# Identify this horror genre story? (Spoilers, of course) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 17, 2019, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634 "2019-06-17T03:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/1 "2019-06-17T03:57:03Z")
I think this was a long-ish short story, probably in a collection. I read it a long time ago, and I always thought it was by Steven King, but I don’t really know. It concerns a man who more than reads minds, the thoughts (and feelings?) of other people really intrude into his head in a way he can’t control, so he heads out of cities and into the underpopulated southwest. He comes to a ranch run by a woman, and all he gets from her mind is white noise, so he decides he can stay there and work in peace. Later she tries to seduce him (she is a little older) and apparently her plan all along was to murder him, the first step of which was going to be to chomp on his dick with steel teeth. But at the last minute her real intent comes through so he escapes the room and goes into an outbuilding with a freezer room (was it locked before? I don’t remember) and finds bodies or parts of bodies of other men in there. I think he escapes in the end, but I don’t remember what happens after that. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2019, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/2 "2019-06-17T13:13:14Z")
> [@Roderick\_Femm](#): > > I think this was a long-ish short story, probably in a collection. I read it a long time ago, and I always thought it was by Steven King, but I don’t really know. > > It concerns a man who more than reads minds, the thoughts (and feelings?) of other people really intrude into his head in a way he can’t control, so he heads out of cities and into the underpopulated southwest. He comes to a ranch run by a woman, and all he gets from her mind is white noise, so he decides he can stay there and work in peace. Later she tries to seduce him (she is a little older) > > and apparently her plan all along was to murder him, the first step of which was going to be to chomp on his dick with steel teeth. But at the last minute her real intent comes through so he escapes the room and goes into an outbuilding with a freezer room (was it locked before? I don’t remember) and finds bodies or parts of bodies of other men in there. I think he escapes in the end, but I don’t remember what happens after that. Okay, well, it’s not Stephen King’s. I can say that much. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/3 "2019-06-18T00:09:25Z")
This is going to take a long time if the process of elimination is all we have to go on. But I appreciate the information. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/4 "2019-06-18T01:11:04Z")
It’s not…M.R. James or Arthur Machen or Algernon Blackwood or Oliver Onions or Sheridan LeFanu… None of those guys incorporated steel-teeth dick-chomping into their tales of ghostly terror. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/5 "2019-06-18T05:20:46Z")
Perhaps horror isn’t the right genre, but I don’t know what else it might be. It’s not ghosts or vampires or monsters (except for a very human psycho woman). It’s not science fiction or fantasy or mystery or suspense or romance. Anyway, that’s why I thought it might have been Stephen King (sorry I misspelled earlier), it sort of fits his oeuvre. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/6 "2019-06-18T06:22:21Z")
Jesus Christ that’s not horror that’s nightmare fuel. ---
**Author:** ![Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b2d939/32.png) [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Go_Arachnid_Laser_1)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/7 "2019-06-18T06:40:52Z")
I haven’t read all of Charlotte Bronte’s oeuvre, but I think we may discard her too. Emily, on the other hand, I’m not so sure… ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/8 "2019-06-18T15:26:17Z")
> [@Go\_Arachnid\_Laser](#): > > I haven’t read all of Charlotte Bronte’s oeuvre, but I think we may discard her too. Are you sure? This general plot (boy finally meets suitable girl, despite going to her residence can’t be with girl, finds horrible secret about girl’s previous partner in remote room) does feel a lot like _Jane Eyre_, if gender-reversed. I was going to say I think we can rule out Shakespeare and Patrick O’Brian, but IIRC there are a couple of scenes with Aubrey and Maturin and female cannibals… , so maybe I should go check. I’ll post again when I’ve re-read them all. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/9 "2019-06-18T15:30:59Z")
[Maybe it was a story that **Dinsdale** made up for his kids.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=877110) ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/10 "2019-06-18T18:55:21Z")
> [@pool](#): > > Jesus Christ that’s not horror that’s nightmare fuel. Well, it didn’t actually happen to the guy within the story, although it probably happened to the other guys, the dead ones. I am still hopeful that some kind person somewhere on this board will have a memory of having read this story, and can give me some pointer or clue about it, if not remember the actual name or author. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/11 "2019-06-18T20:37:26Z")
I am almost positive you might be thinking about the novel \*The Hollow Man \* by Dan Simmons. I believe there is a chapter in the book like that. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Hollow\_Man\_(Simmons\_novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Man_(Simmons_novel)) ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/12 "2019-06-18T22:12:47Z")
Yep, [that’s it](https://books.google.com/books?id=hx2My-Yoi9oC&lpg=PA209&ots=BR6TKcVP6_&dq=As%20she%20opened%20her%20mouth%20wider%20for%20another%20lunge%20he%20noticed%20that%20the%20blades%20were%20set%20in%20concentric%20rows%2C%20like%20sharks%E2%80%99%20teeth.&pg=PA209#v=onepage&q&f=false). Coincidentally, I had considered suggesting Simmonses _Sleeping With Teeth Women_, which is a shorter piece with a vagina dentata theme, but rejected it because it was too dissimilar to the OPs description. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/13 "2019-06-18T23:34:03Z")
Off topic, but tangentially related - His _Summer of Night_ was pretty scary. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/14 "2019-06-18T23:38:21Z")
Sounds like a good story, any one remember if it’s worth reading? ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2019, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/15 "2019-06-18T23:59:07Z")
> [@pool](#): > > Sounds like a good story, any one remember if it’s worth reading? That is just one small segment of a longer novel (I didn’t even remember it being in there until dorvann pointed it out.) [Here](https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-553-08252-4) is a review that isn’t too spoilery (and doesn’t even touch on the aspects of the book that _I_ remember.) ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [June 19, 2019, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/identify-this-horror-genre-story-spoilers-of-course/835634/16 "2019-06-19T00:15:51Z")
> [@dorvann](#): > > I am almost positive you might be thinking about the novel \*The Hollow Man \* by Dan Simmons. I believe there is a chapter in the book like that. > > [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Hollow\_Man\_(Simmons\_novel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Man_(Simmons_novel)) Thank you, I’m sure that’s it, and I do remember reading that novel specifically (I remember the name, not so much what was in it). Also I have been a Dan Simmons fan, although I haven’t read much of his stuff lately. Is it odd that the part I described is the only part I remembered?