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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsName a short story you read as a kid that still haunts you.
I started following a thread on this on Twitter and was astounded how many brought up stories that are definitely on my list. Some of mine:
Ray Bradbury's All Summer in a Day
Conrad Aiken's Silent Snow, Secret Snow
Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron
There are others, but I want to hear all y'all's.
ironflange
(7,781 posts)nolabear
(41,959 posts)applegrove
(118,600 posts)madaboutharry
(40,203 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,661 posts)yellowdogintexas
(22,250 posts)I already knew Shirley Jackson was a scary writer because my mother loved her books and talked about them a lot.
I prefer her novels about her family - drop dead hilarious
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)That story haunted me for years. Shirley Jackson was brilliant.
Dagstead Bumwood
(3,621 posts)I remember us reading it aloud in class and the audible gasp when we came to the ending. Perfect short story.
5X
(3,972 posts)That stayed with me a while.
FM123
(10,053 posts)nolabear
(41,959 posts)Lars39
(26,109 posts)Guy was going mad. He kept seeing some kind of creature out of the corner of his eye.
FirstLight
(13,359 posts)but I STILL can't read The Velveteen Rabbitt withput bawling..
(Used to do the reading program for elementary school and when I read this the kids were so amazed I was crying...lol )
DeminPennswoods
(15,276 posts)by Richard Connell
The Blue Serge Suit by John Langdon
The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry
and every Sherlock Holmes story by AC Doyle
nolabear
(41,959 posts)Great story.
DeminPennswoods
(15,276 posts)can actually be found in its entirety online here: https://americanliterature.com/author/richard-connell/short-story/the-most-dangerous-game
That and The Blue Serge Suit were short stories in my 7th grade English literature book. I've never forgotten either.
I'm sure you've read at least some of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)Phoenix61
(17,000 posts)and he cried and the tears washed the shards of mirror from his eyes and he could see.
yellowdogintexas
(22,250 posts)his tales were so depressing! The Little Match Girl is a real bawler.
Did he write anything that wasn't depressing?
At least the Grimms stories were not depressing
Phoenix61
(17,000 posts)The Snow Queen is about good winning over evil. The Emperors New Clothes is about the innocence of a child being able to see truth.
Midnight Writer
(21,738 posts)LSFL
(1,109 posts)Was it Ray Bradbury?
It got me thinking, what if this has already happened? What if it happens all the time?
Mister Ed
(5,928 posts)Set in the near future, when time travel technology has been perfected. But beware! Travelers to the past can inadvertently alter the present...
Paladin
(28,246 posts)First read it when I was 12 or so. To this day, almost 60 years later, I think it's the best short story ever written.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)Ill add it to my list!
Paladin
(28,246 posts)MLAA
(17,274 posts)uppityperson
(115,677 posts)electric_blue68
(14,862 posts)happybird
(4,603 posts)A young girl survived a plane crash in the jungle and the cuts on her arms get infested with maggots, which she removes every day with a splinter of wood. I think it was, or was based on, a true story. Im terrified of the jungle to this day.
I read Stephen Kings Night Shift and Skeleton Crew short story collections at a young age (10 or 11), so just pick one, lol! The Jaunt, The Monkey, Strawberry Spring... yikes.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)Survivor Type... not scary really but the imagery messed with my dreams.
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Amazing story. Not only did she survive the crash, but she survived eleven days alone after that in the Amazon rainforest. The part about the maggots was the most horrifying thing about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juliane_Koepcke#:~:text=As%20a%20teenager%20in%201971,still%20strapped%20to%20her%20seat
happybird
(4,603 posts)Ive wondered for years who she is, what the title of her story was. Its incredible she survived not only the crash, but the following days.
Chipper Chat
(9,676 posts)It taught my brain to conjure up visions. And I found myself IN the story.
Chipper Chat
(9,676 posts)Ok
The Pearl then.
By Steinbeck
Aristus
(66,310 posts)It's longer than a short story, but not long enough to be a novel.
It haunted me in a rather good, pleasant way. I suppose for the 19th Century, it counted as a horror story. But when I read it as a kid, the measured, dreamlike prose, like "Brideshead Revisited" with vampires, made it more of a supernatural romance instead.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)Nice choice.
