I have a confession: despite all the scary movies I’ve watched and all the horror games I’ve played, I’m still not immune to goose bumps, jimjams, or the heebie-jeebies. Usually it’s horror movies that get me the worst. The sounds and imagery get stuck in my head and flash through my mind at severely inopportune moments, like when I get up to feel my way down the walls of a dark hallway to get to the bathroom at 2:00 in the morning. Halfway there (or back again), I’ll hear the Babadook’s low, guttural greeting in my ear, or feel the breath of the Paranormal Activity demon on the back of my neck, and suddenly I’ll be sprinting for the safety of bed and the comfort of a pile of covers to hide under. (Until, of course, I remember that one scene from The Grudge, at which point I will hastily shove the covers back off my face, wishing I had never watched that damn movie.)

Yet while films often rely on what you see and what you hear to scare you, horror books and short stories tend to prey on your own ability to scare yourself. The authors give you all their best ingredients—a horrifying description here, a terrifying revelation there—and let your mind do the work of mixing up a mental witch’s brew tailor-made to haunt you in the worst possible ways.

But every once in awhile, a well-placed line will reach out and grab you, as surely and as swiftly as a demogorgon snatching you up and dragging you to the Upside Down. It makes you flinch, makes you glance behind you to check that there’s nothing there. Despite lacking the controlled timing of a more visual or even auditory experience, the words on the page somehow manage to lunge out at just the right moment and make you flinch.

I remember each and every time a book made me jump with haunting clarity.

#1. Being Dead by Vivian Vande Velde

Several of the scares in Velde’s young adult horror novel Being Dead have to do with dead things and deep waters, but the moment that really got me was as much a product of my own environment as the tension set up in the book. I was a teenager. I was jumpy as hell. And I was taking a bubble bath with a glass of water. It just so happened that the protagonist was also a teenage girl, also jumpy, and also taking a bubble bath (with a glass of wine instead of water). And when a terrible, horrible, no good thing happened to her very suddenly while taking said bath, it took me by surprise with such violence that, if memory serves me right, I actually threw that poor little paperback book right across the room.

Though I reread it a couple of times over the course of the next few years, I haven’t spent any good quality time with it in ages. I suspect that, if I read it again now, I might find the story a bit over-familiar, the scares occasionally too obvious to properly do their job. But for thirteen- or fourteen-year-old me, a girl who was only just dipping her toes into the dark waters of the horror genre, it was a fright to remember.

#2. Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker

When people ask for horror story recommendations, Mister B. Gone is the first book that always comes to mind. I adore this novel in much the same way Hannibal Lecter adores the taste of human flesh—and I devoured it every bit as eagerly. I read it a handful of years ago, partly on the hammock in my parents’ backyard, and partly on my bed, in my bedroom, where I’m supposed to feel nice and safe. I even read with a wall at my back, just to be sure.

And yet—one scene, one particularly, deliciously arresting bit of narration, actually startled me into looking over my shoulder, as if some demonic hand or claw might come bursting through the plaster and concrete to drag me to my doom. I may or may not have let out a tiny, strangled squeak when a bit of my own freaking hair unexpectedly brushed against my cheek as I turned my head. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading outside, in the nice, bright summer sunlight.

#3. Authority by Jeff Vandermeer

My first mistake with Vandermeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy was watching the movie adaptation in theaters. Though I still scare somewhat easily, I don’t often obsess over it the way I used to, when I was of an age when every new interest bordered on Poeish monomania. But there’s one scene (and you’ll know exactly which one if you’ve seen it) that terrorized me, in the waking world and in my dreams, for nearly a week straight.

So, naturally, I decided to read the books.

I haven’t actually read the last book in the trilogy yet—I’m planning on picking it up before the end of October as my annual Halloween read. I read Authority, the second novel in the series, just a few weeks ago. And for this scare, I have absolutely no excuse, no defense for my (over)reaction. I was sitting on my couch, listening to music, while my boyfriend made dinner in the adjoining room. I occasionally offered commentary to amuse him while he cooked and I read. I can’t think of a safer reading space than that. And yet, in the space of a single, terrifying sentence, I found myself jolting upright so hard I nearly pulled something, forgetting in an instant all the comforts of home surrounding me in a brief flash of sheer horror. I can even point to the exact line that got me.

But I won’t, because that would spoil the surprise.

PS: Boo.