History NothingIsScarier / Literature

*** The journey through Mirkwood also uses this trope a good deal. Bilbo and the Dwarves don't encounter anything frightening for most of the chapter, but the forest is frightfully dark and [[GiantSpider massive cobwebs]] surround the path. They almost go mad trudging through the woods, and are especially scared at night [[TheDarknessGazesBack as eyes watch them from darkness, especially insect-like ones]]. At other times they hear eerie laughter and voices of Elves and this only causes them to hurry on with what strength they have. Actually encountering the elves and to much lesser extent the giants spiders is almost a relief compared the preceding unknown.

** ''Literature/WelcomeToDeadHouse'' in pure NothingIsScarier fashion focuses on unsettling dread rather than up in your face horror. As the first real scare, is just Amanda spotting a boy she's never seen before looking out at her from the bedroom of her new house and yet when she races up to investigate finds her bedroom empty. Both Amanda and her brother Josh hear and experience things around the house such as children giggling, footsteps, figures behind curtains and horrible nightmares. One particularly disturbing chapter is when Amanda and Josh meet the neighbourhood kids and while chatting on the basketball court, the kids (while staring intently and smiling) form a ring around Amanda and Josh and start closing in -- before Mr Dawes the estate agent arrives. It's unclear exactly the other kids were going to do anything to them or if Amanda was just imagining things but either way given [[TheUndead the reveal]] by the end it's very disturbing.

* In ''Literature/TheHorseAndHisBoy'', Shasta has to spend a night alone beside the Tombs of the Ancient Kings. He's very glad that a stray tomcat is around and keeps him company, because he keeps imagining something is going to come out of them. On another occasion, he and a non-talking horse are riding through a fog when he suddenly realizes that something is right next to them and has been for some time. As it turns out, both times were benevolent interference by Aslan, the series' BigGood.

** ''Literature/TheHauntedMask'' which is already one of the scarier books in the series ''especially the [[Series/{{Goosebumps}} TV adaptation]]'', has a case of this with the unnamed shopkeeper who created “The Unloved” the eponymous haunted masks. In the books we never learn why he created these apparently real and grotesque faces, but even more disturbingly in the show is the revelation that he made the masks to cover up his own NightmareFace and every beautiful mask he creates will soon turn hideous due to the ugliness within him. We ''never'' actually see his real face, making an already unnerving character even more scary.

*** it's flat-out stated that the scariest thing Bilbo had to do in his whole adventure was walk down the lightless tunnel to Smaug's lair. Not the dragon himself, not the giant spiders from Mirkwood, not the Goblins, Trolls or Wolves from the Misty Mountains, just the tunnel and the crippling fear of not knowing if a dragon was sleeping at the end of it.

* In ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'', the heroes are traveling through the Labyrinth when they hear breathing and footsteps. They escape from the maze and seal the door before they find out what the creature is.
* In Creator/PatriciaAMcKillip's ''Literature/TheRiddleMasterTrilogy'', we hear of a king of Hed chased into his home by -- something. But it didn't come through the last door. He waited, and waited, until he longed for it to break in. Then he opened the door -- and found no sign of it.
* In ''Literature/SeekerBears'', Lusa comes across a forest with dead trees everywhere. But she realizes that the scariest part about the dead forest...was the silence.

** In the backstory, there's the Doom of Valyria. The Freehold of Valyria ruled an entire continent for five thousand years with the aid of their dragons. And then suddenly, for no known reason, ''the whole continent'' started exploding and brought the whole place low, with only a few people escaping. Most people consider the place cursed, and way back when, the Targaryen princess Aerea flew there on the back of the dragon Balerion. When they came back, Aerea was gaunt, wasted, and afflicted with a horrific fever and even more horrific worms ''inside her'', with her last coherent words just being "I never...". Balerion, meanwhile, had a huge, bleeding wound on his side. Balerion was probably the largest and most powerful dragon the Targaryens ever possessed... and '''something hurt him'''.

