whats your favorite horror short story?

[blackdragon6]

give a synopsis about your favorite short horror story....spoilers are welcomed




my favorite short story was in this anthology of books that centerred around this hotel (who's name i forgotten).these girls went to this hotel to be close to a vacation spot.but they kept hearing noises above their room in the hotel's attic.and like in typical white person fashion they go to check it out ;) ,and end up getting stuck in the attic and picked off one by one.and on top of that the girls starts to turn on each other.they eventually find out a giant spider is killing them off.the lone survivor falls out of the attic window trying to escape.its actually creepier than it sounds if you read it.my description is craptacular.




EDIT: i think the name of the series was called nightmare inn.this story in question was called nightmare inn: the attic.

[Lee Kaye]

I am not sure where the dividing line between short story and novella is, but Stephen King writing as Bachman.....The Long Walk.

Premise is very simple, a contest is held where 50 people start walking, and have to walk at least 4 miles per hour. If they don't they get 3 warnings and get shot. The winner is the last one standing. Very simple, but very effective as you almost feel you are there sharing the pain. It's a great story. It's not horror traditionally, there are no monsters, but it's horrific.

[genesis]

Hands down 1408 by Stephen King. It freaking scared the hell out of me.

Its premise was a man who writes all of these novels about haunted places proving they actually aren't haunted decides to check out this haunted hotel room on the 13th floor of a hotel whose room number adds up to 13 (1+4+8=13) anyway he goes there and as usual the hotel manager tries to talk him out of it but doesnt succeed so the man goes to the room anyway. What happens next is freaking scary as hell and to hear somebody tell it doesnt do it justice. But you should check it out as it is a great short story, it is in the book Everything's Eventual.

[Subotai]

Always liked 'Notebook Found in a Deserted House', except for that racial epithet thrown in there.

Also 'Once More, From the Top' a Delta Green short story about marines clearing a Cthulhu-infested seaport.

[sheets]

Robert E. Howard's Pigeons From Hell.

Joe R. Lansdale's The Night They Missed the Horror Show.

[Buzz Dixon]

Edgar Allen Poe's "A Cask Of Amatillado" which was perhaps the first story to be told through the killer's POV.

[Shellhead]

Edgar Allen Poe's "A Cask Of Amatillado" which was perhaps the first story to be told through the killer's POV.

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the greatest horror short story writers. It always amazes me at how hard he hits the reader in a story that is only 3-5 pages long. My personal favorite is The Tell-Tale Heart.

I'm also very fond of a modern horror short-story called Gentlemen, by Craig Spector and John M. Skipp. It has some great insights about "just friends" relationships, with a very disturbing and unexpected twist near the end.

[Lee Kaye]

Hands down 1408 by Stephen King. It freaking scared the hell out of me.

Its premise was a man who writes all of these novels about haunted places proving they actually aren't haunted decides to check out this haunted hotel room on the 13th floor of a hotel whose room number adds up to 13 (1+4+8=13) anyway he goes there and as usual the hotel manager tries to talk him out of it but doesnt succeed so the man goes to the room anyway. What happens next is freaking scary as hell and to hear somebody tell it doesnt do it justice. But you should check it out as it is a great short story, it is in the book Everything's Eventual.


I think the first story from that collection is a first person story about somebody paralysed by a snake-bite about to be cut up for an autopsy as they think he is dead. Really scary. I liked the hotel room one too.

[genesis]

I think the first story from that collection is a first person story about somebody paralysed by a snake-bite about to be cut up for an autopsy as they think he is dead. Really scary. I liked the hotel room one too.

The name of that story your talking about is Autopsy Room 8. I havent read it but I will when I get the time.

[Subotai]

Joe R. Lansdale's The Night They Missed the Horror Show.

Joe Lansdale is great.

[Jonathan Bogart]

"The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James.

And that's it.

[Cactusakic]

Gotta go with Poe's Tell-Tale Heart as well.

I know a lot of people dismiss King as a hack and given some of his more recent output I can see why, however there was one of his short stories that really got to me.
It was The Jaunt from the Skeleton Crew compilation.
More sci-fi than his usual horror/thriller fare but something about it spoke to me and gave me the creeps for a few days after reading it.
Must dig that one out and give it another read, been 9 or 10 years since I first read it.

