Has any book ever literally given you chills?

[CheerfulYank]

For me it's Stephen King's Dead Zone, about a man, Johnny, who wakes up from a coma with psychic powers.

(SPOILERS)

He's working as a tutor for a high school boy later on and he tells his student not to go to the graduation party as the restaurant will burn down. No one believes him, but the boy and about half the class come to an alternate party at the boy's house because they're scared. The rest of the class goes to the restaurant.

Johnny and the boy's father are playing cards while chaperoning the alternative party and a radio announcement interrupts to say that the worst fire in the state's history has broken out at the restaurant, and almost everyone there is dead.

I haven't explained it that well, but for some reason ( and I've read it a few times) I literally get goosebumps at that bit. Every time!

Anyone else have this or just me? :o

oh, and there's a very scary ghost story in a collection by Gerald Durrell which put me off looking in mirrors for a long time, I had to cover up the one in my room.

I didn't find Life After Life chilling, it's a great book though.

Birdsong made me physically retch.

The Amityville Horror. Can't even remember who wrote it. The bit where the tricycle goes round and round the yard all by itself while the child watches, claps and laughs. I've got the chills just writing this post.

What's the bit in the basement in, "Salem's Lot"? I know he'd intended for the man to get eaten by rats and decided that was just too disguating, but I thought what he replaced it with was worse - was it knives, or nails or something?

Pet semetary - I read it as a teenager. Was petrified so what did I do? Re read it straight away but couldn't turn the page when the little boy ran out into the road and had to throw the book away. It makes my blood run cold just thinking about it. Not read any stephen king for years.

What are te scary stories by Gerald Durrell? I've only read his animal stories and the Corfu trilogy.

Reading Song of Susannah when I was eight months pregnant. It made me mentally reel...I just couldn't finish it, it was TOO MUCH.

I have just finished reading it now baby DS is eight months and am embarking on the last book. It is as if I have never been away, although I am bracing myself for more emotional trauma...

see, I can't remember either of those things. Just that it's about a vampire.

I didn't find the little boy in Pet Sematary scary at all - it was all a bit ludicrous: little geezer in a suit shuffling around killing people. I must just be a hardened cow.

Run - GD has done a number of books which were collections of his writings and one contains this ghost story, so not his usual thing. Quick look on Wikipedia and I think it's in The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium. Probably out of print now, try the library?

Remus I think they sawed off the basement stairs and there were spikes sticking up.

How on earth could he think that was less horrifying than rats?!

The Mother's Tale. I don't think I will ever read it again. Horrible book, I was very cross at the author when I had finished it. I felt it was very unnecessary and just written for shock value money making reasons. I know all books are written to make money but it was in the realms of all the shitty misery books.

The Little Stranger totally freaked me out. When I realised.....

The first time I read Dracula I had to put all the lights on before going to sleep, too.

Mister Pip was horrible. Just a really shocking and, for me, unexpected violence although perhaps it shouldn't have been so jarring.

There was also a book by Chuck Palahniuk. It had a horrible scene in it with a pool. I think I recycled it rather than let some unsuspecting person pick it up in a charity shop.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks where a baby dies whilst the mother is breast feeding, I'd just had my first child and it made me cry - post natal hormones and all that.

The Woman in White although can't remover the bit, just the feeling!

Also, The Historian, where he knows he can't look behind him as Dracula is there and looking will allow him to become real, or something like that. Really hard to not turn around while you're reading it!!

remember the bit

The Boy in the Striped pyjamas. I read the book without knowing about the film, and genuinely did not see the end coming. Probably one of the few times I have said 'oh my god!' out loud at the last paragraph of a book!

Me too Biggles. I read it years ago without knowing any of the hype.

My jaw literally hit the floor at the end.

Nineteen Eighty-Four when they hear the voice behind the picture...

Also I second Boy in the striped pyjamas and We need to talk about kevin.

I'm not ever going to read any of these books as I know they'd freak me out too much. ( have read 'We need to talk about Kevin' tho and that was pretty gruesome...)

We need to talk about Kevin, when I realised what Kevin had done to his sister and father. I almost vomited.

Sarah's key, the part about the little boy, very early on in the book. I actually put the book down and couldn't pick it up again for several weeks as it haunted me. DS was the same age at the time so I think that's why it weirded me out.

Dracula freaked me out totally as a child. I had nightmares for years and always slept with my neck covered!

I haven't read the Kevin book. What is gruesome about it ?

I haven't read we need to talk about Kevin either, thought the film was really unsettling though.
The Masque of the Red Death and the War of the Worlds both give me the shivers too.