*** Earlier than that we have Stan’s encounter with Pennywise at the Standpipe (where a few kids drowned), which is an immensely effective example of this. Rather than getting a traditional up in your face scare or meeting Pennywise face to face like the rest of the Losers, Stan instead just finds the Standpipe unlocked and goes inside. At the stairwell he hears calliope music and smell of popcorn and cotton candy of a carnival and lured Stan climbs up a dozen (he thinks he only climbed up a little way) but stops when he hears beneath the music — the sound of ''wet eager footsteps'' descending the stairs and bobbing shadows above him. Stan only sees the shadows for a moment as the Standpipe doors swing shut leaving him in darkness. Fleeing back to the door Stan tries to push it open as he hears footsteps coming closer and closer, foul water runs down the stairs and dead voices call out to Stan as something approaches from the darkness. Thanks to some ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Stan is able to use his bird book to ward whatever coming towards him off and escape. What makes this encounter so much more frightening than a lot of the other scares in the book, is that the horror is sensory and sparse, Stan just finds himself stuck in a dark place and knowing a death that he can’t see is coming down the stairs to meet him. [[spoiler:It’s small wonder Stan chooses to commit suicide rather than return to Derry and subject himself to that level of mental torment again.]]
*** [[spoiler:Speaking of Stan’s suicide, that is also a case of this in the book. We follow his wife Patty’s POV as she witnesses Stan answer the phone and be initially delighted before becoming quiet (it’s Mike telling him to come back to Derry and fulfil their vow). Stan then tells Patty he’s going to take a bath and she hears him go upstairs and the sound of water running into the tub and then stop five or ten minutes later. Patty realises Stan went up without a beer like he usually does and goes to get one for him from the fridge. The fear well and truly seeps in when she finds the bathroom door closed and no answer as she taps on the door, Patty likens the feeling to a “cold pocket” when swimming through a warm lake as a kid and you feel a suddenly chill, except in this case it wasn’t around her teenage legs but around her heart. She tries to reassure herself her fright is unfounded and everything is okay as she goes downstairs to get the key and go back up to unlock the bathroom… to see Stan dead in tub with his wrists cut and the word '''IT''' written on the wall. Similar to Georgie and storm drain the reader is horribly aware of what’s going to happen but can’t do anything but witness it slowly play out through Patty’s eyes.]]

** The first half of ''Literature/TheLangoliers'' invokes this a few times and manages to be more unsettling than the titular flying meatballs with teeth. The crux of the story is about 10 passengers waking up in an empty airplane (mid-flight) where the pilots, the cabin crew and everyone else besides themselves ''are gone''. The crew are even afraid to land because they are utterly terrified of what could or couldn't be under the clouds and their imagination is making it worse. When they land in the airport it's completely deserted and literally feels dead and "[[TrappedInThePast left behind]]", worse still the [[PsychicChildren psychic kid]] among them Dinah [[SuperHearing hears]] and "senses" that ''something'' is coming in the distance making a crunching noise, and if that weren't enough one of passengers Craig is clearly mentally unstable so the crew is also AloneWithThePsycho.

*** Earlier than that we have Stan’s encounter with Pennywise at the Standpipe (where a few kids drowned), which is an immensely effective example of this. Rather than getting a traditional up in your face scare or meeting Pennywise face to face like the rest of the Losers, Stan instead just finds the Standpipe unlocked and goes inside. At the stairwell he hears calliope music and smell of popcorn and cotton candy of a carnival and lured Stan climbs up a dozen (he thinks he only climbed up a little way) but stops when he hears beneath the music — the sound of ''wet eager footsteps'' descending the stairs and bobbing shadows above him. Stan only sees the shadows for a moment as the Standpipe doors swing shut leaving him in darkness. Fleeing back to the door Stan tries to push against as he hears footsteps coming closer and closer, foul water runs down the stairs and dead voices call out to Stan as something approaches from the darkness. Thanks to some ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Stan is able to use his bird book to ward whatever coming towards him off and escape. What makes this encounter so much more frightening than a lot of the other scares in the book, is that the horror is sensory and sparse, Stan just finds himself stuck in a dark place and knowing a death that he can’t see is coming down the stairs to meet him. [[spoiler:It’s small wonder Stan chooses to commit suicide rather than return to Derry and subject himself to that level of mental torment again.]]

** Jonathan’s journey to Dracula castle in Transylvania is ominous, despite nothing happening. The landlord and landlady of the hotel he’s staying in look terrified and make the sign of the cross when Jonathan tells them where he’s going and the landlady insists he wear a crucifix around his neck, after pleading with him not to go without any explanation. During the carriage ride to the castle, the passengers all bless Jonathan in turn and don’t answer any of his questions. They even sigh with relief when initially no second coach shows up to pick Jonathan up, only to scream along with the horses when a calèche driven by a man with sharp teeth and black horses appears. In the following journey Jonathan see a pack of wolves surrounding the calèche and strange blue flames on the road... none of which gets explained.