[Buzz Dixon]

Before he became a brand name, Stephen King wrote some really effective horror stories. I remember discovering him in the pages of CAVALIER magazine, a low-rent version of PLAYBOY that I used to read because they carried three pages of Vaughn Bode's DEADBONE (later DEADBONE EROTICA, for those keeping score at home). King started turning up in the pages of CAVALIER and it was clear from the git-go that a major new talent in the horror writing community was upon us.

I think THE SHINING "spoiled" him insofar that it turned him from merely a supplier of spooky tales to a destination. I.e., people stopped going to their library/book store to find a good horror book and remembering Stephen King was a good writer to people going specifically to get Stephen King books.

[Shem the Penman]

Gotta go with Poe's Tell-Tale Heart as well.

I know a lot of people dismiss King as a hack and given some of his more recent output I can see why, however there was one of his short stories that really got to me.
It was The Jaunt from the Skeleton Crew compilation.
More sci-fi than his usual horror/thriller fare but something about it spoke to me and gave me the creeps for a few days after reading it.
Must dig that one out and give it another read, been 9 or 10 years since I first read it.

Yeah, there are a lot of really disturbing stories in Skeleton Crew.

But my vote? Lord Dunsany's "The Two Bottles of Relish."

[Ottmeister X]

Something in King's Night Shift, I think, but I'll need to go back to check which one it was.

[Puma]

Stephen King's "The Raft" four young people go for a swim in a rural lake, after climbing aboard a stationary raft in the middle an oily 'thing' floating on top of the water hovers beneath the raft and consumes them one by one.

This story scared me the most because my friends and I always went swimming in lakes and most often, out to the raft in the center so it was a familiar setting.

and the "Cask of Amatillado" is great but I prefer "The Pit and the Pendulum".

[blackdragon6]

Stephen King's "The Raft" four young people go for a swim in a rural lake, after climbing aboard a stationary raft in the middle an oily 'thing' floating on top of the water hovers beneath the raft and consumes them one by one.

This story scared me the most because my friends and I always went swimming in lakes and most often, out to the raft in the center so it was a familiar setting.

and the "Cask of Amatillado" is great but I prefer "The Pit and the Pendulum".
i think this was made into a creepshow segment...

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

^ as a matter of fact it was creepshow 2.

[Matthew E]

The one story that ished me out the most was Stephen King's 'Survivor Type'. It's about a guy who gets stranded on a barren desert island. All he has with him is a notebook and pencil, a set of surgical tools and a suitcase full of heroin. Cuh-reepy.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

The one story that ished me out the most was Stephen King's 'Survivor Type'. It's about a guy who gets stranded on a barren desert island. All he has with him is a notebook and pencil, a set of surgical tools and a suitcase full of heroin. Cuh-reepy.
actually that sounds like a good time...

[Merey]

Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

One day I'm going to make the trip up the Hudson and do some kind of Sleepy Hollow walking tour.

[DrewTheXenocide]

I've gotta go with the Tell-Tale Heart as well.

[oddieson]

[I thoughyt it was in nightmares &dreamscaes

[Shellhead]

The one story that ished me out the most was Stephen King's 'Survivor Type'. It's about a guy who gets stranded on a barren desert island. All he has with him is a notebook and pencil, a set of surgical tools and a suitcase full of heroin. Cuh-reepy.

King originally wrote that story back in the 70's. He even bragged about in Danse Macabre, his non-fiction analysis of the horror genre, as the one short story that nobody will ever publish, no matter how successful he becomes. Several years later, it got published in Skeleton Crew.

[Indigo Al]

Right now, I'm torn between Stephen King's The Mist and J Sheridan LeFanu's Carmilla. But I'll change my mind tomorrow.

I'm also ashamed to admit liking a lot of the stories in the Love in Vein anthologies.....

[Kaiju]

Joe R. Lansdale's The Night They Missed the Horror Show.

Something about that story always stuck under my skin. Great choice.

Here are a few of mine:

In the Hills, the Cities by Clive Barker

The Skin Trade by George R. R. Martin

It by Theodore Sturgeon

Croatoan by Harlan Ellison

Sticks by Karl Edward Wagner

There was one story that really stuck with but I can't recall the name of the story or the author. It was about a man and his wife that move to the country. There was an old well on their property that was plugged up and the man clears it and weird stuff begins to happen. The ending always stuck with me.

