History NightmareFuel / JamesHerbert

** Investigating ghost hunter David Ash, on first sight of the castle, is overcome with premonitive dread. Chauffeur Gordon Dalzell then tells Ash of ill-fated medium Moira Glennon: on sight of the castle, she exuded a ghostly chill, and, on the passenger seat right beside Gordon, died.

* ''Literature/{{Ash}}'':

* ''Literature/TheFog'' combines a set of shears and an agonised scream to [[CripplingCastration brutal]] [[NothingIsScarier effect]].

** The castle saw a brutal fourteenth century clan dispute, wherein Laghlan Deahan butchered the wife and daughters of Laird Duncan McKinnon, and, with a red-hot knife, put out his eyes.

* ''Literature/TheGhostsOfSleath'': The secluded village of Sleath's history of RitualMagic and HumanSacrifice lead to a memorably [[FlayedAlive brutal]] finale.
** The village's thirteenth century governor, a practitioner of RitualMagic learned from his stint in UsefulNotes/TheCrusades, founded among his descendants a monstrous tradition of ritual HumanSacrifice, which enhanced the village's propensity for troubled spirits. On exiting this monster's crypt, an investigating psychic has [[NothingIsScarier an irrepressible suspicion]] of being followed.

* In ''Literature/TheSecretOfCrickleyHall'', Augustus and Magda Cribben, a [[TheFundamentalist fanatically austere]] brother and sister, terrorise their [[BlitzEvacuees charges]] with vicious discipline, which culminates in Magda's assisted murder of a kindly young tutor and Augustus's crazed, fatal attempt to circumcise a five-year-old orphan.

* ''Literature/{{Ash}}'': a castle utilised as an expensive retreat for people with incriminating connections houses a [[MagneticMedium psychically conducive]] inmate who rouses the castle's angry spirits to physically harm and even kill; stir violent impulses in the living, and infest all the food currently being consumed in the castle into maggots - which quickly mature into flies.

* ''Literature/TheDark'': In a suburban London house, experimental occultists rouse from humanity's collective consciousness a fathomless tendency to sadism. The house retains a phantom recollection of the their murderous orgy. When the house is demolished, its evil escapes to infect patches of darkness, which, across the city, rouse an increasing number of people to sadistic violence.

* ''Literature/TheDark'': In a suburban London house, experimental occultists rouse from humanity's collective consciousness a fathomless tendency to sadism. The house retains a phantom recollection of a violent orgy. When the house is demolished, its evil escapes to infect patches of darkness, which, across the city, rouse an increasing number of people to sadistic violence.

* 'Literature/TheGhostsOfSleath'': The secluded village of Sleath's history of RitualMagic and HumanSacrifice lead to a memorably [[FlayedAlive brutal]] finale.

* In ''Literature/Creed1990'', a member of an occult society [[ShapeShifting shape-shifts]] with shocking ease and [[HumanoidAbomination lurid]] [[BlobMonster variety]].

* ''Literature/{{Ash}}'': a castle utilised as an expensive retreat for people with incriminating connections houses a [[MagneticMedium psychically conducive]] inmate who rouses the castle's angry spirits to physically harm and even kill; stir violent impulses in the living, and transform all the food currently being consumed in the castle into maggots.

* In ''Literature/{{Creed1990}}'', a member of an occult society [[ShapeShifting shape-shifts]] with shocking ease and [[HumanoidAbomination lurid]] [[BlobMonster variety]].

* In ''Creed'', a member of an occult society [[ShapeShifting shape-shifts]] with shocking ease and [[HumanoidAbomination lurid]] [[BlobMonster variety]].
* In ''Literature/TheGhostsOfSleath'', the secluded village of Sleath's history of RitualMagic and HumanSacrifice lead to a memorably [[FlayedAlive brutal]] finale.

* In ''Literature/{{Ash}}'', a castle utilised as an expensive retreat for people with incriminating connections houses a [[MagneticMedium psychically conducive]] inmate who rouses the castle's angry spirits to physically harm and even kill; stir violent impulses in the living, and transform all the food currently being consumed in the castle into maggots.

!! Unmarked spoilers

** The village's thirteenth century governor, a practitioner of RitualMagic learned from his stint in UsefulNotes/TheCrusades, founded among his descendants a monstrous tradition of ritual HumanSacrifice, which enhanced the village's propensity for troubled spirits. On exiting this [[CompleteMonster monster]]'s crypt, an investigating psychic has [[NothingIsScarier an irrepressible suspicion]] of being followed.

* In ''Literature/{{Ash}}'', a castle utilised as an expensive retreat for people with incriminating connections houses a [[MagneticMedium psychically conducive]] inmate who rouses the castle's angry spirits to physically harm and even kill; stir violent impulses in the living, and transform all the food currently being consumed in the castle into maggots.

** Sixty-odd years later, eerily subtle indications in Crickley Hall of implacable presences include a darkly silhouetted, [[EvilSmellsBad oppressively malodorous]] figure which exudes malice and strikes one of the children with a sadistically fashioned cane.

* In ''Literature/{{Ash}}'', a castle utilised as an expensive retreat for people with incriminating connections houses a [[MagneticMedium psychically conducive]] inmate who rouses the castle's angry spirits to physically harm and even kill; rouse violent impulses in the living, and transform all the food currently being consumed in the castle into maggots.

* ''Literature/{{Once}}'''s magically [[TheSwarm infinite horde]] of spiders spring our of their [[BiggerOnTheInside jar]] in an endless flow to cover nearly every inch of floor, walls and ceiling, attempt to [[AllWebbedUp cocoon]] the protagonist, and even go in his mouth.

** Sixty-odd years later, eerily subtle indications in Crickley Hall of implacable presences include a darkly silhouetted, [[EvilSmellsBad oppressively malodorous]] figure which exudes malice, and strikes one of the children with a sadistically fashioned cane.