What are the scariest moments in a book have you read?

It was a crime thriller story where a woman was alone in her “large” multi-levelled home and someone was trying to break in on a stormy night with flashes of sheet lightning illumining the darkness through her open curtained windows. Her phone rang once and she answered it to the increasing drama of heavy breathing on the line. She let the phone drop and ran to another room. She picks up her cell phone and dials daddy and whispers what is going on. He encourages her to leave the land line phone dangle and he gets in touch with the police who quickly run a trace on the caller and they discover that the offender was actually calling from an extension within the house.

The moment when Professor Parkins clears the clogged sand from the whistle he found at the beach, deciphers the Latin inscription (who is this who is coming) and decides to blow it to find out.

Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to you My Lad

I’m reading “The Stupidist Angel” by Christopher Moore and they’re fighting the undead. It’s funny but at the same time creepy. If you want more detail let me know.

Basically any moment in World War Z. That book is so scary, I have to hide it under other books so I won’t accidentally see it and have flashbacks. But I still re-read it every so often and lose sleep for like an entire week.

Thanks everyone so far for the posts. I would check out those I haven’t read yet.

@Haleth Really, World War Z? Lol. Just kidding. Read it two months ago and yes, I could recall seriously scary zombie situations there. Brad Pitt’s making a movie of it. ( SPOLIER ALERT ) And for some reason what I dearly hope to be included in this epic essay on film and feverishly wishing to be directed with such intense suspense is that part in the book where they continually fire with unison precision in an alternating square shape formation, their combat methodology critically dependent on this infantry rifle that is supposedly immune to jamming as thousands of zombies approach like ants from all sides.

That takes perfect synchronicity of guns, bullets and human nerves of steel to be able to pull off. Nice.

The rape scene in the story (not movie) “Shawshank Redemption.” I won’t describe it because just remembering it is stomach-turning enough. I was 18 when I read it and still consider it one of the most scary moments in a book I’ve ever read. The same moment in the movie is “pshaw” compared to the book.

I want to say it was in The Stand, but on second thought it wasn’t.
It was the book Helter Skelter. The author described the mind of Manson so absorbingly, that the point where Buliosi’s watch stopped when Manson gave him a hard look gave me nightmares for weeks.

The end of Stephen King’s short story Boogeyman(?). It may have been the meds, but I was scared enough to be hiding under the blankets when the lights went out.

I haven’t read many fiction horror books, but there are some moments in (non-fiction) The Hot Zone that are pretty scary.

@PhiNotPi That was damn scary GA.

@Adirondackwannabe I first read that book when I was in seventh grade, and it probably took me a month to stop thinking about the book, and my mortality.

@PhiNotPi I read that and immediately thought of The Stand, by Stephen King.