Scariest book/ghost story you've ever read

[siamesecat2965]

the original short story "The Birds" by Daphne DuMaurier - which Hitchcock based his movie on.  Again, the unknown, because if I remember correctly, there was no explanation for WHY the birds went berserk, and the story just kind of ended and sort of left you hanging.

Daphne du Maurier wrote some wonderful stories of suspense, both novels and short stories.  Her novel Rebecca isn't a ghost story, but is a wonderful novel with a lot of suspense that is hard to put down once you start reading.

One of my favorite books!  The movie isn't bad either; I love Hitchcock, although North by Northwest and Dial M for Murder are probably my favorites of his.

[Giggity]

Slightly OT, but in the same vein, I cannot watch any shows about hunting ghosts or people's homes being possessed or having ghosts.  I don't have nightmares about the actual shows, but very uneasy and freaky dreams.  And not much scares me, aside from spiders, but this type of show I just can't handle.  Ithink its the unknown part of it.  Is it really real, or not?

The way I see it, if those were real, and ghosts did exist, it's highly unlikely we'd find out about it on Nat Geo or TLC or whatever. That's a CNN story.

[doodlemor]

Another of my favorites is The Anastasia Syndrome and Other Stores, by Mary Higgins Clark.  These are great scary stories with a supernatural edge.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Anastasia-Syndrome-Other-Stories/dp/0671701231

[Thipu1]

'Pet Semetary' but that was for a particular reason.

When we first moved to our apartment, it was common to leave the front doors open.  Our neighbor had two cats who were used to roaming in and out at will. Late in the evening it wasn't uncommon for her to knock on the door and ask, 'Is Barneby in there?'

I was reading the Stephen King book on the 'throne' and had just gotten to the part where the dead cat surfaces in the shower.  A small head surfaced and meowed next to my knee.   

I jumped what felt like three feet in the air and yelled.

Yeah.  That was a scary book. 

[Miriam]

Did anyone else say The Turn of the Screw? If anything scares me it's the unsure possibility of ghosts and possession. Thanks psychology.

[sourwolf]

'Pet Semetary' but that was for a particular reason.

When we first moved to our apartment, it was common to leave the front doors open.  Our neighbor had two cats who were used to roaming in and out at will. Late in the evening it wasn't uncommon for her to knock on the door and ask, 'Is Barneby in there?'

I was reading the Stephen King book on the 'throne' and had just gotten to the part where the dead cat surfaces in the shower.  A small head surfaced and meowed next to my knee.   

I jumped what felt like three feet in the air and yelled.

Yeah.  That was a scary book.

To me this is one of the absolute creepiest Stephen King books.  Between the flashbacks and nightmares of the scary sister and the little boy it was really terrifying.


I don't know if it's the scariest book I ever read but the most traumatizing one was this YA book called Whisper of Death by Christopher Pike.  I read it when I was 11 or so and I whenever I had a nightmare for the next couple of years there was almost always at least one element of that book in it.  I found it a couple of years ago and flipped through it to see if I had just been too young to read it.  Nope, it was just as disturbing. This is a much less creepy summery of the book ( triggers - rape, abortion) http://likepike.blogspot.com/2008/10/whisper-of-death.html

[Kaora]

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...

Remember how I say I live near Death Valley?  Dad can't help but point out the history of the song every time he plays the White Album.  I've kind of grown to ignore it at this point.  Never read a book about it, though.

My dad kind of desensitized me to this, Edgar Allen Poe, and Lovecraft's works.

General scary, there's an entire topic on eHell, and there's a forum called Paranormal Soup.  The latter is reports of stories from personal experiences, and most of them tend to be true.  My favorite from the board was a story of a nightshift worker doing guard duty at a building.  He heard the alarm trip, went to check it out himself, and saw a very ghostly man in an older looking guard's uniform, pacing the scene.  The ghost turned around, saw the corporeal guard, and charged him, looking to be screaming, because he was guarding his property!  If I remember right, the ghost dissolved as he charged and kind of sunk into the ground.  That scared me good for weeks!

(If I could find the link for that story, I'll share it.)

There also exists a true anomaly called Number Stations, and Oddity Stations.  They are spy stations, but sometimes, the recordings themselves are enough to freak someone out.  Like Swedish Rhapsody.

http://www.swldxer.co.uk/swedrhap.mp3

Taken from this page:

http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page13.html

There's also Papa November:

http://www.swldxer.co.uk/pnjun84.wma

From:

http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page9.html

Yes, I enjoy tracking these... we only get V2a on any regularity, though.  That, and PN and Swedish Rhapsody have been off the air for a few years.  Papa November much longer, though.

