Happy Halloween, kids! Tell me, quickly: what's the scariest short story you know?
I'm thinking something by Lovecraft or Poe, but maybe those are more creepily atmospheric than actually scary (though any mention of the Mad Arab makes my skin tingle). Some of the tales in Kate Bernheimer's collection My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me are good and creepy, but not really horrifying, if you know what I mean. Don't try to push any King on me, either; he never really scared me.
Ray Bradbury's October Country is still the first thing that comes to mind when someone asks me about scary stories. It's a collection, and one story in particular is about some goo in a jar that for whatever reason has always stayed with me and makes the back of my brain feel bitter somehow.
ReplyDeleteHappy Halloween!
I must have read every Edgar Allen Poe story as a kid. Premature Burial was the creepiest. It gave me chills thinking about it.
ReplyDeleteBooo
Uhhh, I try to stay away from scary, so I'm no good here.
ReplyDeleteOh, maybe Shirley Jackson! I remember the Ray Bradbury collection; it was creepy.
ReplyDeleteCharlie, the Poe story that creeped me out most was The Fall of the House of Usher.
"The last man on earth sat alone in a room. Suddenly there was a knock at the door."
ReplyDelete"It was the last woman on earth. 'Did you mow the lawn?' she asked."
ReplyDeleteHa!
ReplyDelete"Oh, for the love of...I thought you were friggin' dead," the man said.
ReplyDelete"I am," she said. "Well, technically, I'm undead."
ReplyDelete"Just kidding," she said.
ReplyDeleteShe stepped inside, not bothering to wipe her feet. She had been so meticulous about clean floors before.
ReplyDeleteReally, I'm beginning to understand why my stories never go anywhere!
ReplyDeleteNow her tennis shoes left curiously crosshatched tracks, punctuated here and there by splattering drips from the hatchet she clutched in her gory right hand.
ReplyDeleteI like "Survivor Type" by Stephen King. It's first person about a surgeon who was shipwrecked and stranded on deserted island and resorts to cannibalizing himself to stay alive.
ReplyDeleteIf not that, I'd have to dig through the Stephen King short story collections and pick another. He has a lot of them to choose from.
Rick, I don't know "Survivor Type" but it sounds pretty ick. I'll have to look it up. It might be more gross than scary to me. Do you know Kafka's "Penal Colony?"
ReplyDeleteI will say that "Carrie" is a really damned scary book. So much going on under the surface.
Maybe Shirley Jackson's "Enoch." That one gives me headaches to read.
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Which I read when I was about 13. It was probably the last scary book I intentionally read. I'm a lot like Michelle in that I'd rather not be scared.
ReplyDeleteSomething Wicked... is a pretty scary book. But don't you think Shakespeare's 3 witches with their cauldron and dead baby are scarier?
ReplyDeleteAny other scary novels people could recommend? The last thriller-type novel I read was Demon Theory by Stephen Graham Jones, which was both freaky and creatively rendered (written like a self-conscious screen play). I'd love to hear some other recommendations! Thrillers though, not gross-out stories. Happy Halloween!
ReplyDeleteI love Poe, but the scariest short story I can think of is Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." To me it's far scarier than Poe because there's nothing supernatural; it's all about the evil human beings can bring themselves to do. *shudder*
ReplyDeleteOh no Scott; put down the knife :)
ReplyDeleteHappy Halloween all.
........dhole
Donna, that pumpkin deserved everything it got.
ReplyDeleteLOVE the pics. :)
ReplyDelete