NNadir
(33,512 posts)It haunted me with the kind of world in which I wanted to live, and in some sense, do.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)Shirley Jackson - The Lottery, Conrad Aiken Mr Arcularis, Pomegranate Seed - Edith Wharton. I remember reading Stephen King's Skeleton Crew when I was in middle school (89 -91) The Mist and Survivor Type (that one in particular) gave me nightmares. It wasn't particularly scary but the imagery of the man eating his limbs really messed with my dreams for a few days.
happybird
(4,603 posts)That was such a crazy story.
The Lawnmower Man got me, too. When the movie came out, I was thinking, Whaaaa?? They are making *that* into a movie? Thankfully, they didnt.
tymorial
(3,433 posts)I always read a ton, still do. It's funny how some stories stick with you while other fall away. That one, The Lottery. I remember when Hollywood turned The Lottery into a TV movie. Dan Cortez was the main character. They changed it a bit to flesh our the plot and character development. There was another short story from a anthology book that I read in 6th grade. It was kind of like the blob if I recall or like a creeping crud kind of thing. It infuriates me that I can't remember it lol. Hell, I can even remember the cover of the book somewhat. It was red and black with minimal writing.
Oh and I just realized that I replied to your post while you replied to mine lol!
happybird
(4,603 posts)Grey Matter? A man drinks a bad beer and slowly becomes a fungus/blob thing.
Man, I love Kings short stories.
LunaSea
(2,892 posts)Norman Spinrads "Carcinoma Angels" and "A Thing of Beauty"
Henry Hasse "He Who Shrank" (okay, actually a novella, but the details remain vivid 50 years later.)
Walleye
(31,005 posts)panader0
(25,816 posts)Walleye
(31,005 posts)sweetloukillbot
(11,004 posts)The Veldt
Kaleidoscope
There Will Come Soft Rains
all stand out...
Oh and Ellisons I Have No Mouth But I Must Scream traumatized me in 3rd grade.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)The Ambassador and The Small Assassin both got to me. Ive taught Dandelion Wine in various forms over the years. Though its a novel its parts make discreet stories.
electric_blue68
(14,862 posts)I'd actually had forgotten about that one. It did creep me out for some years!
sweetloukillbot
(11,004 posts)Totally inappropriate for the class. Even the kid who just played with the Star Wars blueprints was scarred.
captain queeg
(10,157 posts)Someone pretty famous in that genre, but cant remember the name now. Painted the mental picture of humans (I think maybe pirates?) that had fled and hide out in caves below a tomb, lived and reproduced for generations. Some guy stumbled onto a hole under a marker and what he found. Terrifying when I was young and hadn't yet been exposed to years of FX monsters; just my imagination.
I zeroed in on "haunted" but see now it could be interpreted many ways.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)captain queeg
(10,157 posts)It was a short story in some kind of anthology
Onlyserious
(103 posts)Vonnegut considered this to be flawless... Still haunts me.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)Im shocked I hadnt read it before. I can see Vonneguts point. Its quite the journey.
ironflange
(7,781 posts)Paladin
(28,246 posts)Not as good as the brilliant, haunting short story, but nonetheless worthwhile.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)nolabear
(41,959 posts)I always wondered if he had a foot thing. The Little Mermaid was sanitized terribly by Disney and others.
TristanIsolde
(272 posts)When the mechanical butterfly was crushed at the end I felt genuine grief.
yellowdogintexas
(22,250 posts)really creepy.
I loved everything I read of his and was all set to take a seminar except the prof teamed him up with Melville and I said "Nope" I hate Melville
XanaDUer2
(10,638 posts).
nolabear
(41,959 posts)I know Ive read it but cant recall it.
XanaDUer2
(10,638 posts)that's where I. First read it
First Speaker
(4,858 posts)dhill926
(16,336 posts)can't remember where. Africa...South America. I've racked what's left of my brain after 4 years of trump, and can't remember any more specifics, except it scared the shit out of me...
yellowdogintexas
(22,250 posts)I think I read that in 9th grade too.
