7. Haunted - Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk is most well known for writing Fight Club, which in some twisted way is actually one of the less disturbing of his novels. Haunted consists of 23 short stories - a main narrative and then a story told by each character in the main narrative. The story focuses on a group of people who have come to an abandoned theatre as a kind of writer's retreat and they must write a great work before they can leave. At first the characters survive happily on the utilities with which they have been provided but it is not long before they come up with the idea to destroy the things they have been given in order to create a better story. However, this soon turns to havoc leaving them struggling to survive. As the characters begin to tell stories of their lives the group turns on each other and the consequences soon become dire with many members of the group being injured or killed. What is so scary about Palahniuk's book is not the situation that the characters find themselves in but the disturbing stories that they tell, with each one becoming more surreal and confusing than the last. Although not traditionally scary, Haunted will leave you puzzled and a little unsure of just whether there is any truth surrounding the basis for some of Palahuniuk's stories.