In the spirit of Halloween, we gathered up a few books that are psychologically eerie in the way some horror movies just aren't.

Jessica buys a runt of a kitten -- a tiny creature that her neighbor helps her nurse to health. Adorable, right? NO. WRONG. There is nothing adorable about this story. Jessica names the kitten Worm, which is already a horrible sign. Then, timed perfectly with her acquisition of said kitten, Jessica begins committing increasingly violent acts against her family.

A?detective stumbles upon a super-unsettling scene -- a victim's body seems to have been fused together with animal parts, making him part human, part woodland creature. The detective's daughter is busy chatting with the suspected killer online. The book is set in Detroit, and the characters, like the city, bravely try to hold themselves together in the face of danger.

Aspiring artist Misty Marie Wilmot gives up on her creative dreams to move to a tiny island and raise her child with her husband, Peter. But things get much, much worse when Peter falls into a coma after a suicide attempt. Misty soon learns that her home on Waytansea Island isn't a coincidence, but part of a strange conspiracy theory going back for generations.

David's wife, Franny, has died, but he isn't sure why, or how. All he knows is he can't exactly think straight, and he keeps finding mysterious pieces of paper scattered around his house, containing threats that are loud and disturbing, if a little surreal.

Steven Millhauser's stories examine the way gossip can travel in small towns by telling the story of a mermaid washed up on shore, or an unsettling rash of suicides.

Miranda was captured by a man who's been following her, and forced to live in a room he's set up to appeal to her wishes. The man, Frederick Clegg, has won a small fortune from football pools and uses his winnings to try to transcend his social standing. The book is narrated from his point of view first, then Miranda's, who keeps a diary logging her plans and hopes for escaping.?

The stories are connected only by the fact that each is represented by a tattoo on a man who's fully inked up. In "The Veldt," a pair of kids addicted to their very immersive TV room will move the scenes from the screens to life. In "The Long Rain," a group of men lands on a planet that is plagued by nonstop, suffocating rain.

In a small town residents are turning against each other after the tragic closing of a steel mill. The death of a teenage girl leads to a lot of finger-pointing, especially toward Peter, who's suspected to be a werewolf .