I enjoy real life creepies the most, so I hope no one minds my suggestions.  The best kind of unknowns are the real ones!

[Thipu1]

Ah, 'The Turn of the Screw'. 

That has to be one of the most scary things ever written because it leaves so much to the imagination.

After a few readings you put the thing down because you begin to realize that the creepiness is coming from within your own head.     

[siamesecat2965]

And how timely is this? 

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/03/showbiz/movies/amityville-horror-house-for-sale/index.html?hpt=hp_bn9

[lady_disdain]

There also exists a true anomaly called Number Stations, and Oddity Stations.  They are spy stations, but sometimes, the recordings themselves are enough to freak someone out.  Like Swedish Rhapsody.

http://www.swldxer.co.uk/swedrhap.mp3

Taken from this page:

http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page13.html

Is it being used to encode information? It has some very odd high frequencies (responsible for the creepiness, I imagine), which could be digital information. I would love to see a fourier transform.

[Thipu1]

Another really chilling book is 'Harriet'  by Elizabeth Jenkins. 

This was written in the 1930s and is said to be based on a true case that came before the courts in Victorian England. 

There is neither blood nor gore in 'Harriet'.  That's what makes it so chilling. The horror comes from the casual greed of the characters and the erosion of care for the person who provides the money upon which these characters depend. 

In the beginning, readers can easily see themselves doing the little bits of neglect because the title character is very annoying.  As the book progresses, the reader is forced to consider how far s/he would go. 

It's a hard read but a rewarding one.

[doodlemor]

Here is a link to a book that I recently finished, Psycho USA:  Famous American Killers You Never Heard Of.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345524470/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00

Most of these people were notorious during their time, but history has forgotten them.  I was struck by their brutality in the times before guns were readily available.

[bansidhe]

Here's a little Halloween reading list. Sorry if any are repeats from earlier posts.

His Face All Red:
http://emcarroll.com/comics/faceallred/01.html
Really, really well done. I love this thing.

The Enigma of Amigara Fault:
http://brasscockroach.com/h4ll0w33n2007/manga/Amigara-Full/Amigara.html
Translated from Japanese. Read panels from right to left.

The Dionaea House:
http://www.dionaea-house.com/

Ted’s Caving Page:
http://www.angelfire.com/trek/caver/

The Dibbuk Box:
http://www.dibbukbox.com/

[Kaora]

There also exists a true anomaly called Number Stations, and Oddity Stations.  They are spy stations, but sometimes, the recordings themselves are enough to freak someone out.  Like Swedish Rhapsody.

http://www.swldxer.co.uk/swedrhap.mp3

Taken from this page:

http://www.simonmason.karoo.net/page13.html

Is it being used to encode information? It has some very odd high frequencies (responsible for the creepiness, I imagine), which could be digital information. I would love to see a fourier transform.

Maybe, but too my knowledge, it doesn't appear in all recordings.  As it was probably caught on-air, with mic and tape recorder and no lineout, I'd also think it's a machine noise.  Could easily be someone's airconditioner.

And they are meant to convey information as numbers sent to one time pads, which they decrypt the message from.  They are structured into formats usually indicating groups, people they are sending the message to and the contents.  Though I do love that theory of the high frequencies holding information...

Yes, a spectrogram also shows the high noise, as well.  I think more people are also creeped out by an endless music box with what sounds like a little girl chanting mechanical numbers.

There's one on this set that lacks the high noise:

http://archive.org/details/ird059

Since you're interested, here's what a spectrogram of the entire track shows:

http://imageshack.us/a/img90/138/srspec.jpg

[PeterM]

Is anyone flashing back to Bill Cosby's story of staying too late at the movie theatre (the boys were too scared to come out from under the seats), then having to walk home? "Oooh, Weird Harold! It's ten o'clock! Ten o'clock is when the monsters come out...."

My dad and his siblings walked a mile into town to see the movie "Them" way back in the day. For those unfamiliar with this awesome classic, it's about giant ants. They make a creepy "Ree-ree-ree!" sound when they're closing in.

They enjoyed the movie, but it was dark by the time they got out. They lived in the country, so there were many, many crickets "Ree-ree-ree!"ing their little hearts out all over the place. My dad's pretty sure they broke the sound barrier on the way home.