13 Days of Halloween: The scariest short story

“TRUE! nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why WILL you say that I am mad?” Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” hooks the reader from its first sentence and is a perennial contender for the most frightening short story ever written.

Unlike nearly all forms of fiction, however, the initial words aren’t always the most crucial to scary short stories. Frequently the last line provides the killing stroke. A truly enduring, haunting tale should end on a note that feels like a trapdoor opening up beneath its readers, leaving them off-balance and breathless. Sudden endings are a plus, like the way “The Tell-Tale Heart” ends with the nameless, murderous narrator, convinced he hears his victim’s heart beating, snaps and admits his crime:






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