Books that made you afraid

Charke

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I'm a big movie goer. When I was a kid I saw Poltergiest and it scared the *#^@ out of me. It was years before I saw another horror movie and I have phobias from that movie I retain even today. However, like hot sauce, I really got into scary movies. Since then I've seen two movies that really scared me. (Signs and Blair Witch - which pick on your imagination)

I could never imagine a story scaring me as much as a movie, but I'd love to hear about them. Hitchcock did a story about a killer threatens the reader. It actually scared me for a minute but it wasn't the "can't go outside at night for weeks" that I got with Blair Witch. I guess I'm asking - Can you write a book that is terrifying to a jaded horror vet?

Side topic; When South Park did the episode about Scrotim McBooger Balls, the book that made you physically ill immediately upon reading it, I spent months wondering if crafting such a book could be possible. I don't think so, but the idea continues to intrigue me.

- Mark Charke
 
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Calla Lily

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I haven't yet written such a book (another goal to reach for!), but the only story that ever scared me in broad daylight is HP Lovecraft's "The Colour Out of Space."

In a similar vein, the scene in The Stand where the guy has to walk over countless decaying bodies in a pitch-black Lincoln Tunnel creeped me out. And McCammon's Swan Song, which I read in the summer, spooked me so much that I had to put it down and go outside to make sure trees were still green, the sky was still blue, and the world hadn't been nuked.
 
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kikazaru

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When I was a teenager I read The Exorcist. It scared me so badly, I had to sleep with the light on for weeks.
 
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Tazlima

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Hmmm, I can't remember any books that terrified me like that upon reading. However, there was one book (Can't recall the title - 99% sure it was a Dean Koontz novel), that managed to terrify me after the fact.

I was 16, with a freshly minted driver's license, and had obtained permission to drive two hours away to visit my brother at college. My first solo road trip! The old sedan I usually drove was in the shop, so I took my parent's new-to-them pickup truck. Partway through the trip, the sun began to set. That's when I realized that I had no idea how to turn on the headlights in this vehicle. I flicked switches and hit buttons, and managed to turn on the running lights, but the actual headlights eluded me.

Well, I was in the middle of nowhere, so there wasn't anything to do except keep going until I could pull into a gas station and see if someone there could tell me how to turn on the lights.

Five minutes later, still well before the sun had actually set, the lack of headlights got me pulled over. Highway and empty desert as far as the eye can see in both directions...
and I'd recently read a horror novel that featured a serial killer who approached victims by pretending to be a cop. Scenes from the novel flashed through my mind, and I freaked out.

By the time the officer reached the window, I was sobbing, partly because I was worried about getting in trouble for getting a *gasp* ticket! But mostly because on the off-chance he was a serial killer in disguise, I was all alone with nowhere to run.

Lol, looking back, I kind of feel sorry for the cop. He was pretty young, maybe mid-20s, and he seemed rather taken aback by my tears, since, from his perspective, it was just a traffic stop and not a big deal. This was the early days of car phones, and my parents had insisted I take ours with me in case of emergency - one of those big chunky suckers that plugged into the cigarette lighter. After he took my license and walked back to his car to run my info, I remembered I had the phone and called home in a panic.

So back he comes to the window, and I'm still sobbing and I hold out the phone and blubber, "My mom wants to talk to you." He actually looked a bit scared when I did that, which made me feel better. I figured any cop scared of talking to my mom probably wasn't a murderer.

So he takes the phone, and looks relieved when he realizes she's not going to scream at him, and they work things out. Turns out, with night falling, and me being far from town, and alone, and crying, and with a suitcase in the passenger seat and some weak-ass story about visiting my brother, he was concerned I might be a runaway. My mom clarified that I was fine, and just crying because... well... teenagers.

He showed me how to turn on the lights and gave me a paper towel so I could blow my nose. He did still gave me a ticket, for driving without insurance (we'd just purchased the vehicle and it actually was insured, we just hadn't recieved the ID cards in the mail yet - so that was dismissed easily enough).

I never told either of them the true reason I was crying. Props to Koontz for scaring me that badly!
 
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mrsmig

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I remember reading Stephen King's The Shining in the bathtub, and being so frightened that I had to get out, get dried off in a hurry and go to a part of the house where other people were. I think it was the scene where Danny thinks the topiary is moving.
 
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Cal_Noble

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Unfortunately, none. There are some I was anxious to speed through and see what happened to the characters. Perhaps I was even a bit scared for them. But none scared me like The Exorcist (movie) when I was 9 or 10. Been chasing that feeling since. LOL
 

RedRajah

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When I was a kid in the 80's, there was an old "Choose Your Own Adventure" knock-off (Which-Way) called "Invasion of the Black Slime" that was surprisingly creepy and nightmare-inducing for the time.
 
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screenscope

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Stephen King's Pet Sematary and his son Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box. Had to read both of those during daylight hours!
 

ShaunHorton

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I read Stephen King's IT in 8th-9th grade. I don't remember what part it was, but about 2/3rds of the way in, I was so creeped out that I spent the next couple days sleeping with the light on. No other book has made me anxious, nervous, or anything like that, ever.
 

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I started reading Stephen King pretty young and never really got scared, despite having been an easily scared child. But the first time I read Lovecraft, I couldn't sleep for a week.
 

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Does non-fiction count? If so, then I spent nights awake when and after I read Whitley Strieber's "Communion" a true story about an alien. Just looking at the cover so I could spell the author's name right makes me shudder. I don't know if the story was true or not, but it did make me wonder and very afraid.