*** A later scene in ''It'' where the Losers’ Club travel through the Pennywise’s abode on Neibolt street, has a grand display of this. Up to this point we’ve seen the titular monster transform in all kinds of horrors that directly threaten or attack the characters, but in the Neibolt house Pennywise for once doesn’t appear in person for most of the chapter. But this only makes his omnipresence more haunting as the kids walk through the decrepit environment, which seems to expand before their eyes - trying to seperate them from each other, which rattles the Losers’ Club into hysterics. This EldritchLocation where the kids aren’t even attacked manages to be more terrifying than any of the previous shapes the titular monster takes.
*** Earlier than that we have Stan’s encounter with Pennywise at the Standpipe (where a few kids drowned), which is an immensely effective example of this. Rather getting a traditional up in your face scare or meeting Pennywise face to face like the rest of the Losers, Stan instead just finds the Standpipe unlocked and goes inside. At the stairwell he hears calliope music and smell of popcorn and cotton candy of a carnival and lured Stan climbs up a dozen (he thinks he only climbed up a little way) but stops when he hears beneath the music — the sound of ''wet eager footsteps'' descending the stairs and bobbing shadows above him. Stan only sees the shadows for a moment as the Standpipe doors swing shut leaving him in darkness. Fleeing back to the door Stan tries to push against as he hears footsteps coming closer and closer, foul water runs down the stairs and dead voices call out to Stan as something approaches from the darkness. Thanks to some ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Stan is able to use his bird book to ward whatever coming towards him off and escape. What makes this encounter so much more frightening than a lot of the other scares in the book, is that the horror is sensory and sparse, Stan just finds himself stuck in a dark place and knowing a death that he can’t see is coming down the stairs to meet him. [[spoiler:It’s small wonder Stan chooses to kill him rather than return to Derry and subject himself to that level of mental torment again.]]

** ''Literature/TheScarecrowWalksAtMidnight'' has many disturbing examples of this. For most of the book it’s a case of MaybeMagicMaybeMundane as Jodie and her brother see scarecrows moving or being appearing in odd places, but usually it’s the farmhand’s son Sticks pranking them, yet at other times it’s inexplicable. Even more disturbingly is how their Grandpa, Grandma and especially their farmhand Stanley are acting, starring fixidly out into the fields and dismissing the kids’ queries about the scarecrows. In this case the explanation behind the horror is actually just as unsettling as the unknown preceding it.
** ''Literature/ANightInTerrorTower'' although there’s a massive GenreShift some way in, the first half of the book is just two kids Sue and Eddie getting lost from a tour group in a creepy tower and running into a scary man dressed in black who stalks them and repeatedly tries to kill them. For multiple chapters, no reason is given for why he is trying hurt to these children and that itself is extremely terrifying. There's also the moment later on when Sue and Eddie go back to their hotel and find their parents gone, they have no money and they can't even remember their last names.

* ''Literature/TheWitches'' has a truly chilling case of this with Grandma's missing thumb. After listening to her detail to the protagonist all the cases she knows of children getting cursed by Witches, getting stuck in paintings, turned to stone and transformed into a porpoise etc, when the boy asks his grandma whether she encountered a Witch herself as a girl, Grandma despite her NervesOfSteel refuses to tell saying it's simply too horrible. When he asks if it has anything to do with her missing thumb, Grandma clams up completely and the boy goes to bed. We never learn what exactly happened to her or how she escaped with her life from (presumably) the Witch. The protagionist comes up with his own conculsions such as it was pulled off like a tooth or shoved in a kettle spout and steamed away while the reader's mind will race with even more gruesome and dark possibilities.

* ''Literature/TheWitches'' has a truly chilling case of this with Grandma's missing thumb. After listening to her detail to the protagionist all the cases she knows of children getting cursed by Witches, getting stuck in paintings, turned to stone and tranformed into a porpoise etc, when the boy asks his grandma whether she encountered a Witch herself as a girl, Grandma despite her NervesOfSteel refuses to tell saying it's simply too horrible. When he asks if it has anything to do with her missing thumb, Grandma clams up completely and the boy goes to bed. We never learn what exactly happened to her or how she escaped with her life from (presumably) the Witch. The protagionist comes up with his own conculsions such as it was pulled off like a tooth or shoved in a kettle spout and steamed away while the reader's mind will race with even more gruesome and dark possibilities.

