I’ve been looking for an online citation all morning that woudld jog my memory…
I have vague recollections of a short story that scared me so badly I literally made efforts to wipe the memory from my mind. It wasn’t orders-of-magnitude worse than other stories, but it hit exactly the right creepy note and stuck with me much worse than other stories or movies. For years it disturbed me whenever I thought about it.
I think the title was Five Days Out, about a cruise ship that always has someone turn up dead in their cabin on the fifth day of every cruise. The cause turns out to be not a murderer nor a ghost, exactly…I never finished the story (highly unusual for such a voracious reader), but I did get as far as the revelation of the thing that caused the deaths. Perhaps it was all the more scary because it wasn’t easily pigeonholed as a monster or ghost or whatnot.
If anyone can confirm my memory of the title, or provide the author’s name, or any other cite…I think it’s time I finished that story.
I have it! It’s in Davy Jones’ Haunted Locker, but unfortunately I don’t have the author’s name at hand. That story scared the crap out of me…the more so, because there’s a picture of it in the book! shudder It seems to me you’re right about the title.
Sorry for the bump, but this has been gnawing at me so I finally hunted it up. The story is called Second Night Out by Frank Belknap Long, also published as The Black, Dead Thing. Great story; I hope you do read it again!
Tom Tyron wrote two memorable books, “The Other” and “Harvest Home”.
Both books scared the shit out of me when I was younger. :eek:
“The Thing” with James Arness as the monster kept me awake for days, scared the bejasus out of my young self.
And the Poe story about being buried alive with the alarm string hanging in the grave, well… I won’t read it again. EVER! Brr…
Slight hijack. Tryon was actually an actor before turning to writing; he had the “Adam” role in the Marilyn Monroe/Dean Martin version of what turned out to be “Move Over Darling” with Doris Day & James Garner. Chuck Connors ended up as “Adam”. Two of my favorite of his books are “Crowned Heads” and “Lady” - two (fairly) non-scary books. I also liked “The Night of the Moonbow”
Is the second what inspired the long miniseries-type production “The Dark Secret of Harvest Home” with Bette Davis, Donald Pleasance, Rosanna Arquette, and others?
I would love to have a copy of that! I saw it a couple of times on latenight broadcast tv about 20 years ago (2 nights of 2+hrs each), and it is one of my favorites.