“I have no mouth, and I must scream…”
I don’t remember the story or the author, but…
“Behind her in the darkness of the living room, someone cleared his throat…”
What’s the source of that?
It’s from The Man With the X-Ray Eyes (at least I think that’s what it was called). It’s an old sci-fi movie about a mad scientist type who invents some kind of eye drops that give him X-ray vision. At first it’s cool because he can see through clothes and stuff but then the whole thing starts to go ape shit on him and all he sees is like skeletons and he can’t sleep because he can see through his eyelids. Eventually he starts seeing “other dimensions” and he starts to go crazy. At the end he finally plucks his own eyeballs out. The theater cut of the movie just ends with a shot of his empty eye-sockets but the original cut ends with him screaming the line I quoted.
Oh, I read “The Humanist Jew” YEARS ago. That’s the one where the rich guy moves into a secret chamber in his house during the Holocaust and depends on his gentile servants to bring him food and water, and they kinda don’t ever bother to tell him that the War is over…
“I know, because I’ve tried. And tried. And tried.”
That’s the Jack Finney story about the rocket ship to Paradise. Blanking on the title at the moment.
“Behind her, in the living room, somebody cleared his throat.”
That’s Ray Bradbury, a chapter from Dandelion Wine. But I’ve seen it lifted out and printed as a short story.
“In pace requiescat!”
Poe, “Cask of Amontillado.”
Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado”, n’est-pas?
My first one is “Love Me, Love Me, Love Me”. The first person narrator is destroyed by a ghost whose touch causes the flesh to rot.
Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops–but it was a good day.
“And then some fool ruined it all by turning on the light.”
I can’t remember the title and the quote might not be exact, but it’s Bradybury.
“It’s a Good Life” I wanna say Jerome Bixby.
Harlan Ellison. The quote is the title as well.
Both right.
Let’s do an easy one -
Regards,
Shodan
The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C. Clarke
Yep, Jerome Bixby. Definitely a contender for Creepiest Story of All Time.
I’ll try one:
“Why, she wouldn’t even harm a fly…”
The Bad Seed?
Nope.
Well if anyone has read the book they’ll spot it in a second.
“I am not so glad. All day it is cold in here. The chain comes slow out of the wall. I have a bad anger with mother and father… If they try to beat me again I’ll hurt them. I will.”
Psycho.
Nobody has gotten mine from yesterday:
“From the burning world beyond the studio came the wind whisper of the plague of locusts.”
Psycho.