[CaptainAwesome]

My favorite horror short stories are I Am Legend by Richard Matheson and Second Variety by Philip K. Dick. I dont know if either of them can be considered actually "horror" but they both scared the crud out of me.

[Buzz Dixon]

I thought I AM LEGEND was a novel (mind you, it is scary!). Did Matheson do it as a short story first?

[Rik Levins]

Flowers for Algernon.

I know, it's not a story most people would classify as "horror". But the first time I read it, I felt a distinct "bottom-dropping-out-of-my-stomach" sensation when Charley sees what's happened to Algernon, and realizes the fate that's in store for him.

[Buzz Dixon]

Technically, what you describe for "Flowers For Algernon" is exactly what horror is; most of the other stories cited are "terror" rather than horror, but the name got hung on the genre back in the 1930s and there's no changing it now...

[Tages]

Another vote for "The Jaunt" by Stephen King. Just thinking about it makes my backbone tingle.

[BcAugust]

Hmm, just read an interesting anthology(Basically, taking Lovecraft's essay about horror and pulling the stories from that into the book along with the essay)

Liked a few stories from it, though most were overdone(I swear, I'd love to see someone use something other then "The Dammed Thing" for Ambrose Bierce. It's worn out it's welcome) But it shows where Lovecraft got his influence. (One story... it could have been a great Lovecraft one, if you cut off the last four pages. But those pages utterly ruin the story)

But as favorites...

HP Lovecraft "the Tree"
Robert Silverberg "24 Views of Mount Fuji"
Edgar Allen Poe "The Bells"

And so many more I'm forgetting. The problem is, all my anthologies are locked away. And that's where the best stuff is.

[ghostrider666]

My fave would be "The Outsider" by HP Lovecraft.
The story is written in 1st person format. The character writes about being alone. Lonelyness. All he can rememebr is being alone. From the time he got up, to roaming his ancient home. He never saw another. Finally he climbed the stairs, higher then he'd ever gone before & heard people having a party. He kept climbing & pushed his way thru a wall & met the people he heard earlier. They all ran in terror from him. He couldnt understand why, then he turned to go back to the steps & saw his reflection in a mirror. The reflection was that of a corpse.

blackdragon6, in your post you mention that the characters go to investagate in "typical white person fashion". What, in your opinion, would the "typical black person" do under the same circumstance?

[Kaiju]

blackdragon6, in your post you mention that the characters go to investagate in "typical white person fashion". What, in your opinion, would the "typical black person" do under the same circumstance?

According to various old comedy bits "typical black person fashion" reaction to weird noises in a spooky house would entail packing your clothes, putting up a for sale sign and never retuning to that house. :)

Richard Pryor on The Exorcist:
The movie would have been about seven minutes long. As soon as the devil spoke "Hello," [black protagonist] "Goodbye."

Eddy Murphy on the Amityville Horror:
"Baby this house is beautiful."
Ghost: "GET OUT!"
"Oh well, too bad we won't be staying. Let's go!"

[Buzz Dixon]

Yeah, but I remember another African-American comedian doing a routine about his family moving into the Amityville house and threatening to burn the place down if the house kept trying to scare them. "And if you're gonna be up all night talkin', wake me at seven. I've got a job interview."

[Kaiju]

Yeah, but I remember another African-American comedian doing a routine about his family moving into the Amityville house and threatening to burn the place down if the house kept trying to scare them. "And if you're gonna be up all night talkin', wake me at seven. I've got a job interview."

That's the other school of thought, weary and wary co-extistence. :D

One comedian had a bit about hearing a weird noise in the basement and after much freaking out he settled on if you stay down there I won't come down and bother you and vice versa.

[Grazzt]

Wow, I have a collection at home called The Dark Descent that collects about 150 years worth of the finest horror available. A good source for this.

It's hard to pick, but one of my favourites that hasn't been mentioned yet is Stephen King's The Reach. It is one of the finest ghost stories I've ever read, so wonderfully poignant and so completely otherworldly. I think it might be King's finest work.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

What, in your opinion, would the "typical black person" do under the same circumstance?i can't speak for him but i'm sure the correct answer would be not to go investigate :D


anyways there was this short story i read in a alvin shwartz folklore book.it was about these three elderly men who was bed ridden in a old folks home.they was stuck in one room,where there was only one window.one of them died and the second old man got the bed by the window.he would describe the outside world to the other bed ridden guy in vivid detail.this mad the 3rd guy verry frustrated.so he devised a plan to get the bed next to the window.he misplaced the 2nd old man's heart medacine,so when he needed it he couldn't find it and then died.so now the 3rd guy was moved to the window.only to descover THERE WAS NO WINDO!!.instead in its place was a brick wall.the 2 other men was describing the outside world to him to keep his spirits up only for hin to in return kill the 2nd guy.


i always found that story bone chilling and depressing.:(

[Julusnc]

Ambrose Bierce: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

I have always enjoyed this short story and consider it a horror "type" story.