:beam::chair
 

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The only book that really got me scared, so much so that I didn't finish it, was The Haunting of Las Vegas. It was many years ago and might not get to me now but at the time it scared the shit out of me. I think I slept with my light on for a couple nights before ending it.

King has some really creepy books that I loved. IT and Rage are magical in this area. Those are probably the two most disturbing novels I have read.

1984 and The Talented Mr. Ripley also gave me the willies.
 
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zahra

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'The Night of The Grizzly' - a true account of two fatal bear attacks in the 70s. Jack Olsen writes it like suspense; you don't know who the bears are going to eat although you know there were two victims. The writing was so good, I kept looking over my shoulder. And I was reading it in London. On the third floor of my flat. Hey, I'm gonna read it again, in the park, this summer, and hope I don't make a fool of myself ...
 

MadAlice

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Stephen King's earlier works. Man he had a way of creeping me the heck out and putting me right in the head of whoever was being terrified at the time. Haven't really found anyone else who could do it yet.
 

BlackKnight1974

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The Library Policeman by Stephen King - I was stupidly reading it into the small hours one night, and it scared me half to death.
 

soulrodeo

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I've read a thousand horror books and never been affected by them. It's a source of great frustration for me. I think I'm too much of a visual person -- I need to see the horror in order to be afraid of it. My brain doesn't do a good enough job of conjuring up the scary imagery (one reason why I would never attempt to write horror). I'd like to say that maybe it's because I don't scare easy, but I'm actually the worst person to watch a horror movie with. Have to pause the thing every 5 minutes and calm myself down, lol.

I would love to find that holy grail horror book that forces me to sleep with the lights on. But I tend to think these days that if not even Stephen King can do it for me, then who could? The only book that's ever really made me feel somewhat uncomfortable is Misery.
 

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I never found Horror that scary and I think it's because I don't believe in supernatural things and if you don't believe in them you can't be afraid of them. So these stories like "The Exorcist" was enjoyable to read and obviously creepy, it didn't scare me.
Then I read "The Shining" and it gave me nightmares. Because it was so plausible. Because the idea of someone I was close to and loved slowly going insane and wanting to harm me was so frightening to me. I realized how fragile the human mind can be and how dark it can go when it becomes unstable.
Now I try to lean more towards Psychological Horror instead of supernatural Horror.
 

Calla Lily

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An interesting read for me this weekend: I picked up a book called The Bridge by Skipp & Spector at a giant used book sale last month. The back cover copy described "terrifying environmental horror." Sounded right up my alley. I started it on Friday and on page three I realized I'd read this book about 20 years ago. I checked the copyright: 1991 and 2011. Okay, I thought, they got a heck of a deal with a publisher to update an old book. At chapter 3 I was analyzing the updates from what I remembered. At chapter 7 I threw the book down.

When this writing duo got older, they got nastier and more cynical. 98% of the characters were evil+stupid, evil+smart, or blatant Redshirts. I remembered a well-written, truly scary book about PO'd nature wreaking ultimate revenge. The updated version is amoral splatterpunk with an omniscient narrator sneering at everyone and rubbing their hands in slavering glee.

I wasn't scared. I was bored and disgusted. And disappointed.
 

pattmayne

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Pet Semetary frightened me more than any other book. I won't spoil it by explaining why, but it's a PERFECT horror novel.

Thomas Ligotti's short fiction definitely chills me deeply. It's so bizarre and otherworldly, literary in its prose style but nihilistic punk in its irreverence and near-hostility towards existence & social norms, and cosmic in its scope and imagery.

The Collector
by John Fowles is as bleak as it gets.

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy is technically a western, almost a cowboy book... but it's a surreal horrorscape of racist slaughter and humans-as-demons.
 

PiaSophia

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I loooovelovelove horror. Movies tend to creep me out more than books, unfortunately, the audio/music can give me chills even if the visuals aren't all that scary.

But, books.

For fiction I would go for Roald Dahl's good ol' short stories. They are amazing and creepy and genuinely scary at times. Also, The Handmaid's Tale (although that scared me in a non-jump scare kind of way, but really scared me anyway). And Rosemary's Baby (although the movie actually ruined it a little for me).

For non-fiction there's this book in Dutch of which I haven't yet found an English translation. It's a collection of stories of the survivors of the Bosnian genocide. It kept me awake at night and the memories of slaughter and rape haunted me for months. You should look up Hatidza Hren, I bet she has collected something in English as well...
 

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The audio book of Psycho that was more of a radio theater style with the voices, that really freaked me out. Listened to it about seven years ago and have been trying to find it ever since.
 

katfireblade

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I remember when I was a kid--6th grade--I got hold of one of the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books. I was reading it in choir class instead of doing what I was supposed to because that first story was so good I couldn't stop. These days I know it was just a retelling of an urban legend, but the author set the mood so well--the missing friend and the slow unnatural thump of footsteps on the stairs coming closer...closer...until the heroine knew her friend was standing in the room with her, and she reached out to touch her only to feel a bloody stump where her head had been. My heart about leapt right out of my chest--in a crowded, singing classroom--and I put the book away.

Then I needed to go to the bathroom. So I left the classroom and found myself in a long (scene from The Shining long), utterly deserted, red carpeted hallway.

All alone.


I ran to the bathroom like a big, terrified, 6th grade baby.
 
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