I’m looking for things scary, not gory. Best I’ve read so far is Peter Straub’s “Ghost Story”.
Title, Author, and brief storyline appreciated 
Stephen King has had two or three collections of short stories. One was about the scariest I’d ever read; the other one or two didn’t do much for me.
Can’t remember the name of the one I really liked, but I particularly remember one short story in it: “The Jaunt.” The premise was, in the future, technology had advanced to where people could be transported light years away instantaneously, but the catch was, they had to be asleep. One young, curious kid faked being anesthetized so he could see why.
When they got to the other side, the kid’s family was shocked to see he had become a drooling madman. Turns out that if you aren’t asleep, your consciousness travels the distance of your body in real time in some parallel plane. So he’d been in the nothingness of space sort of in solitary confinement for a few million years or so, unable to kill himself.
Yeesh.
“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert M. Pirsig.
The SOB tells me A: he is even smarter than me and B: Think More… (taking a slug from a bottle of rot gut gin).
Jesus, what a sadist 
On a serious note - Pet Sematary (sp) by the afore mentioned S. King. Made the hair on my arms stand up… could sleep for two friggin’ days.
Scary stuff.
I’m with Milossarian.
Earlier works by Stephen King: The Dead Zone, Salem’s Lot… and my own personal not-for-reading-after-dark favourite, IT.
Shudder Ancient evil awakens periodically to feed… and you’ll never look at clowns the same way again… :eek:
IT was bad, but the last line of Sematary was absolutely evil.
BTW - anybody else creeped out by the short story about the blood thirsty dry cleaning machine (echo’s of Christine)?
I’ve read most Stephen King, and Dean Koontz for that matter. Lighting and Watchers being two of my favorites. I’m looking for a new source. Any lesser known masters of the genre out there?
H.P. Lovecraft. Read the fun stuff, like “At The Mountains Of Madness”, “The Horror At Red Hook”, and, my favorite, “Herbert West - Reanimator”.
Clive Barker - the dude is SICK!!!
(think he’s responsible for the “Hell Raiser” films)
The story referenced by Milossarian was really scary!
HP Lovecraft, “The Haunter in the Dark”.
Karl E. Wagner “Sticks”, and “In the Pines” (although I really liked “River of Night’s Dreaming” Hmmmm lesbians, horror, and Robert Chambers…).
Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House. Original movie made in the early 60’s (I think) was terribly scary - remake done about a year ago was just terrible.
Ditto on King’s It - damn clown.
Anthracite,
Damn!!! Too Bad you prefer girls
Clive Barker did this thing called “The Weave” or something like. Scared me back to reading Heinlein.
Steve King’s The Langoliers disturbed me in a “that-could-just-possibly-be-true” sorta way.
Gotta agree about It. There are also elements of The Stand that really get to me-- more so the potential reality of a Captain Tripps than the Walkin’ Dude. I thought the mini-series version of the book was pretty good, fwiw.
BigJoe-- I think the King short story you’re referring to is “The Mangler.” And yeah, it creeped me out as well!
lablonde, you might want to check out Ellen Datlow & Terry Windling’s “Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror” collections. I’m not sure that they’re precisely annual, but the one volume I was given some time ago had some major scary stuff in it. One about a deranged dentist (some gore there, but not tons), some very strange stories about circus “freaks” and other unusual folks. Of course I don’t have the book in this apartment, but with an anthology like that you often get turned on to up and coming authors.
Pet Sematary scared me so badly that I had to keep putting it down every few pages until I got my courage up again. I also stupidly read Salem’s Lot one night while I was home alone… I swear, I was afraid to get up to answer the phone because the light wasn’t on in that room.
Big Joe - you’re talking about The Mangler! Creepy, yes… so were the other stories in the “Night Shift” collection. I highly recommend “Night Shift” to anyone who hasn’t read it yet - great stuff!
Clive Barker is good too, but his stories definitely have more of an unworldly air than Stephen King’s. I’ll never forget a couple of Barker’s subway-related short-stories - the one about the doors being fitted with blades that would cut you in half if you didn’t get off the train fast enough had me spooked for a long time.
Fillet, the 9 trains are actually like that. That’s why the only use 'em during rush hour-- thins the slow-moving from the herd 
It. I went through a horror phase when I was about 15 or so, and except for the really stupid ending, It was the scariest book I ever read. Pet Sematary didn’t scare me at all - but I liked it because one chapter starts off with “The last happy day of Louis Creed’s life was March 24, 1984.” My little sister was born on March 25, 1984, so I found that rather amusing.
“The Mangler” - sounds right - definately scarey stuff.
“Night Shift” is nearly certainly the collection.
btw - how about “I’ll tear your soul apart!” for a sig - I’m thinking it mucho flame attraction. (lol)
Rosebud, I knew there was a good reason why I only rode the East Side IRT. Taking the 3 to Brooklyn reminded me of Barker’s other short story about the subway, where some poor sap gets transported into some hellish trainyard with fiends that had teeth like knives, IIRC.
Ditto with the King, especially 'Salem’s Lot. The Shining was pretty scary also. His short story The Boogeyman (also in Night Shift) really creeped me out.