Books that gave you nightmares!

[Paranye]

When I was reading through Antiq's thread about moments from Sir Terry's books that really stuck with people, I noticed that a good few of them were the grim, horrifying kind of moment - the death-roll in Jingo, the prisoners in Night Watch, things like that.

So, here's my question: what images in any books (Pratchett or otherwise) stuck with you because they horrified you, frightened you or gave you the shivers? They don't have to have literally given you nightmares, but they must have at least made you go

This isn't about the saddest moments in books, though there may be some overlap - it's about the gruesome ones. Here are a few of mine.

- The awful, seething mass of rats in The Amazing Maurice.
- The destruction of the Sandleford Warren in Watership Down.
- Maedhros, in the Silmarillion, hanging on Thangorodrim.

So what about you guys?

(If this ground has been covered or this isn't in the right place, do excuse me, I'm very new.)

 

[Quatermass]

Much of House of Leaves. Especially when it seems that you are reading the very book that sent someone to the brink of insanity, if not over it.

 

[Sister Jennifer]

Gruesome -There's were parts in the Thomas Harris/Hannibal Lector books that had me thinking, you've got to be kidding. They were very good esp. Silence of the Lambs but I'd never read them again.

More recently there's a morgue scene in Let The Right One In that scared the be-jesus out of me.

 

[Quatermass]

More recently there's a morgue scene in Let The Right One In that scared the be-jesus out of me.

Oh, yes, I remember that.

 

[Penfold]

Excellent thread Paranye.

I guess mine would have to be the book version of "Alien", written by Alan Dean Foster and adapted from the movie. He describes in detail the 'Face-huggers' attack on Kane (John Hurt) and the way it forces its proboscis down his throat to impregnate him while Kane struggles to resist.

 

[Batty]

The Haunting of Toby Jugg. It's too scary to read twice!! :scared-eek:

 

[Paranye]

Thanks Penfold!

Gruesome -There's were parts in the Thomas Harris/Hannibal Lector books that had me thinking, you've got to be kidding. They were very good esp. Silence of the Lambs but I'd never read them again.

Oh man yes! The thing with the guy and his face and... urgh.

Stephen King has had his moments too, in pretty much all his books. Cheesy as some of them are, he has a way with imagery.

Oh I've got another one - in The Count of Monte Cristo, when he takes Albert and Franz to see the executions. Decapitation is NBD, but La Mazzolata? Ew.

 

[raptornx01]

The Warriors book series had a few disturbing scenes. now keep in mind, this is a series of kids books about clans of feral cats.

One scene has a character just after getting attacked by a dog. her friends finding half her face gone.

the worst one, and probably the worst scene i've read ever, is toward the end of the first 6 book series. let me put it this way. having 9 lives is great, assuming what took your first life away is fixed before you are brought back.

if you saw the ep of the newer twilight zone where Jason Alexander plays death who briefly retires, you have an idea of what i mean.

 

[Sister Jennifer]

Oh man yes! The thing with the guy and his face and... urgh.

Stephen King has had his moments too, in pretty much all his books. Cheesy as some of them are, he has a way with imagery.

Yeah the face... brrrrrr

Stephen King is good gruesome though I think. One book of his that really freaked me was The Shining. I remember reading that on the couch one night ( I was about 16) and being too scared to get up and go to bed, so I sat on the couch all night. My Mum laughing at me the next morning. Of all the things in that book I think it was the bit with the topiary animals and whatever the hell was in the play tunnel.

What about The Raft & The Mist in his short stories? The bit in The Raft where that kid gets pulled through the boards? AND... Thinner? The guy with the zit curse? Whaaa!

Quatermass there's so many disturbing bits in Let The Right One In but I'd still highly recommend it. Maybe not to Twilight fans but what say you?

The trouble with this thread is I'm gonna have to find some of the books mentioned now .

 

[Paranye]

the worst one, and probably the worst scene i've read ever, is toward the end of the first 6 book series. let me put it this way. having 9 lives is great, assuming what took your first life away is fixed before you are brought back.

Yeeeeeesh... I see what you mean.

