an incomplete list of unsettling short stories I read in textbooks
the scarlet ibis
marigolds
the diamond necklace
the monkey’s paw
the open boat
the lady and the tiger
the minister’s black veil
an occurrence at owl creek bridge
a rose for emily
(I found that one by googling “short story corpse in the house,” first result)
the cask of amontillado
the yellow wallpaper
the most dangerous game
a good man is hard to find
some are well-known, some obscure, some I enjoy as an adult, all made me uncomfortable between the ages of 11-15
add your own weird shit, I wanna be literary and disturbed
The Tell-Tale Heart, The Gift of the Magi, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavaras County, Thank You Ma'am
the box social by james reaney. i remember we all had to silently read it in class, and you would hear the moment everyone reached the Part because some people would audibly go “what”
wHat did I just put my eyes on
“The Veldt” by Ray Bradbury
Not quite a short story, but read in class: “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street” from The Twilight Zone
Harrison Bergeron, Cat and the Coffee Drinkers
“Where are you going and where have you been” by Joyce carol oates
“The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury
the lottery by shirley jackson
i can’t believe Roald Dahl’s “The Landlady” wasn’t already mentioned and also it’s not so much unsettling as more absurdist but “The Leader” by Eugene Ionesco definitely made me go wtf
Ett halvt ark papper. I cried so much.
Ночь у мазара, А. Шалимов
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury
I Have no Mouth, and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison
The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby, by Donald Barthelme
We read lots of good disturbing shit in hs or in the writing groups I joined in hs but somehow the top of the heap for shit that haunted me’s still indisputably Ethan Canin’s “The Palace Thief”. It’s not horror as such but it freaked me the fuck out.
There was another O. Henry short story we read that was also really alarming but I had to google a major spoiler (which is also a warning) to recall the name – “The Furnished Room”.
there will come soft rains by bradbury was very unsettling for middle school me
I had no idea so many were all written by Ray Bradbury, why did he do this to us
“Emergency” by Dennis Johnson – not entirely disturbing but really weird and there’s one Bad Part
“A Small, Good Thing” by Raymond Carver – again not all that bad but sad and kind of creepy
i had to read a collapse of horses by brian evenson for a writing class last year and it’s. very fucking weird
“the birds” by du maurier
Bradbury wrote a lot of weird shit. But, “The Book of Sand” and"The Library of Babel" by Luis Borges.
“It’s a Good Life” - Jerome Bixby “The Little Black Bag” - Cyril M. Cornbluth “The Cold Equations” - Tom Godwin “The Nine Billion Names of God” - Arthur C. Clarke “Mars is Heaven!” - Ray Bradbury “Born of Man and Woman” - Richard Matheson “That Only A Mother” - Judith Maril “The Country of the Kind” - Damon Knight “Mimsy Were The Borogroves” - Lewis Padgett “Lamb to the Slaughter” - Roald Dahl “We Can Get Them For You Wholesale” - Neil Gaiman “BLIT” and “Different Kinds of Darkness” - David Langford (set in the same universe) (there are a couple of other “basilisk” stories and they’re worth checking out) “The Secret Number” - Igor Teper
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Nearly anything by Borges tbh, he specializes in unsettling
Technically read it on my own in high school but Guts by Chuck Palahniuk wigged me out for a while.
Also, from college, A Very Old Man With Enourmous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
Magical realism as a genre and genres inspired by it have some nutty fucking short stories and there are a lot that I remember imagery from but not the titles or authors (Borges is one).
POPULAR MECHANICS
I forget the title, but there was a story in one of my textbooks where the narrator hangs a kitten after his dad can’t stand its mewing and says someone should kill it. He gets in very deep trouble with his parents, and his dad says he didn’t mean it. I felt weird for days. We didn’t read it in class, but I was one of those bright kids who did extra reading. For fun.
“Leiningen Versus the Ants,” Carl Stephenson.
“The Voice in the Night”, William Hope Hodgson
“Survivor Type”, Stephen King
“Dark The Were, and Golden Eyed” by Ray Bradbury. I both loved it and was shook by it, and it’s always pissed me off that I never found it anywhere since or even a mention of it online until just now. Oddly I remember the title as “Yellow Eyed” but it is “Golden Eyed” so idk.
technically a chapter of a longer book but Last Night by Colson Whitehead (from the book Zone One)
“All in a Summer Day” by Ray Bradbury
“The Moving Finger” by Stephen King is just about the most disturbing thing I’ve ever read.
