The weekly newspaper at my husband's university asked the professors what their favorite scary story was. They skipped my husband, more's the pity, because he never gives run-of-the-mill answers to anything.
His pick was "It's a good life" by Jerome Bixby. I couldn't find an official online site, so I'll let you look for it yourself.
I went with the more classical La Vénus d'Ille by Prosper Mérimée. Here's a link to the original French text, and here's another one to a Wikipedia article.
Now I was thinking of classic horror stories. But there's one that chilled my childhood and still enchants me (although it doesn't give me nightmares anymore).
It is Nikolai Gogol's Viy. There is a link from the Wikipedia page to the Russian full text, for the brave souls who can tackle it.
From a science fiction author (It's a good life is also a Twilight Zone episode) to a Russian classic by way of a French classic. Yeah, that's our family. The only strange thing is that I'm not the one who picked the sci-fi author this time.
So what's your favorite scary read? Horror story? Good chilling tale?
As I remember, there were quite a few excellent Goosebumps tales worth reading at any age.
It's all in the story! Especially in the dark of night. And in the telling, of course.