[DrewTheXenocide]

While I'm not sure if it can be classified as "Horror" per se, I just finished reading Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily." Let me say, that's a pretty effed up story right there. Good, but still crazy insane.

[Buzz Dixon]

Technically it's a "Southern Gothic" which means it's pretty much first cousin to a horror story.

[Grazzt]

Technically it's a "Southern Gothic" which means it's pretty much first cousin to a horror story.

And since it's from the south, that means it's more likely to marry a horror story, right? :D

[Lee Kaye]

Anyone read Danse Macabre by Stephen King? He looks at the horror genre, TV, film, literature. Fascinating, he knows his stuff, and there was a lot of research. I would like to see an updated version to take in the last couple of decades too.

[Buzz Dixon]

King has written some awfully good non-fiction, Besides DANSE MACABRE he also has a book ON WRITING which is well worth the read, and did a great essay on Little League baseball for the New Yorker (IIRC) that later appeared in one of his anthologies.

In a way he is trapped by his own success in the horror genre. Based on the secret agent stuff in THE LANGOLIERS, I think he could write a great spy novel. And a lot of his best work ("The Body," "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," "Apt Pupil") is outside the horror/dark fantasy genre.

[Lee Kaye]

King has written some awfully good non-fiction, Besides DANSE MACABRE he also has a book ON WRITING which is well worth the read, and did a great essay on Little League baseball for the New Yorker (IIRC) that later appeared in one of his anthologies.

In a way he is trapped by his own success in the horror genre. Based on the secret agent stuff in THE LANGOLIERS, I think he could write a great spy novel. And a lot of his best work ("The Body," "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," "Apt Pupil") is outside the horror/dark fantasy genre.

Yeah, I really liked On Writing. I was intrigued by the autobiographical aspect of it as well. The Body was a really nice coming of age story too, the film really did it justice as well. Same with Rita Hayworth. Green Mile wasn't out and out horror and I quite liked that.

I read the baseball essay, and he also co-authored a book about the Boston Red Sox win didn't he? A lot of the essay meant nothing to me, not knowing the sport at all.

[Buzz Dixon]

ON WRITING is on the short list of books on writing that I would recommend to people. The poison ivy story is worth the price of admission alone. (Granted, that story doesn't have much to do about writing, but it had me convulsing with laughter.)

[Rabid Trekkie]

Some of the good ones that I've read:

The Jar by Ray Bradbury. That was creepy as hell. Still shiver a bit when thinking about it.

The Rats in the Walls by H.P. Lovecraft. That one really got me because at my old house we really could hear them crawling around in the walls and that possibility hadn't occured to me.

The White Silk Dress and Blood Son by Richard Matheson. The last line of White Silk Dress practically made me scream and Blood Son was creepy from beginning to end.

The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe. Never liked cats and now their even creepier.

[TheDarkestHorse]

The story that really freaks me out is A Georgia Story by poppy z Brite. I don't want to give it away if you haven't read it, but it's about someone meeting up with an old roomate a few years after their lives have taken very, very different paths.

quick summary of The Jaunt? Can't remember that particular one.

[Andy S.]

Hands down 1408 by Stephen King. It freaking scared the hell out of me.

Its premise was a man who writes all of these novels about haunted places proving they actually aren't haunted decides to check out this haunted hotel room on the 13th floor of a hotel whose room number adds up to 13 (1+4+8=13) anyway he goes there and as usual the hotel manager tries to talk him out of it but doesnt succeed so the man goes to the room anyway. What happens next is freaking scary as hell and to hear somebody tell it doesnt do it justice. But you should check it out as it is a great short story, it is in the book Everything's Eventual.

I'll second this choice. It comes across initially as your typical "haunted hotel room" story, but then turns out to be something....else. King has been hit or miss with me in recent years but he is on top og his game with this one.