** Similar to the Sauron example below we never actually see the Shadow Lord once throughout all the books, only hearing his voice and in ''Return to Del'' as a shadowy figure briefly glimpsed on a tower. While his name and backstory is properly exapained in the expanded material, he is much more sinister as an evil [[TheOmnipresent omnipresence]] rather than one EvilOverlord. The [[Anime/DeltoraQuest anime adaptation]] decided to make the Shadow Lord a straight up EldritchAbomination instead.
** ''The Shifting Sands'' has an effective example of this with the guardain of Lapis Lazuil, [[spoiler: which is the Shifting Sands itself. Unlike every other book where the gem is protected by some guardian man or monster, the antagonist of the book can't be seen or known, it's the simply "The Hive" and its origin is a complete mystery having existed long before the time of [[GreaterScopeParagon Adin]]. The Hive as the sands are called have a will of its own and draws people and objects to the centre of itself. Lief, Barda and Jasmine don't kill or defeat it, they simply get the Lapis Lazuil and escape whatever the hell it is.]]

** ''The Shifting Sands'' has an effective example of this with the guardain of Lapis Lazuil, [[spoiler: which is the Shifting Sands itself. Unlike every other book where the gem is protected by some guardain man or monster, the antagionist of the book can't be seen or known, it's the simply "The Hive" and its origin is a complete mystery having existed long before the time of [[GreaterScopeParagon Adin]]. The Hive as the sands are called have a will of its own and draws people and objects to the centre of itself. Lief, Barda and Jasmine don't kill or defeat it, they simply get the Lapis Lazuil and escape whatever the hell it is.]]

* ''Literature/ThePhantomOfTheOpera'', being seminal GothicHorror invokes this. For a lot of the novel the titular antagonist is kept a mystery and his presence is mostly felt rather than seen. The first chapter opens with a bunch ballerinas fleeing into older dancer’s (La Sorelli) room and [[GhostStory share stories]] about the Phantom, as Little Meg reveals her mother knows the Phantom, they hear footsteps from outside and Sorelli goes into the dimly lit hallway to check wielding a knife and finds... ''nothing''. The Phantom’s first "appearance" in the book is as an angelic voice Raoul hears talking to Christine in her dressing room, jealously thinking it’s a rival suitor he enters the room after Christine leaves, but like with Sorelli finds ''nothing''. The eeriness is further enhanced when Christine is astonished to learn Raoul could hear the voice too and when she personally learns the terrible truth, she desperately tries to protect Raoul, who is shocked to see how [[BreakTheCutie haggard]] she looks when she takes her domino mask off during the Masquerade ball. Eventually Christine fully reveals the terrifying true nature of the Angel of Music, making the eleven chapters of build up well earned.

** King’s ''Literature/TheStand'' also employs this a lot. The first portion of the novel where the world is slowly overcome with a pandemic of accidentally realised Influenza is scary due to fact it isn’t clear what is happening some way into the book. Though more terrifying is HumanoidAbomination Randal Flagg the Walking Man, we never once learn what exactly he is, [[spoiler: although ''Literature/TheDarkTower'' series would reveal he’s on the side of the SatanicArchetype Crimson King]] but the sheer presence alone Flagg has and the effect he has on people, even when he’s many miles away from them is palpable. In one scene a character talks through a doorway to Flagg who’s standing in a dark room, King purposely gives minimal description of the Flagg in the scene, making his character all the more unnerving.

** King’s ''Literature/TheStand'' also employs this a lot. The first portion of the novel where world is slowly overcome with a pandemic of accidentally realised Influenza is scary due to fact it isn’t clear what is happening some way into the book. Though more terrifying is HumanoidAbomination Randal Flagg the Walking Man, we never once learn what exactly he is, [[spoiler: although ''Literature/TheDarkTower'' series would reveal he’s on the side of the SatanicArchetype Crimson King]] but the sheer presence alone Flagg has and the effect he has on people, even when he’s many miles away from them is palpable. In one scene a character talks through a doorway to Flagg who’s standing in a dark room, King purposely gives minimal description of the Flagg in the scene, making his character all the more unnerving.

** ''Literature/GeraldsGame'' being a minimalist book is a masterful case of this. Initially the horror is purely just the predicament Jessie has found herself in, i.e handcuffed to a bed by her husband who died from a heart attack in a house on a lake far from help and in danger of starvation or dehydration. Yet as night falls Jessie half-dreaming becomes afraid sensing that something is wrong in the darkness and thinks she can make out a tall figure standing in the corner of room staring at her. What’s perhaps most terrifying about this is that Ruth the practical voice inside Jessie’s head is stunned into silence by this and later upon fully waking she ponders on whether or not what she saw was real or just her imagination. [[spoiler: [[HeWasRightThereAllAlong It’s not]]]]. The terror returns full force of the following evening as Jessie understands that she has free herself before it gets dark again and whatever she saw the previous night returns. After the gruesome business of freeing her hand from one of the cuffs, Jessie has to pull the bed around trying to reach the key, terrified of the thought of something coming to the house as she dallies. The most terrifying segment comes when she falls unconscious again after fully getting free and wakes up in the darkness, somehow knowing she’s not alone in the house… before she encounters the Moonlight Man in the study and gives him her wedding ring. The whole finale is utterly nail biting with tension and doesn’t let up even when Jessie gets out of the house.

