Scary Stories

I love the delicious feeling you get from a horror story. The giddy unease, as the words build themselves into a nightmare.  Some writers can conjure amazingly unreal creatures. My favorites are the authors who can scare the socks off of you with a fantastic ghost story. There is something about a gliding spectre, crying from their unjust death, plotting the untimely demise of the unfortunate new tenant of the obviously haunted house that makes me stay up late to finish another chapter.

If the book can make my heart beat faster, even better.  Hunkering down into the sofa, tingling as the suspense builds. The best stories aren't about gore, but the slow climax to the character realizing
they are being haunted.

Creaking steps, footfalls overhead, scratching, moans, whispers...what does me in is a giggling child ghost. They are their own class of creepy.  Misty forests, wailing women, floating nuns, anothers face in the mirror, secret rooms, hidden graves, a breath on the back of the neck, a glimpse out of the corner of an eye....I devour the books like a monster devours its prey in between the pages of the books littering my house.

My favorite ghost story is The Woman in Black by Susan Hill.  Have you read it?  It has everything I love about horror stories: the dark sense of foreboding, the perfect tone, and a shock you can't believe.  I found out they are making this book into a movie.  Guess who will be in line the day it comes out in theaters?

So, my dear readers, what is your favorite scary story, or book?  Is anyone else looking forward to this movie?

Please share!