouds roll back in, they return to class -- to discover that they had forgotten to let the girl out of the closet.
MiddleFingerMom
(25,163 posts)surrealAmerican
(11,360 posts)I thought the child was from Earth, and that they were all at school and let out for recess for the event (except the girl - who was locked in the closet). The family was forced to move after the event because the child was inconsolable.
This story disturbed the hell out of me as a child. I was bullied at school, and it was exactly the sort of thing kids I knew would do under the circumstances.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)most of them were. But she was one of the lucky ones who was going back. So they resented her.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)pitohui
(20,564 posts)read the story not the synopsis
and i'm not even a bradbury fan, but yes that story is truly haunting
children are cruel
frogmarch
(12,153 posts)To find out if it is, you can read it here:
http://staff.esuhsd.org/danielle/English%20Department%20LVillage/RT/Short%20Stories/All%20Summer%20in%20a%20Day.pdf
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)nolabear
(41,963 posts)A great story but to me as a kid it was more tragic than horror. Poor kid.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)lunatica
(53,410 posts)Totally creepy. And crawly as it's about a man who turns into a giant cockroach.
pink-o
(4,056 posts)pitohui
(20,564 posts)i would call it a sad story as opposed to a horror story but still well worth the read
lunatica
(53,410 posts)The guy acted as if it was natural that he had turned into a cockroach. That's what creeps me out about it.
pitohui
(20,564 posts)or maybe i just think so, since i was born w. an illness and the story is pretty much a perfect metaphor for what a nuisance you become to your family when you are an invalid
lunatica
(53,410 posts)Maybe you are taking on a fault that doesn't exist. Maybe your parents feel it is their fault that you were born with an illness. I certainly don't know you or your parents or how it happens in your family, but in my experience it's the parents who blame themselves when a child is born with a disability. And usually it is worked out through love and devotion.
I hope your situation has been dealt with in such a manner. No one is at fault. Illnesses happen even to the best of people.
Honeycombe8
(37,648 posts)It's pretty creepy. It's an old one.
Frank Cannon
(7,570 posts)This book served as my introduction to Stephen King.
frogmarch
(12,153 posts)creeps me out every time I read it.
http://www.americanliterature.com/Jacobs/SS/TheMonkeysPaw.html
alphafemale
(18,497 posts)dimbear
(6,271 posts)Zorro
(15,740 posts)pitohui
(20,564 posts)if you sleep well after reading some of them, you have steady nerves is all i can say
sakabatou
(42,152 posts)nytemare
(10,888 posts)With the Pit and the Pendulum being a close second.
lovemydog
(11,833 posts)I had borne the best I could, but when he ventured upon insult I swore revenge.'
I've had that memorized since junior high. Not sure how it holds up against the actual first sentence, but it's close.
Common Sense Party
(14,139 posts)pokerfan
(27,677 posts)Which you can read here.
I
In the year after Lorraines death I contemplated suicide six times. Contemplated it seriously, I mean: six times sat with the fat bottle of Clonazepam within reaching distance, six times failed to reach for it, betrayed by some instinct for life or disgusted by my own weakness.
I cant say I wish I had succeeded, because in all likelihood I did succeed, on each and every occasion. Six deaths. No, not just six. An infinite number.
Times six.
There are greater and lesser infinities.
But I didnt know that then.
Glorfindel
(9,729 posts)Kept me awake many a night afraid of being dragged from my bed by the feet and carried screaming through the skies. Two runners-up: "One Alaska night" by Barrett Wllloughby and "The White People" by Arthur Machen
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)It was H.P. Lovecraft's favorite horror story of all time.
raccoon
(31,110 posts)Someone's already said, "The Monkey's Paw," which if anyone isn't already familiar
with it, is real creepy.
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)... statues will move closer to you every time you blink. (and they're not nice angels)
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)eppur_se_muova
(36,262 posts)There was a knock at the door.
Oh, sorry, I thought you said the shortest creepy story.
WilliamPitt
(58,179 posts)The Long Walk.
MerryBlooms
(11,769 posts)AsahinaKimi
(20,776 posts)Last edited Tue Jun 19, 2012, 09:31 PM - Edit history (1)
Very creepy.
IcyPeas
(21,871 posts)Johnny Rico
(1,438 posts)Lovecraftian apocalypse meets modern storytelling.