** ''Literature/GeraldsGame'' being a minimalist book is a masterful case of this. Initially the horror is purely just the predicament Jessie has found herself in, i.e handcuffed to a bed by her husband who died from a heart attack in a house on a lake far from help and in danger of starvation or dehydration. Yet as night falls Jessie half-dreaming becomes afraid sensing that something is wrong in the darkness and thinks she can make out a tall figure standing in the corner of room staring at her. What’s perhaps most terrifying about this is that Ruth the practical voice inside Jessie’s head is stunned into silence by this and later upon fully waking she has ponder on whether or not what she saw was real or just her imagination[[spoiler:, [[HeWasRightThereAllAlong it’s not]]]]. The terror returns full force of the following evening as Jessie understands that she has free herself before it gets dark again and whatever she saw the previous night returns. After the gruesome business of freeing her hand from one of the cuffs, Jessie has to pull the bed in around trying to reach the key, terrified of the thought of something coming to the house as she dallies. The most terrifying segment comes when she falls unconscious again after fully getting free and wakes up in the darkness, somehow knowing she’s not alone in the house… before she encounters the Moonlight Man in the study and gives him her wedding ring. The whole finale is utterly nail biting with tension and doesn’t let up even when Jessie gets out of the house.

*** Hell even when the Langoliers show up in all their [[{{Narm}} silliness]] what's more disturbing is that wherever they go they [[ClockRoaches eat away the Earth itself]] leaving utter blackness. When the crew do escape they barely keep the sanity staring at [[PowerOfTheVoid the pitch black nothing]] that is all that is left of the ground below and which they are risk of falling into when they run out of fuel.

*** [[spoiler:Speaking of Stan’s suicide, that is also a case of this in the book. We follow his wife Patty’s POV as she witnesses Stan answer the phone and be initially delighted before becoming quiet (it’s Mike telling him to come back to Derry and fulfil their vow). Stan then tells Patty he’s going to take a bath and she hears him go upstairs and sound of water running into the tub and then stop five or ten minutes later. Patty realises Stan went up without a beer like he usually does and goes to get one for him from the fridge. The fear well and truly seeps in when she finds the bathroom door closed and no answer as she taps on the door, Patty likens the feeling to a “cold pocket” when swimming through a warm lake and you feel a suddenly chill except in this case it wasn’t around her teenage legs but around her heart. She tries to reassure herself her fright is unfounded and everything is okay as she goes downstairs to get the key and go back up to unlock the bathroom… to see Stan dead in tub with his wrists cut and the word '''IT''' written on the wall. Similar to Georgie and storm drain the reader is horribly aware of what’s going to happen but can’t do anything but witness it slowly play out through Patty’s eyes.]]

*** Earlier than that we have Stan’s encounter with Pennywise at the Standpipe (where a few kids drowned), which is an immensely effective example of this. Rather getting a traditional up in your face scare or meeting Pennywise face to face like the rest of the Losers, Stan instead just finds the Standpipe unlocked and goes inside. At the stairwell he hears calliope music and smell of popcorn and cotton candy of a carnival and lured Stan climbs up a dozen (he thinks he only climbed up a little way) but stops when he hears beneath the music — the sound of ''wet eager footsteps'' descending the stairs and bobbing shadows above him. Stan only sees the shadows for a moment as the Standpipe doors swing shut leaving him in darkness. Fleeing back to the door Stan tries to push against as he hears footsteps coming closer and closer, foul water runs down the stairs and dead voices call out to Stan as something approaches from the darkness. Thanks to some ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve Stan is able to use his bird book to ward whatever coming towards him off and escape. What makes this encounter so much more frightening than a lot of the other scares in the book, is that the horror is sensory and sparse, Stan just finds himself stuck in a dark place and knowing a death that he can’t see is coming the stairs to meet him. [[spoiler:It’s small wonder Stan chooses to kill him rather than return to Derry and subject himself to that level of mental torment again.]]