Sister Jennifer, Thinner gave me the heebie-jeebies from start to finish! God that was scary... and the Judge turning all scaly, and the gypsy with the rotting nose, and that creepy pulsating pie. Ugh.

I love me some Stephen King. He gets a lot of stick for being trashy or whatever, and sure, not all his books are fantastic, but I think he's a much better writer than people give him credit for. He has a wonderful way of writing people - in particular I love the way he writes female characters. Have you read Rose Madder? That had some of those moments too - for some reason the idea of her kidneys constantly being in pain from years of being beaten really got to me!

 

[Quatermass]

Quatermass there's so many disturbing bits in Let The Right One In but I'd still highly recommend it. Maybe not to Twilight fans but what say you?

I've read it already. Bloody disturbing, but excellent and touching, in a twisted kind of way.

I love this bit from The Stand by Stephen King.

The clocking sound was speeding up. A fast walk, a trot, a jog, run, sprint, and Bobby Terry got all the way around, too late, he was coming, Flagg was coming like some terrible horror monster out of the scariest picture ever made. The dark man's cheeks were flushed with jolly colour, his eyes were twinkling with happy good fellowship, and a hungry voracious grin stretched over his lips over huge tombstone teeth, shark teeth, and his hands were held out in front of him, and there were shiny black crowfeathers fluttering from his hair.

No, Bobby Terry tried to say, but nothing came out.

'HEY, BOBBY TERRY, YOU SCROOOOWED IT UP!' the dark man bellowed, and fell upon the hapless Bobby Terry.

There were worse things than crucifxion.

There were teeth.

 

[Antiq]

I was about 15 when I read The Exorcist Yeah, that creeped me out back then. Wouldn't now.

Animal Farm.
Lord Of The Flies.

 

[Catch-up]

Salem's Lot by Stephen King. I read that when I lived alone. Stupid! The part I remember getting to me the most was the scratching on the windows.

I also can't read any kind of serial killer books, fiction or non. There was one I tried to read by Dean Koontz that gave me panic attacks in just the first few pages.

 

[deldaisy]

A few King books scared me when I was a teen. I think its the teen years that this happens the most right?

 

[author3]

I've honestly never been scared of a book.I guess I'm pretty hard to scare.I hope don't sound cocky with this post but when I watch horror films (which I love) I hardly ever jump.

 

[Paranye]

I was about 15 when I read The Exorcist Yeah, that creeped me out back then. Wouldn't now.

Animal Farm.
Lord Of The Flies.

Poor Boxer

Author3, some people just don't scare easy! What about books that disgusted you, or had some kind of memorably unpleasant imagery?

 

[author3]

I was about 15 when I read The Exorcist Yeah, that creeped me out back then. Wouldn't now.

Animal Farm.
Lord Of The Flies.

Poor Boxer

Author3, some people just don't scare easy! What about books that disgusted you, or had some kind of memorably unpleasant imagery?

Well when I was about 7 I opened up an coloured illustrated edition of Stephen King's The Dark Tower vol.II and I remember there being n#di*y in one of the pictures and that really freaked me out.

 

[high eight]

Loads of stuff:-

A thing with cobwebs in it's eyes in M R James' The Tractate Middoth
Also James - the leathery thing in The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
The ghastly death of the German night fighter pilot in Robert Westall's 'haunted bomber' story Blackham's Wimpy
The evil car in Keith Roberts' The Scarlet Lady
The thing (log, body or figment of the imagination) in John Gordon's The House on the Brink. There is a scene where it is in a cornfield in a thunderstorm and is closer with every flash of lightning.........
Fritz Lieber's Smoke Ghost

And plenty more........

 

[Ziriath]

I was about 15 when I read The Exorcist Yeah, that creeped me out back then. Wouldn't now.

Animal Farm.
Lord Of The Flies.

Poor Boxer

Author3, some people just don't scare easy! What about books that disgusted you, or had some kind of memorably unpleasant imagery?

Yes, poor Boxer. I've seen an animated Animal Farm movie, when I was five, or so. I' ve never cried while wathing a movie, but I was just about to cry while watching Boxer's sad last moments.

 

[Tonyblack]

I read Animal Farm when I was a kid and had no idea of it's Soviet parody.