Childhood Books / Stories That Scared You?

I read Salem's Lot the summer that I was 14. We didn't have air-conditioning, but I wouldn't open the blinds in my bedroom at night.

My brother and I read the Hans Holzer ghost-hunter books.

I loved the vampire comics when I was younger (6 - 10 years old0. Dracula, Blackula and the creepy Thing Under the Stairs comics gave me nightmares, but I kept reading them.

Even younger, I had a cool The Sorcerer's Apprentice picture book. I remember loving the illustrations even though they gave me the willies.

I bought a Scholastic reprint of HP Lovecraft's most-anthologized stories in 7th or 8th grade. The cover illustration was this green, scaly fish-guy whose eyes followed you around. BRRR! I used to turn it over at night so I wouldn't see the eyes--even though it was across the room on my bookshelf.

That was the first time I read "The Colour Out of Space." Scared the crap out of me. Still gives me a frisson if I read it in a quiet room all at one sitting.

When I was nine, I received Alfred Hitchcock's Ghostly Gallery. Best scary book for kids.

I can't remember any books scaring me as a child, although when I first saw the Wizard of Oz at age 4 I just about peed my pants over the Wicked Witch of the West. I read Fairy Tales obsessively in my grade school years. One of the few sensible things my father ever did was to take me to a double feature of the original Dracula and Frankenstein when I was ten. Next stop was Dark Shadows until Mom caught wind of the Satanic influences and that was banned in our house, but that didn't stop Dad (the preacher) from giving me paperback copies of Alfred Hitchcock collections and soon after that Lovecraft. Books didn't really "scare" me as much as they mesmerized me. Movies on TV in the late 60s scared me: Pyscho, The Birds, The Fly. Now that I think about it, my early exposure to Gothic and Fairy Tales has really helped shaped my own storytelling sensibility at this stage in my life. True to life heroes and heroines moving through a mystical dimension where supernatural elements become common place, major themes of patricide and matricide, moral issues, stuff like that.

I think it was in the sixth grade that I was caught by a nun reading To Kill A Mockingbird. She took it away from me, saying that it was too mature a book for someone my age. Of course, I had to get another copy then. I found the story pretty terrifying. Back then, I was mainly hooked on Nancy Drew mysteries or Superman comics, so it was a big change.

VC Andrews, Flowers in the Attic.

When I was about 12, there was a radio show that read horror stories at midnight. I still remember one about a malformed twin that was growing out of someone's back and ended up biting him to death.

I've never been that scared before or since. Except . . .

Some years ago I read The Shining in a ski lodge that was closed and empty pre-season -- except for me, acting as -- you guessed it -- the caretaker. An early season storm had closed the road down the canyon. And then, there was an alert through the phone system that meant I had to go down and check on a possible problem in the the boiler room, at the far end of the lodge.

I know that sounds made up, but it's really true. Was I nervous? Oh no, of course not. Not a bit. Didn't faze me.

Of course, I've had to sleep with the lights on ever since.

"Something Wicked This Way Comes". Scrared me, and the ominous feeling Bradbury created from page one has never left me. Any time it's a creepy wind or I feel something's "wrong" I get that same feeling.

I loooooooooved scary stories, supernatural stories, when I was a kid - and my dad encouraged it. So not much scared me. The one that had me hiding under the covers, though, was The Eyes of the Killer Robot. That link is to a reprint with a new, really stupid cover. The original I am pretty sure was an Edward Gorey, so you can imagine how that set the tone. Anyway I was probably 8 or 9 when I read it. And I can still remember sitting up with my lamp on late into the night, too scared to go to sleep before I got to the end.

SPOILERS
This book is set back in like the forties anyway, so it has a creepy old-time feel. And then the major menace in the book is this ancient pitching machine the MCs find - in the shape of a man. Even worse, it turns out that this pitching machine robot comes to life. And what is it powered by? HUMAN EYES. And now it wants the MC's eyes. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Read Stoker's DRACULA at age 12 on a dark night when I was alone. It had me listening for sounds and watching for creatures. The Lugosi film never achieved that effect.

I practically lived with Christopher Pike books in hand all through my pre-teen years. All of 'em. Once my reading level was well beyond pre-teen, I turned to Dean Koontz. Phantoms was my first pick of his and I've been somewhat addicted to his writing ever since.

I never was a Nancy Drew kind of gal... give me stories to make my hair stand on end!

Jcomp said:

Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark series (I own all three, but only the 1st two are really good--awesome illustrations).

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I wore out my copies of these stories. They released an anthology a few years back, and it's on my bookshelf somewhere.

I also read every single Fear Street novel I could get my hands on, plus anything by Christopher Pike and Lois Duncan.

Pet Semetary was the first "grown up" horror novel I read (I think I was thirteen).