Let’s be clear: this is not being afraid to turn out the light. This is knowing that when you turn out the light, you will spend a moment (and moments can be very long) lying in the dark, listening to your breathing, and thinking about what you just read. And what you just read is creepy, and not relaxing, and you can’t quite stop dwelling on it.
(Awesome feeling, really. Right, where was I?)
I was browsing through my list of currently-being-read books and noting most of them don’t have that–or at least, I don’t expect them to have it. Still working through them, after all. Of the two that might, one is a brick of an anthology from ’85, and one is a limited-edition collection. (Yes, both are a pile of short stories; I find those tend to disturb much more easily than novels.) Both are hardcovers. Neither lends themselves to being read comfortably in bed.
This is probably a good thing at the moment, since I need to be up early tomorrow, and do not want to be awake thinking about how wonderfully Michael Shea handles shoggoths and limited-omniscient POV voice. But I still rather regret not having more quietly unsettling things to read.
In the meantime, however, I’ve finished Horns (yes, I know; started it yesterday and had it all-but-done the same, read the epilogue-ish moment today) and am looking around for something to relax with. I may dig out some Stuart MacBride; I’m not sure why the Logan McRae novels are always soothing, but at this point I’d just like to be able to unwind and read enough to get to sleep.
This is exactly how I feel, including what you say about short stories. I’ve got several of those collected editions published in about 1900, six inches thick, with stories by all the most popular writers of the day – Walter De La Mare, H.G. Wells – and they’re terrifying
I haven’t read much De La Mare, I confess. I’ll put him on the list to get more into, although right now my next project to focus on is the new century-long compendium /The Weird/. 🙂