# Creep Me Out With Your Closing Line.... **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 14, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850 "2005-05-14T18:54:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/81 "2005-05-16T12:59:30Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > “Of course I know what Love is. > A Boy loves his Dog.” Ellison again. “A Boy and His Dog” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/82 "2005-05-16T13:32:01Z")
"…Into spores. Billions of them. Waiting to be fed." ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/83 "2005-05-16T13:34:38Z")
> [@Ukulele Ike](#): > > Geez Louise, we already did that one. From Bradbury’s _Dandelion Wine_. You didn’t have to BAN her. Wow, tough crowd. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/84 "2005-05-16T13:47:31Z")
> [@](#): > > “Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!” > Some of my favourites have already been taken. **The Black Cat** by Edgar Allen Poe. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/85 "2005-05-16T14:06:28Z")
How about this one?: “For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance - or identity - were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley.” ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/86 "2005-05-16T14:19:27Z")
The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There came a knock at the door. (Not an exact quote, but close enough.) ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/87 "2005-05-16T14:20:44Z")
It was a photograph from life. (Again not an exact quote, but it’ll door.) ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/88 "2005-05-16T14:22:42Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > How about this one?: > > “For the things in the chair, perfect to the last, subtle detail of microscopic resemblance - or identity - were the face and hands of Henry Wentworth Akeley.” Gotcha! Lovecraft, _The Whisperer in Darkness_ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/89 "2005-05-16T14:27:04Z")
> [@](#): > > It was a photograph from life. > > (Again not an exact quote, but it’ll door.) Gotcha back! Lovecraft again, **Pickman’s Model** ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/90 "2005-05-16T14:28:25Z")
> [@](#): > > The last man on earth sat alone in a room. There came a knock at the door. > > (Not an exact quote, but close enough.) I suspect this one has been used more than once. My favorite, though, uses this as (almost) first _and_ last line, and , surprisingly, it’s not creepy. **Knock** , by Fredric Brown. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Carnage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/max_carnage/32/12775_2.png) [@Max\_Carnage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Carnage)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/91 "2005-05-16T14:42:08Z")
\*“It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her. \* ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/92 "2005-05-16T14:50:40Z")
> [@](#): > > “It isn’t fair, it isn’t right,” Mrs. Hutchinson screamed, and then they were upon her. I think this is Shirley Jackson, **The Lottery**. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/93 "2005-05-16T18:35:56Z")
Howsabout this one: > [@](#): > > It said other things before the Jaunt attendants were finally able to bear it away, rolling its couch swiftly away as it screamed and clawed at the eyes that had seen the unseeable forever and ever; it said other things, and then it began to scream, but Mark Oates didn’t hear it because by then he was screaming himself. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/94 "2005-05-16T18:42:03Z")
Oh yeah, and this one: > [@](#): > > “My sweet little blue-eyed girl,” he said in a half-sung sigh that had nothing to do with her brown eyes but was taken up just the same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him—so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/95 "2005-05-16T18:54:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Howsabout this one: > > Quote: > It said other things before the Jaunt attendants were finally able to bear it away, rolling its couch swiftly away as it screamed and clawed at the eyes that had seen the unseeable forever and ever; it said other things, and then it began to scream, but Mark Oates didn’t hear it because by then he was screaming himself. **The Jaunt** , a short SF story with a horror twist that was published in 1981 in (I think) Fantasy and Science Fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Beadalin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3be4f8/32.png) [@Beadalin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beadalin)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/96 "2005-05-16T19:11:53Z")
You got it – but then, it’s a Stephen King story, so I figured you’d have it pegged in no time. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Cornelius\_Tuggerson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cornelius_Tuggerson)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/97 "2005-05-16T19:41:11Z")
> [@Susie Derkins](#): > > Give us strength, oh Lord, to let our children starve. This is from some sci-fi story where they invent a book-writing computer that puts human authors out of business, yet they still continue writing. Its name eludes me at the moment. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/98 "2005-05-16T19:48:25Z")
Real Easy one, if you use a Search engine: “…But if you find a Laxian Key you can name your own price!” ---
**Author:** ![dotchan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@dotchan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dotchan)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/99 "2005-05-16T20:08:53Z")
> [@](#): > > “My sweet little blue-eyed girl,” he said in a half-sung sigh that had nothing to do with her brown eyes but was taken up just the same by the vast sunlit reaches of the land behind him and on all sides of him—so much land that Connie had never seen before and did not recognize except to know that she was going to it. _Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been_, Joyce Carol Oats. (It’d creep me out a lot more if I knew what the heck was going on. 😕 ) My contribution: > [@](#): > > Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils, we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Sauron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Sauron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sauron)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2005, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850/100 "2005-05-16T20:24:01Z")
I can’t remember the name of this story, or its author, but I can recall large portions of it word-for-word. The closing line is: “‘Solely,’ he said, ‘in order to work up an appetite.’” In the context of the story, it’s pretty off-putting. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/creep-me-out-with-your-closing-line/303850.md?page=6)