As today is Halloween, I thought I’d throw you all a bit of a curve ball. Everyone’s expecting a list of the Top 10 Scariest Books of All Time, or something to that effect. (In fact, a few weeks ago, on this blog, I pondered putting one together. My meager contribution to listmania was this poll.)
So, instead of a list of titles, I thought I’d offer you a little more: Some of the best opening lines from well-known horror novels. Now, not everyone’s favorite will be on the list (and many below would never make it on my own list), but what you’ll find are great openings. Salem’s Lot and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are classics, but their opening lines are, well, a bit blah.
So enjoy them, and let me know if any of these openers were enough to pique your interest to acquire one of the novels.
“On those cloudy days, Robert Neville was never sure when sunset came, and sometimes they were in the streets before he could get back.” I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
I am Legend (Photo credit: jovike)
“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” The Call of Cthulhu, H.P. Lovecraft
“The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years—if it ever did end—began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.” It, Stephen King
IT (Photo credit: angelsimondim)
“So intent was Frank upon solving the puzzle of Lemarchand’s box that he didn’t hear the great bell begin to ring.” The Hellbound Heart, Clive Barker
Cover of The Hellbound Heart
“The blaze of sun wrung pops of sweat from the old man’s brow, yet he cupped his hands around the glass of hot sweet tea as if to warm them. He could not shake the premonition. It clung to his back like chill wet leaves.” The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty
The Exorcist (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more.” The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson
Cover via Amazon
“I had been making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. I already knew something was going to happen; the Factory told me.” The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
The Wasp Factory (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him. It sounded as though somebody was tapping on the windowpane.” Psycho, Robert Bloch
“Abandon all hope ye who enter here is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen from the backseat of the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street and just as Timothy Price notices the words a bus pulls up, the advertisement for Les Miserables on its side blocking his view, but Price who is with Pierce & Price and twenty-six doesn’t seem to care because he tells the driver he will give him five dollars to turn up the radio, ‘Be My Baby’ on WYNN and the driver, black, not American, does so.” American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
Cover of American Psycho
“The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm. He came along the street of Green Town, Illinois, in the late cloudy October day, sneaking glances over his shoulder. Somewhere not so far back, vast lightnings stomped the earth. Somewhere, a storm like a great beast with terrible teeth could not be denied.” Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
Cover of Something Wicked This Way Comes
There you go folks! And, as always, if you feel I missed an obvious one, let me know in the comments. Happy Halloween!
C.T.
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- Seasonal Reading: Spooky Stories for Halloween (nepheletempest.wordpress.com)
- 20 Authors to Read During the Halloween Season (houseofgeekery.com)
C.T. Westing 