What's the creepiest short story you've read?

[DerekG]

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.&quot

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. The one I have in mind is more scary than creepy, but it is really good.

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]

2. Good call! I think about that one all the time when I'm walking dark dirt

roads at night...

[sarge43]

13. Good one. A whole planet as a haunted house. n/t

[HarveyDarkey]

3. We Have Always Lived in the Castle

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Have_Always_Lived_in_the_Castle

[kimi]

5. Shirley Jackson was a master - ok, mistress -

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]

6. That she is

but this was the creepiest

[Demoiselle]

33. Ah, yes.

The Lottery is always a fun read.

[applegrove]

65. I hated the lottery. She totally had me fooled.

[alphafemale]

70. First time I read The Lottery I was maybe 12.

I was. Wait? What? Amazing story.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

4. I like The Monkey Treatment by George RR Martin

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]

14. I did not know Martin wrote that

That is one of my all time favorite stories.

[GoneOffShore]

7. The Mark of the Beast

Rudyard Kipling.

Gave me nightmares for weeks.

[Art_from_Ark]

8. A Rose for Emily, by William Faulkner

It's about as creepy as you can get.

[EastTennesseeDem]

24. This was my answer.

Those Southern lit writers just had a knack for the bizarre.

[HeiressofBickworth]

9. Way back when

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]

10. Ramsay Campbell is a genius at scary short stories.

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]

11. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

was so disturbing!

[RobinA]

20. Couldn't Agree More

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]

30. 7th grade?

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]

12. Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown

For something a bit longer, King's Apt Pupil.

Kafka's Metamorphosis

[RiffRandell]

15. I wrote a paper on that story in college.

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]

16. Anything by Shirley Jackson

She definately cornered the market on creepy short stories.

[pipi_k]

17. Specimen 313

by Jeff Strand.

Creepy, but fun.

[HopeHoops]

18. "In the Land of the Lawn Weenies"

[YankeyMCC]

19. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison

In fact you would probably enjoy any of his stories in his "Deathbird Stories" collection.

[rox63]

28. That would be my candidate as well

For sheer horror and gore, try "Bleeding Stones" from the same collection.

[Aristus]

52. That was a good one, but for me, nothing beats "Sensible City" for creepiness.

[mentalsolstice]

21. "The Breathing Method" by Stephen King

Maybe it's not creepy per se, but it's one that always stuck with me.

[nolabear]

22. The Small Assassin creeped me out as a kid.

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]

23. Poe...any of Poe's short stories. n/t

[pink-o]

37. Was wondering when someone would mention Poe!

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]

25. I'll second Edgar Allen Poe

My favorite is The Tell-Tale Heart. BTW, if you have a Kindle, Amazon has much of Poe's work for free!

[Raven]

68. My favorite too! n/t

[Paladin]

26. "The Nine Billion Names Of God" by Arthur C. Clarke. (nt)

[Posteritatis]

31. Yep. (nt)

[LeftOfSelf-Centered]

27. "Hinterlands" by William Gibson

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]

29. Lots of great suggestions above (O'Connor, Jackson, Faulkner, Poe); here's a couple more...

"It's a Good Life" by Jerome Bixby
"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

[pitohui]

48. both of these suggestions are great, 2 of the scariest stories ever written

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]

32. Kafka's "In The Penal Colony"

----absolutely chilling-----

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Penal_Colony

[harmonicon]

79. That gets my vote as well.

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]

34. The recently deceased Ray Bradbury had one

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]

36. That WAS a horror-filled story -- I think it was made into a short B&W British film.

[surrealAmerican]

39. I seem to remember this one differently.

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]

59. She was from Earth originally

most of them were. But she was one of the lucky ones who was going back. So they resented her.

[Honeycombe8]

41. What's "horror" about that? I don't get it. nt

[pitohui]

45. i guess you had to be there

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]

53. It sounds like "All Summer in a Day"

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]

60. DING DING DING!

[nolabear]

58. "All Summer in a Day". Made me cry.

A great story but to me as a kid it was more tragic than horror. Poor kid.

[KamaAina]

61. DING DING DING!

[lunatica]

35. Kafka's Metamorphosis

Totally creepy. And crawly as it's about a man who turns into a giant cockroach.

[pink-o]

38. +1. Eew. N/t

[pitohui]

47. and strangely the part where he's crippled breaks your heart

i would call it a sad story as opposed to a horror story but still well worth the read

[lunatica]

50. I was thinking more of it as a creepy story

The guy acted as if it was natural that he had turned into a cockroach. That's what creeps me out about it.

[pitohui]

51. he was probably born thinking of himself that way

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]

56. As a parent I would feel that my child's physical problem were my fault

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]

40. Stephen King's "Lawnmower Man" I think it's called.

It's pretty creepy. It's an old one.

[Frank Cannon]

66. EVERY story in that collection is great.

This book served as my introduction to Stephen King.

[frogmarch]

42. The Monkey's Paw

creeps me out every time I read it.

http://www.americanliterature.com/Jacobs/SS/TheMonkeysPaw.html

[alphafemale]

69. Be Careful What you Wish For. nt

[dimbear]

43. "The Rats in the Walls" H P Lovecraft or many others by that strange genius n/t

[Zorro]

44. The House of Asterion is pretty creepy

http://ddm.ace.ed.ac.uk/project-files/asterion/story.html

[pitohui]

46. there's a book by peter straub full of them, houses without doors

if you sleep well after reading some of them, you have steady nerves is all i can say

[sakabatou]

49. The stuff in the books by Alvin Schwartz.

[nytemare]

54. The Cask of Amontillado from Poe

With the Pit and the Pendulum being a close second.

[lovemydog]

63. 'The thousand injuries of Fortunado

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]

55. Noche Boca Arriba by Julio Cortazar

http://www.literatura.us/cortazar/arriba.html

[pokerfan]

57. Divided by Infinity by Robert Charles Wilson

Which you can read here.

I

In the year after Lorraine’s 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 can’t 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 didn’t know that then.

[Glorfindel]

62. "The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood terrified me as a child

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]

64. The Willows by Algernon Blackwood

It was H.P. Lovecraft's favorite horror story of all time.

[raccoon]

67. "The Judge's House," by Bram Stoker really creeped me out.

Someone's already said, "The Monkey's Paw," which if anyone isn't already familiar
with it, is real creepy.

[BlueJazz]

71. This wasn't read but "Blink" in the Dr Who series was very creepy. The angel..

... statues will move closer to you every time you blink. (and they're not nice angels)

[Major Nikon]

72. This one

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2004/06/not_even_a_hedgehog.html

[eppur_se_muova]

73. The last man in the world sat alone in a room.

There was a knock at the door.




Oh, sorry, I thought you said the shortest creepy story.

[WilliamPitt]

74. The Lottery

The Long Walk.

[MerryBlooms]

75. Do you like TheTwilight Zone?-

http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/the-twilight-zone

[AsahinaKimi]

76. I think it was called "The Lottery"

Last edited Tue Jun 19, 2012, 09:31 PM - Edit history (1)

Very creepy.

[IcyPeas]

78. *** spoiler alert above ****

[Johnny Rico]

77. "The Mist" by Stephen King.

Lovecraftian apocalypse meets modern storytelling.