I love how much time King takes in setting up the main event - the main character is only inside the room for about 20 minutes i think. Everything before that is simply the conversation that the hotel manager and the reporter have. I was genuinely creeped out by the manager's narration of the room's history - the experiences of the hotel staff and such.

Also, the reporter's use of the tape recorder as a "liferaft" of sorts adds real weight to when he finally enters the room and things begin to happen. Just imagining what the final recording sounded like...listening to it as an outsider, is freaky.

Unforgettable short horror story.

[Cactusakic]

quick summary of The Jaunt? Can't remember that particular one.

Still have not dug it out to re-read it since my original post, but if memory serves:

In the future portal technology has been discovered and it is now possible for people to travel from Earth to say, Mars in seconds via these portals.
The catch is that you have to be knocked out (by gas I believe) before going through as going through while awake has some serious side-effects.

The story is centred around a family going through the portal and the son decides to see what happens when he goes through awake.

[Gilda Dent]

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

Summary:

A group of townspeople in a small New England village gather together on a spring day for a lottery that has an unspecified reward. The mood of the gathering is somewhat cheerful for the most part, giving the impression that this is a rite of passage for the people. Through bits of conversation we find that the whole town is involved and that towns all throughout the area used to conduct annual lotteries, but more and more have abandoned the practice, something many of the townspeople find bewildering and mildly offensive. Once the town is gathered, a family name is drawn, then a second drawing occurs picking a young woman as the "winner". She's placed in the center of the encircled townspeople and stoned to death. No reason for the ritual is given. It's implied that the reason has been lost in time and the ritual continues purely out of tradition.

It's the single best story about unthinking conformity ever written.

I'd have picked "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Leguin, which has a different take on a somewhat similar theme, but it's sf, not horror.

[Agent Helix]

Spoilers? For the Lottery? Damn near everyone read that in grade school. Is that really a horror story, though?

[RickThunderclees]

I really enjoyed Stephen King's The Mist and Jerusalem's Lot.

Also a big fan of anything by Edgar Allen Poe.

[blackdragon6]

Spoilers? For the Lottery? Damn near everyone read that in grade school. Is that really a horror story, though?*shrugs* i didn't

[Gilda Dent]

Spoilers? For the Lottery? Damn near everyone read that in grade school. Is that really a horror story, though?

It takes very little effort to put on spoiler tags just in case.

Yes, it's a horror story. It's the ordinary nature of the setup that gives the remainder the power it has.

[DDM]

I thought I AM LEGEND was a novel (mind you, it is scary!). Did Matheson do it as a short story first?

I Am Legend is a short story. It might be considered a novella if it were printed by itself. The story came with other shortstories, but I Am Legend is the most memorable.

[DDM]

Ray Bradbury: Something Wicked This Way Comes

Edgar Allen Poe: The Masque of the Red Death

Clive Barker: The Hellbound Heart

[Gilda Dent]

My favorite Bradbury horror short story is "All Summer in a Day" (http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:Mokpikl0u2MJ:www.dodea.edu/instruction/curriculum/lars/ela_lab/PreK-Grade6/Guided%2520Reading/AllSummerinaDay.doc+%22All+summer+in+a+day%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4). It's only three and a half pages long, so it's a quick read, and well worth it.

For those not wanting to do this:

Margo is a little girl living on Venus, where the sun comes out only once every seven years for two hours. She's from off planet and remembers the sun, but the other nine-year-olds in her class don't, or only vaguely. She's bullied by the others for being different and for being shy and quiet, and shows signs of depression due to the climate change. On the day the sun comes out, the other kids lock her in the closet while the teacher is away, then forget about her until after the rain starts again.

The summary doesn't capture the power of the story. It has to be read to really get the full impact.

[Kaiju]

My favorite Bradbury horror short story is "All Summer in a Day" (http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:Mokpikl0u2MJ:www.dodea.edu/instruction/curriculum/lars/ela_lab/PreK-Grade6/Guided%2520Reading/AllSummerinaDay.doc+%22All+summer+in+a+day%22&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=4). It's only three and a half pages long, so it's a quick read, and well worth it.

