My Favorite Scary Short Stories

The Giants

            As Halloween is coming up, I thought I should write a post about my favorite scary short stories. When people think about scary stories, there are two literary giants that dominate the scene: Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. Those two authors are unequaled in both how many stories they wrote and the fame of their stories. While I am not particularly fond of scary anything whether movies, events or stories, I can appreciate well written terrifying stories.

The Pit and the Pendulum

One of the first scary short stories that I appreciated though I was horrified as I was reading it was “The Pit and the Pendulum.” The part that impressed me was how Poe progressed from a prisoner unable to move to crawling around his cell, “My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry -- very smooth, slimy, and cold.” Poe gradually builds a grimmer and grimmer mental image.

A prisoner in a cell, a slimy cold stone-wall cell, a slimy cold stone-wall cell with a deep pit in the middle, and finally a slimy cold stone-wall cell with a deep pit in the middle and a pendulum above coming “Down -- steadily down it crept,” and, “Down -- certainly, relentlessly down!” and,  “Down -- still unceasingly -- still inevitably down!” As he created the image, so Poe builds the suspense. Each “down” functions as another  “duh-nuh” in the theme from Jaws adding a sense of emergency and impending doom.

 

I know What You Need

This is the most recent scary short story that I read. In a way almost everyone can relate to it.  You’re thinking about how much you want something and suddenly your significant other brings it without you asking. You were thinking about how you really needed cheered up and someone comes up and tells you the funniest story you’ve heard in a long time. These lovely coincidences are turned really creepy if there is the slightest chance that they are planned. What if someone knew what you needed all the time and could give you it? They follow you around and wait till you need something and immediately provide it.

To some people that might sound really nice, if a little annoying. But what if you were already attached to someone? This person, Ed, in the short story would stop at nothing to be the one you loved. So that person you were with would have a sudden accident and they would be there right when you needed it. Because Ed knows what you need. Stephen King was able to take something benign like little coincidences that make us happy and turn it a little askew into something skin-crawlingly creepy.

The Premature Burial

While Stephen King makes the mundane terrifying, Poe is able to make the most absurd horrifying scenarios and make them seem both imminent and inescapable. While I was impressed with Poe’s skills in “The Pit and the Pendulum,” I still didn’t think he was anything special, until I read this story. The narrator is afraid of being buried alive.

When I learned that, I thought he was crazy. There is no sane reason for anyone to be afraid of being buried alive. It’s absurd. Sure if it happened it would be terrifying, but it wouldn’t happen. There’s no way that situation would ever seem likely. By the end it not only seemed logical, but also scared me into worrying that I could potentially be buried alive.

What about you?

What are your favorite scary short stories or just scary stories in general?

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Image Credit: "Ghosts" by Sylvia Engvall