Scariest book/ghost story you've ever read

[Amalthea]

Japanese Halloween is way too cutesy.  I need some scary.  Help?

[MindsEye]

What about the classics?

If you like eldrich horror - try Lovecraft
If you like vampires - Carmilla, Dracula, Varney the Vampira... (NOT Twilight)
If you like bargains with the Devil - The Picture of Dorian Gray

[MariaE]

Top Ten Halloween Reads

[Solanna Dryden]

When I was a kid I had this book:

http://www.amazon.ca/Phone-Call-Ghost-Strange-America/dp/0671682423/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1349177902&sr=1-5

For a kid's book, it was pretty freaking scary! I think even now as an adult I'd find it scary! And the one about the "thing" in the back bedroom, with that picture...*shudder*

[BarensMom]

Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" scared the bejeebers out of me as a kid.  Both the book and the movie still have the power to unsettle me.

"The Shining" is another book that I'm not comfortable rereading.  Kubrick's movie made a mockery of the true creepiness of the book.

[Two Ravens]

"The Colour out of Space" by Lovecraft freaked me right out, and I was in college when I read it.

[JenJay]

The Shining (the book, not the movie). I had to read it in little chunks so I could sleep at night.

[Shoo]

The Exorcist.  I won't let my daughter read or watch it (she's 12....that's when I first read it and I regret it!)

[rose red]

The Amityville Horror.  I read lots of scary/horror books (especially true stories) and I don't know why that one scares me the most.  I can't keep it in the house (remember Friends Joey keeping The Shining in the freezer?  I know how he feels.)

I don't care if it's a hoax, it's darn scary.

[siamesecat2965]

Helter, Skelter - when I read it in HS.  Sscared the bejeebus out of me, so I finally realized I could not read it before going to bed!  Re-read it last year, and I was fine, although while it didn't give me nightmares, it gave me very strange dreams.  I think a lot of this had to do with the fact that John LIst, who murdered his whole family, and disappeared for many years, was from my town, about 3 blocks from where I lived.  And at that point, he was still on the run. 

The Amityville Horror. I still remember one part where they said something about "activity" about 3-something am, which is supposedly when the actual murders in the house took place.  So even now, 30 so years later, if I wake up around that time, I get slightly freaked out.  I don't know why, but that book had a lasting, not good, impression on me.

[siamesecat2965]

The Amityville Horror.  I read lots of scary/horror books (especially true stories) and I don't know why that one scares me the most.  I can't keep it in the house (remember Friends Joey keeping The Shining in the freezer?  I know how he feels.)

I don't care if it's a hoax, it's darn scary.

I posted just as you were, and YES - i know its a hoax too, but it really did freak me out then, and still does now.

[violinp]

The Exorcist.  I won't let my daughter read or watch it (she's 12....that's when I first read it and I regret it!)

I will never read that book. When the movie first came out, my mom's dad read the book. When he'd gotten to the part where the bed was moving, my mom, who was 9 at the time, came downstairs and said, "Dad, my bed jumped."  Gramps shut the book and never picked it up again.

The scariest book I ever read was this Appalachian ghost story book, with stuff about the Blair Witch and stuff. The scariest story in that book was about a family with a little boy, and the little boy said there was a man in his closet. His parents didn't believe him, but two days later, they went to wake him up, and he was gone. They searched for him for weeks, but they couldn't find him at all. Finally, they'd given up hope and the parents went into his room to grieve...when they saw the little boy, sitting on his bed! They asked him who took him, and he said, "The man in the closet."

...I really, really, should not have read books that scary at the age of 9.

[doodlemor]

Way back in the '70's or '80's I read a book about cases of demonic possession that were certified as genuine by the Catholic church.  It was really, really frightening. 

I can't remember the exact title, but here is the first Amazon search page for "demonic possession."

http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&field-keywords=demonic%20possession&index=blended&link_code=qs&sourceid=Mozilla-search&tag=mozilla-20

I believe that the author of the book I read was Malachi Martin, a priest, but I'm not 100% sure.  A book by Martin is listed on the page.

Someone borrowed the book from me, and it was so scary that I didn't ask for it back.

[EmmaJ.]

Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" scared the bejeebers out of me as a kid.  Both the book and the movie still have the power to unsettle me.

Ooooooh yes.  It scared me when I first read it, and then made the mistake of re-reading it as an adult.  It was worse the second time!!

[magicdomino]

Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House" scared the bejeebers out of me as a kid.  Both the book and the movie still have the power to unsettle me.

"The Shining" is another book that I'm not comfortable rereading.  Kubrick's movie made a mockery of the true creepiness of the book.

Strong second for "The Haunting of Hill House."  It starts scary:

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill house, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for 80 years and might for 80 more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone."

As for "The Shining," you will never look at topiary the same way again.     Seriously, there are plenty of scary things in the Overlook Hotel, but the topiary garden, like Hitchcock's crows, still haunt me.