Help Me Scare My Students!

October 19, 2008 8:58 PM

Help! I need to find a collection of short, scary stories for my junior high school students!

I've been searching Google like crazy, trying to find short (read: longer than a few paragraphs) scary or horror stories for my 8th grade reading class. I need at least 5 stories that I can get on-line, free, and that I can print out tonight in time for class tomorrow morning! Any suggestions would be appreciated, as I've had poor luck so far.

posted by I_love_the_rain to education (19 comments total)

When I was in junior high, my literature class read quite a few short stories by Edgar Allen Poe.
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:06 PM on October 19, 2008

Oooh, looks good! My class just read "The Tell-Tale Heart" last week, but adding some more Poe to our repertoire wouldn't hurt! Thanks for the link!
posted by I_love_the_rain at 9:12 PM on October 19, 2008

A classic one from Roald Dahl: Lamb to the Slaughter
posted by ocherdraco at 9:23 PM on October 19, 2008

Guy de Maupassant is a good one, especially his short story called The Horla, but he has tons of short scary stories.
posted by shamble at 9:30 PM on October 19, 2008

:-D These are great suggestions, thanks so much for the responses so far! Keep 'em coming!
posted by I_love_the_rain at 9:40 PM on October 19, 2008

What about The Monkey's Paw?!
posted by moxiedoll at 9:43 PM on October 19, 2008

The Monkey's Paw

A Cup of Tea, by Lafcadio Hearn
posted by KokuRyu at 9:43 PM on October 19, 2008

Creepypasta.
posted by Memo at 10:09 PM on October 19, 2008 [1 favorite]

I used excerpts of H.P. Lovecraft to similar effect! I'm not an expert, but The Outsider and The Alchemist are pretty scary!
posted by themadjuggler at 10:57 PM on October 19, 2008

Bram Stoker's The Judge's House.
posted by winna at 11:49 PM on October 19, 2008

"The Birds" -- the original short story, by Daphne du Maurier -- is superbly creepy, and very bleak. Looks to be about eleven pages in length, maybe less depending on how you format it.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:46 AM on October 20, 2008

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury have some creepy tales to fit the age group.
posted by Odinhead at 3:00 AM on October 20, 2008

New York Times?
posted by InkaLomax at 4:26 AM on October 20, 2008

Most definitely Kiss, Kiss, a collection of short, mostly macabre stories by Willy-Wonka author Roald Dahl.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:34 AM on October 20, 2008

Vaulting over from the werewolf thread, with my third Saki rec this week: Gabriel Ernest
posted by the latin mouse at 4:39 AM on October 20, 2008

Seconding "The Monkey's Paw."
posted by futility closet at 5:42 AM on October 20, 2008

Roald Dahl actually edited an excellent anthology of scary ghost stories titled Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories. It's well worth buying. ISBN 0374518688.
posted by paulg at 5:55 AM on October 20, 2008

The Ravine, by Ray Bradbury, is a great Halloween story. Eek.
posted by RedEmma at 9:21 AM on October 20, 2008

This might have language that's too tough for 8th graders, but I am very fond of
The King in Yellow, particularly the first story, The Repairer of Reputations.
posted by wittgenstein at 10:30 AM on October 20, 2008