The Scariest Stories We’ve Ever Read

To celebrate Halloween, we asked our bloggers to name the scariest books they’ve ever read, and most of them got the heebie-jeebies just thinking about their answer. They explored the deepest, darkest parts of their minds to recall that story still haunting them today. We recommend these horrifying books with caution—they could make you sleep with the lights on for weeks. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
Nicole: Boom. Hands down. No contest. “The Veldt,” by Ray Bradbury 
There are a number of books that have scared the pants off me­—the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe, Say Cheese and Die, 1984—but legitimately nothing has frightened me more than Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Veldt,” in which a family is destroyed by its not-made-for-Disney Smart House. From the first ominous line, “George, I wish you’d look at the nursery,” to the last sinister cup of tea, the heebie-jeebies are set to stun, probably because the idea that our technology will one day be our downfall seems so plausible. I’ve never been able to look at children, nurseries, or lions the same way.
Joel: Night Shift, by Stephen King
The scariest book I’ve ever read is Stephen King’s Night Shift. I know, real original, but there’s something about King’s short fiction that burrows into my brain and refuses to leave (and I suss I’m not the only one, as 10 of the stories in this collection have been adapted for film or TV). Of course, it’s best read on a frigid, sleepless winter night, lest you realize that the climax of “The Mangler” is really quite ludicrous.
Dell: Perfume, by Patrick Suskind
In the grimy slums of 18th-century Paris, a baby is born and abandoned. Christened Jean-Babtiste Grenouille by the nuns who raise him, the peculiar boy grows into a sinister man possessed by a cool, dark rage and an unparalleled sense of smell. Though he oddly possesses no odor himself, Grenouille’s exceptional olfactory sense shapes his future, and his demise, and his obsession eventually leads to murder. This novel, originally published in German in 1986, is utterly depraved and diabolical. Indeed, I should’ve turned back the instant I started it, but instead I devoured it. Do you dare?
Lauren: Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi
I became a tad obsessed with the story of Charles Manson after reading Helter Skelter. It consumed my thoughts—I couldn’t stop looking up pictures of the crime scene. I set google alerts for Manson’s followers so I’d know if they were released from prison. I spent hours glued to my peep hole, positive my (kind, sweet, Mormon) neighbor was going to murder me in my sleep. It’s because the story was honestly the most horrifying thing I could possibly imagine, and Bugliosi’s crafty telling is so raw (Bugliosi was the prosecutor in the case against Manson) I couldn’t categorize it into a safe little corner of my brain called “stuff that isn’t real.” This is the weirdest, most gruesome story I have encountered. And it totally happened.
Melissa: “Harold,” by Alvin Schwartz
Raise your hand if you, too, were traumatized by the blotched, spindly embodied terrors ink drawings accompanying Schwartz’s children’s horror staple, a collection of stories so ghoulish I STILL can’t believe I found them on my third-grade teacher’s bookshelf. “Harold,” the most terrifying of the bunch, tells the story of two disenchanted farmers who take their anger out on a scarecrow they name Harold—until the night they hear his footsteps walking back and forth across the roof of their cottage. It’s not long before the men are driven out of their home by fear of their vindictive living scarecrow, but, of course, they leave something crucial behind. One brother goes to retrieve it and never comes back. What’s waiting for the other brother when he follows is a vision of such singular horror I can still quote it from memory. I’ll spare you: read and discover it yourself.
Ginni: Child of God, by Cormac McCarthy
An unparalleled novel of gruesome depravity told in beautiful, raw prose. Falsely accused of rape and then released back into the world, Lester Ballard is a violent social outcast roaming the hills of Tennessee. What he does in the caves out there is shudder-inducing and unforgettably disturbing.
Shaun: It, by Stephen King
I first read It when I was a freshman in college, though I had been terrified by the movie for years. If I thought Tim Curry’s Pennywise the Dancing Clown was scary, it was nothing compared to the book version. I spent two sleepless nights staring suspiciously at my roommate’s birthday balloons, waiting for IT to peek out from behind them. After all, what could be scary than a terrifying god-clown that can turn into a spider and feeds on children’s fears? I’ll never look at a storm drain the same way again. Enjoy your nightmares!
Tori: In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote
UGH! THIS BOOK IS SO SCARY! There are books that are scary—like, “whoa, the mom was just a corpse in a rocking chair this whole time?”—and then there are books that are scarring, which is much much worse. In Cold Blood is the latter. Sure, it’s a work of genius, the suspense is unbearable, and the empathetic treatment of the antihero is something to marvel at, but I wish I’d never read it. The utter randomness of the brutal crime is so, so terrifying, and the fact that it’s nonfiction makes it that much worse. My takeaway from the book? You can live in the cutest farmhouse in the sweetest, most innocent town in Kansas, and you will still probably be gunned down after midnight.
What’s the scariest book you’ve ever read?