For those not wanting to do this:

Margo is a little girl living on Venus, where the sun comes out only once every seven years for two hours. She's from off planet and remembers the sun, but the other nine-year-olds in her class don't, or only vaguely. She's bullied by the others for being different and for being shy and quiet, and shows signs of depression due to the climate change. On the day the sun comes out, the other kids lock her in the closet while the teacher is away, then forget about her until after the rain starts again.

The summary doesn't capture the power of the story. It has to be read to really get the full impact.

I loved that story. I was telling my wife about it the other day and couldn't remember the name. Thanks.

[SoulOnIce]

I just finished Peaceable Kingdom, a collection of short stories by the great Jack Ketchum. There are a couple clunkers but on the whole this is an excellent collection. A couple of the stories including "The Box" and "Gone" are truly disturbing and haunting.

[BoosterBronze]

Hands down 1408 by Stephen King. It freaking scared the hell out of me.



I back that up completely. I was listening to that on tape, and had to pull the car over and turn the lights on because I was so freaked out.

[bert]

I'm really surprised to see this thread has so many responses, but so few of them refer to Clive Barker.

Two mentions ("Hellbound Heart", "In the Hills, the Cities").

A lot of people don't realize that Barker started out as a Short Story writer.

his first few collections "the Books of Blood" are all short stories, and contain some of his best known stories (many of them made into film (although some films aren't so great).

among my faves in the "Books of Blood" :

Son of Celluloid
Rawhead Rex
the Hellbound Heart (filmed as "Hellraiser")
In the Hills, the Cities
The Yattering and Jack
The Last Illusion (filmed as "Lord of Illusions")
The Forbidden (filmed as "Candyman")

and from a Books of Blood follow up collection of short stories:
Cabal (made as the film "Nightbreed")

Amazon has got a pretty sweet deal on the "Books of Blood" collection for only 12 bucks.

anyone who's a fan of horror fiction should check these out:

http://www.amazon.com/Clive-Barkers-Books-Blood-1-3/dp/0425165582

[stealthwise]

King's name comes up a lot, and probably with good reason. I really enjoyed "The Jaunt," as well.

Also, Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" and "Cask of Armantalalalalada...I can't spell."

[Buzz Dixon]

King's name comes up a lot, and probably with good reason. I really enjoyed "The Jaunt," as well.

Also, Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" and "Cask of Armantalalalalada...I can't spell."Amontilado.

[Aggie]

"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson


this is the first thng that popped into my mind when i read the thread title...you are truly a person of awesome taste...:D

[Joshua Pantalleresco]

Without a doubt, "The Monkey's Paw", I love wish stories with a catch and this was one of the originals.

JP

[Shellhead]

Fans of The Hellbound Heart should take a look at this site:

http://www.pyramid-gallery.com/

This site expands upon the concept of the LeMarchand boxes, tying them into all kinds of historical and occult figures, with lots of creepy atmosphere and graphics.

[Jared_Humpherys]

Dunno if it's really Horror as such, but "Fondly Fahrenheit" creeped me out, all reet.

[Kirayoshi]

Not a horror tale per se, but a good dark story, "The Minister's Black Veil" by Hawthorne. In a Colonial village, a much loved minister takes to wearing a black veil over his head in public, much to the surprise of his congregation. A strong tale of the evil within men, without any supernatural action.

"Rappachini's Daughter", also from Hawthorne, about a girl whose father raised her in his private garden of poisonous plants. She was constantly exposed to these poisons so that she herself was poisonous, even to the man she loved.

[blackdragon6]

Fans of The Hellbound Heart should take a look at this site:

http://www.pyramid-gallery.com/

This site expands upon the concept of the LeMarchand boxes, tying them into all kinds of historical and occult figures, with lots of creepy atmosphere and graphics.
wow thanx for the link man.

[Chip Whitley]

King's got many good ones, but my favorite has to be "The Mist." Not sure why, but I like that story a lot. Hopefully the movie adaptation will be decent.

I also liked "The Masque of the Red Death" by Poe.

The Revelations anthology (http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Douglas-E-Winter/dp/006105643X/ref=sr_1_12/104-9860017-0942353?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1180680748&sr=1-12) had a few good stories. It had an apocalypse-themed story for each decade of the 20th century, the best being "If I Should Die Before I Wake" about the Spanish Flu epidemic in 1918. Also good were the 1920's story about a Jewish man who has a vision of the future, and the 1960's story about a hippie commune.

[david r]

THE MIST was truly amazing.

My favorite horror short story is H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.

