To ask what's the scariest/creepiest thing you've read?

[ChickenTikkaTellMeWhatsWrong]

I love anything to do with creepiness and I know there have been a few threads about the creepiest things that have happened, but I want to know what are the creepiest, scariest thing you've read.

I always remember when I was in year 6 I read a book called 'In a dark dark room' and there was one story about a girl with a green ribbon around her neck and she meets someone called Alfred. They get married and she never takes the ribbon off her neck and never tells Alfred why, until they're both old and she tells Alfred to untie the ribbon and her head fell off.
That story used to freak me out, but I constantly read it whenever I could and I always think of about it and still remember how I felt when I first read it.

I was also reading short scary stories not so long ago and this one freaked me out...

“I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy, check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed.””

Anyone else?.....

I’ve read Poe and James (both Henry and MR); they’re awesome, but I found Sheridan LeFanu’s short stories more creepy somehow; Green Tea especially.

I was pretty bothered too when I read The Woman in Black.

Oh and still Marianne Dreams. The moving rocks were unnerving.

@BritneyPeedOnALadybug OMG Yes I remember that, it freaked me out!

The Turn of the Screw for me too! Even just thinking about it now makes me feel sick. It had this horrible sense of wrongness. You'd have to pay me to re-read it.

I watched Dracula after Christmas The wee boy that followed her home. I couldn't sleep for days

I wish I could be creeped out. I have never seen a film or read a book that remotely bothered me like that. The only thing I ever used to get freaked out by was watching bloody Crimewatch! If someone has any suggestions of something that would really scare the crap out of me I’d love to know

The Bogeyman by Stephen King (a short story in his Night Shift collection). I read it when I was 13. Couldn't sleep without the light on for two weeks in case something came out of the wardrobe.

Thank you op. That book made an impression on me too. I have been wondering what it was called for years. I am off to try and buy that book now.

I traumatised myself by reading about Jeffrey dahmer on wiki

The Russian Sleep Experiment was disturbing, but I thought it ended on a blah. This one gets me:

I begin tucking him into bed and he tells me, “Daddy, check for monsters under my bed.” I look underneath for his amusement and see him, another him, under the bed, staring back at me quivering and whispering, “Daddy, there’s somebody on my bed.”

Salem’s Lot: the part where the boy vampire was tapping on his friends window at night to get in. Really creeped me out. It was a hot summer and I slept with the window closed all throughout.

I’ve read that story OP and have always remembered it.
Also yy to Yellow Wallpaper. Also because my biggest arsehole of an ex was always going on about while doing all he could to gaslight me. It had a special poignance when I finally read it.
When I was a kid I read a book of Scottish ghost stories that had one about a old crone type figure touching the eyes and ears of sleeping children during a scarlet fever epidemic. Sometimes she would drive a stake into their forehead. The children would then either go blind, deaf or die depending on what they got. 30 years ago and it still creeps me out.

"Pickman' s Model" by HP Lovecraft, and loads of the rest of his stuff.
There is also an EF Benson story about a woman whose soul is so evil the earth refused to accept her when she dies and is buried, that one has stayed with me.
""Dr Sleep", the whole book just had this atmosphere, so unrelenting!

A Gerald Durrell short story, I think it's in 'A Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium'.

It concerns a mirror.

It still gives me shudders.

Yy to Sheridan leFanu!

@ActualHornist Always amused when people bring up MH on these kind of threads. I know Tim, one of the guys from it, and have done since just before they started filming it - he’s a complete sweetheart. Still can’t bring myself to watch it though I’m a complete wimp!

I studied the Yellow Wallpaper as part of my gothic module at uni, and then a few years later saw there was a performance at the local uni. I took my mum. It was a tiny dark little room at the top of a tower in Manchester uni, there were only 6 in the audience and we stood in the middle while the action took place in the drapes around us. It was extremely atmospheric!

What’s that one about the smiling man walking in a funny way down the opposite side of the street?

They made a YouTube video of it, too. Creeped me out SO much!

"A Walk In The Dark" by Arthur C. Clarke. www.goodreads.com/book/show/24247835-a-walk-in-the-dark

Two of my favorite creepypasta's are :

Anansi's Goatman

I am a Search and Rescue Officer

Just read yellow wallpaper. I don't get it. Does she go mad? Is the baby dead? Is her husband making her go mad?

I hate anything creepy so generally don't read that genre but agree with The Yellow Wallpaper.

The other one was a post on Mumsnet about freaky / scary things that had happened to you. The OP went to a nightclub that she used to be a regular 20 years(?) later and the same man was there but he looked exactly the same. Dressed the same, hadn't aged at all and he gave off such a feeling of dread that she had to leave immediately. That freaked me out (it doesn't take much).

That anecdote someone told on a creepy thread on here, about a demonic presence in Savernake Forest.

Just read yellow wallpaper. I don't get it. Does she go mad? Is the baby dead? Is her husband making her go mad?

Same, the ending didn't make sense...

In studied turn of the screen and yellow wallpaper at uni. Both thrilling.
I think any true stories from the wars, especially prisoner of war ones, scare me most. Reading about experiments conducted on children makes me so sick and scared for them :(

I've also read some real scary stuff on here too.