Charlton Heston was in the movie version. The Naked Jungle
It has been parodied (yep I had to go to WIKI to get the name of the movie) From National Lampoon:
The humor magazine National Lampoon parodied the story in a short story called "Leiningen and the Snails", in which the title character faces a swarm of "army snails", and has "merely three weeks" to think of a way to defend the plantation. He eventually brings in by air enough garlic and butter to cook all the snails into escargot.[citation needed]
rurallib
(62,406 posts)I was @ 13 when I read it and it continues to pop into my mind ever since then, including just the other day.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)Ziggysmom
(3,406 posts)Also The Rocking Horse Winner by DH Lawrence. Though written in the 1920s, it symbolizes the modern worlds greed and overt materialism.
handmade34
(22,756 posts)n/t
Coventina
(27,093 posts)Others have already mentioned "The Lottery."
Another one that seriously disturbed me was "A Good Man is Hard to Find" but I didn't read that one until college.
LeftInTX
(25,224 posts)Apparently it's a play, but we read it like a short story.
yellowdogintexas
(22,250 posts)He really knew how to use the short story format
nolabear
(41,959 posts)His detective stories are really pretty cool too. I had a serious Poe thing as a young teen.
RobinA
(9,888 posts)Also Silent Snow, Secret Snow, but I love that one.
Maraya1969
(22,474 posts)play act that when it is about a little girl freezing to death?????
So yea, she ends up with her grandmother. I can't get past the freezing part.
cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)electric_blue68
(14,862 posts)... the cruelty and loss in that one!
Earlier this year I heard it done on "Short Stories" from public radio by accident
How about the one with the kid and the cornfield?
Surprised no one's mentioned that one!
The Veldt was pretty creepy, too.
And there was a ?Theodore S one about a planet who's ecological system that what ever species happen to land on it, and be stuck there - in this case humans each generation kept devolving back to ? maybe early mammalian form in human's case.
And for one whole book - Childhood's End.
It's interesting with the SF ones (which I'm most familiar with) you've got the literal story with it's internal world logic, and then the more metaphorical aspect in our real world.
I'm heading to sleep - I better look at some puppies & kitten videos first!
Rhiannon12866
(205,161 posts)Strange, I hadn't thought of this in years, but as soon as I read this, that's what immediately came to mind. And I found it on Wikipedia. I'm going to have to mention this to my cousin, she and I pretended to be Bonnie and Sylvia, the beleaguered two main characters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wolves_of_Willoughby_Chase
Trailrider1951
(3,414 posts)I read this short story when I was nine or ten and it really creeped me out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey%27s_Paw
DFW
(54,335 posts)yardwork
(61,588 posts)In addition many others mentioned here, especially Edgar Allen Poe.
There's a trilogy of short stories or novellas that kept me awake all night when I was a kid. I wish I knew the author. I found the book in a library. I think the writer was a British woman. The stories seem to have been set in mid-20th century. They were called ghost stories but were really about domestic violence and psychological abuse of children. I remember the plots of the stories. In the third one, a female teacher is psychologically abusive to one of her students, a lonely girl who seems to have a crush on the teacher. Humiliated by the teacher, the little girl runs into the street and is killed by a car. Later, the little girl's ghost encourages the teacher to jump out a window.
Does anyone recognize the writer or the stories?
DFW
(54,335 posts)By HH Munro, also known as « Saki »
That one was also one of my favorites.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)It was horrifically satisfying.
DFW
(54,335 posts)I remember being immensely satisfied by it, while dimly realizing that maybe I shouldn't find it TOO satisfying.
Stuart G
(38,414 posts)Here is the entire poem....I remember it from 5th grade...that was 60 years ago...
By Leigh Hunt
Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?"The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then
Write me as one that loves his fellow men."
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blest,
And lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.
nolabear
(41,959 posts)Glorfindel
(9,726 posts)He said that it perfectly captured my father's personality, and indeed it did. Thanks for posting it.
Buckeye_Democrat
(14,853 posts)Various passages.
Niagara
(7,595 posts)The Summer People by Shirley Jackson
and
Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates.
liberaltrucker
(9,129 posts)Glorfindel
(9,726 posts)"The Wendigo" by Algernon Blackwood. To this day, I can't sleep with my feet uncovered.