[blackdragon6]

http://www.tedthecaver.com/ted/page1.htm

[zuludelta]

The top 5 of the top of my head:

"Gramma" by Stephen King

"The Handler" by Ray Bradbury

"The Small Assassin" by Ray Bradbury

"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs

"A Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe

I read all of those stories between the ages of 9 and 13, though, so I don't know if they stand up that well or if their impact was amplified by my relative reading inexperience at the time.

[Tumbido]

In no particular order:

Itsy Bitsy Spider by Meggan C. Wilson and F. Paul Wilson. The story of a kid and his mother trying to live a normal life in their house when outside giant spiders have destroyed most of civilization.

Underneath by Kealan Patrick Burke. A teenager is asked out by a girl with severe facial scarring. He ends up accepting despite this, but the date turns out horribly because of the school bully. It has the appearance of a vengeance/redemption story, but the ending turns it on its head.

The Raft by Stephen King. Some college students swim to a raft in the middle of a lake, where they are terrorized by a Blob-like oil creature that consumes them one by one. Strangely, it's seems like one of King's bloodier stories.

The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft. A Boston surveyor is told the story of a meteorite that crashed near Arkham, bringing with it an alien substance that slowly doomed the Gardner family and the land around them. A horrible movie was made of this one.

The Questions of Doves: A Brackard's Point Story by Geoff Cooper. After apparently saving a little girl from a crow, a man is faced with the disappearance of his pregnant wife as a consequence of this encounter with an evil entity. I like this story, perhaps because of how little sense I can make out of it. It seems there's more story written about Brackard's Point than this short story, so maybe it ties to it somehow.

[blackdragon6]

another pick for me would have to be Tim Macy's The Brass Teapot.never has a tea pot been so sinisterly evil.its basically about a old married couple who gets a tea pot that generates money when its in the vicinity of pain both physical and emotional.add to the fact its now in possession to 2 people who are borderline in dire straights,and you got a un-nerving lil story.

[Trey]

Anything by Thomas Ligotti and HPL

[Johnny_Luck]

I really cannot take the time to read through all 5 pages before this, but the original sleepy hollow gets my vote.

[Tish-the-Scorpion]

Anything by Thomas Ligotti and HPLdetails? :)

[berk]

Technically, what you describe for "Flowers For Algernon" is exactly what horror is; most of the other stories cited are "terror" rather than horror, but the name got hung on the genre back in the 1930s and there's no changing it now...Don't knbow how I missed this old post, but I think this is a really good point - if Buzz is still around, I wonder if he'd mind expanding it a bit.

the ones I remember scaring me are all pretty old, since I haven't read a lot of horror lately. Among my most vivid memories:

The Black Magician - Dennis Wheatley
- story about Crowley within a story about a fictional investigator; they're both good, but particularly the inner Crowley one.

Grettir at Thorhallstead - Frank Norris
- very faithful re-telling of an episode from Grettir's Saga, one of the more famous Icelandic sagas.

The Red Lodge - H. Russell Wakefield
- a haunted house story that made a huge impression on me; I was only a kid, but I remember it terrifying me in the middle of the day as I read it at my grandparents' old house.

That last one reminds me - I read it in an anthology called "Hauntings: Tales of the Supernatural" that had illustrations by Edward Gorey and is probably ther best single horror collection I know of.

[rick]

Just to pop off, I Am Legend is a novel and is not one story in a collection with the same title.

I grant you it is a short novel, clocking in around 150 pages, but it is still a book that has consistently been published as a its own individual book.

[a. non]

I haven't read much horror, but I liked Martyrdom by Joyce Carol Oates. It had an alternating narrative between a mouse and an abused wife

[Rabid Trekkie]

Just to pop off, I Am Legend is a novel and is not one story in a collection with the same title.

I grant you it is a short novel, clocking in around 150 pages, but it is still a book that has consistently been published as a its own individual book.

I think the confusion is that most reprints today have it collected with several short stories so they can jack up the price more. Course I still bought it, but whatever publisher has it at the moment is treating it as a collection.

[Jessica Drew]

I think the confusion is that most reprints today have it collected with several short stories so they can jack up the price more. Course I still bought it, but whatever publisher has it at the moment is treating it as a collection.

Tor is the publisher of that collection:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41ZudTtCTnL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg


The collection does include Matheson's terrifyingly wonderful story, "Prey," though.