# Need a scary short story! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [October 29, 2022, 4:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950 "2022-10-29T04:39:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/41 "2022-11-04T14:05:12Z")
Glad you’re enjoying it. “Maiden Voyage” is probably the funniest, the one after that is pretty good too. The remainder are more about lovely descriptive writing - “light humour” very much of its time, as you say. ---
**Author:** ![ExTank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@ExTank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ExTank)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/42 "2022-11-04T15:28:39Z")
Does manga count? [Spooky Hallowen Of Doom: Amigara (brasscockroach.com)](http://brasscockroach.com/h4ll0w33n2007/manga/Amigara-Full/Amigara.html) More accurately, “The Enigma of Amigara Fault.” ---
**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:** [November 4, 2022, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/43 "2022-11-04T15:30:21Z")
@Sitnam, I would love to know if your daughter reads any of these and what she thinks about them. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/44 "2022-11-04T16:29:05Z")
Sure. She’s a tween who got new books from her dad so…it may take awhile. I use to regularly stop in at Half Price Books on my way home from work and pick new books to hide in my kid’s room bookshelves. More often then not they’d enjoy the new discoveries and never wonder how they got there. If I tell them they’ll like something I never get anywhere, if I let them discover it on they’re own it works out. They’re too old for me to get away with that anymore. -Last Night at Diner- “Have you taken a look at any of the books I got you?” “Dad, that Skeleton book is like 3 inches thick!” 'Skeleton Crew, it’s an Anthology, there are like 35 stories in there but they’re only like 15 pages long." “Oh. What are they about?” “All kinds of stuff, they’re all different” “Oh.” _seed planted_ ---
**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:** [November 4, 2022, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/45 "2022-11-04T18:09:04Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > She’s a tween who got new books from her dad Lucky girl! I will wait with interest to see what happens with the seed. 🌱 ---
**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:** [November 4, 2022, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/46 "2022-11-04T20:11:20Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > “Dad, that Skeleton book is like 3 inches thick!” > 'Skeleton Crew, it’s an Anthology, there are like 35 stories in there but they’re only like 15 pages long." Longer than you think, Dad! ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/47 "2022-11-04T20:38:32Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Longer than you think, Dad! It’s eternity in there! 😱 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/48 "2022-11-04T21:20:46Z")
> [@salinqmind1](#): > > ‘The October Game’ by Ray Bradbury. And also ‘Zero Hour’ by him, two stories that gave me the creeps all my life. … When I was young, I spent much time at the library and read a lot of collections of stories put together by Alfred Hitchcock… Bradbury wrote some very creepy stuff that would appeal to just about any tween, I bet. I haven’t read “The October Game,” but I have read “Zero Hour,” and it’s really good. I’d also highly recommend “The Small Assassin” (an evil infant kills its parents), “Come Into My Cellar” (an unnervingly different kind of alien-invasion tale) and “The Scythe” (an unassuming man with a good heart is called upon to serve as Death). As to Hitchcock’s collections, a longtime favorite of mine from them is Robert Arthur’s 1963 short story “Obstinate Uncle Otis,” about a man hit by lightning who not only thinks he’s now someone else, but has the ability to change reality with the power of his mind (“There’s no hill outside my east window,” he stubbornly says, and poof, it’s gone). Just a little chilling but also very funny. There’s another story, from the same or another Hitchcock collection and perhaps also by Arthur, in which the illustration of a dragon in an ancient book has the ability to become real, emerge from the book and eat you. Can’t find its title anywhere, though. Perhaps someone here will know. Conan Doyle’s “The Speckled Band” is, I think, his scariest Holmes story, about a young woman placed in terrible danger by her stepfather. Well worth a read. George R.R. Martin’s “Sandkings” is a great sf horror novella, about a wealthy, dissolute man who buys some new alien pets which get out of their “cage.” Brilliant and chilling. It earned every award it got. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/49 "2022-11-04T22:18:53Z")
By the way the scariest\* BOOK ever written is easily Pet Semetary. I could only read it a few pages at a time…and that was as a teen and not a father. - i may be conflating ‘scary’ with ‘emotional slog’…but there’s for sure a lot of scary elements in it. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/50 "2022-11-04T22:30:13Z")
> [@Pavelb1](#): > > By the way the scariest\* BOOK ever written is easily Pet Semetary. For me, that would be Hell House by Richard Matheson. I had nightmares after reading that book cover to cover in one sitting, and the gory details have stuck with me ever since. (That one’s definitely not appropriate for a 12-year-old, BTW.) ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/51 "2022-11-04T22:33:11Z")
The movie adaptation of Hell House certainly holds up well too. Edited so one doesn’t think Im talking about the movie _Pet Semetary_. Which at the time was fairly lambasted, but a few elements work. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@salinqmind1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind1)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2022, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/52 "2022-11-04T22:48:51Z")
…'“they’re here!”…😨 ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2022, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/53 "2022-11-05T00:15:29Z")
> [@Pavelb1](#): > > The movie adaptation of Hell House certainly holds up well too. I’ve nevwr seen the film, but considering when it was made I imagine they must have really toned down all the sexual violence in order to get it into theaters. Some of it, like Beth’s sexual confusion as the result of having been raped by her father probably wouldn’t fly even in an R-rated film today. Perhaps I’ll put it on my to-watch list. ---
**Author:** ![Pavelb1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/439d5e/32.png) [@Pavelb1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pavelb1)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2022, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950/54 "2022-11-05T00:39:20Z")
I did a little research. Matheson wrote the screenplay for _The Legend of Hell-House_, but a lot of sexual stuff apparently has been cut out and the setting moved to England. So what we have is a very cold, very stark English film. It’s very good and its very effective but I suspect it isn’t the novel. Its probably scary in its own way. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/need-a-scary-short-story/973950.md?page=2)