Miss Havisham from Great Expectations takes "not getting over your ex" to a whole 'nother level. She was jilted at the altar, and now she insists on wearing her rotting wedding dress for the rest of her life. The uneaten wedding cake is still sitting on the table, and all the clocks in her house have been set to the exact moment she was dumped, making her one of the creepiest and the pettiest characters around. According to Dickens, she looks like a cross between a skeleton and a waxwork with sunken, moving eyes.

OK, so Patrick Bateman from American Psycho is just straight up scary a lot of the time, like when he's murdering women and eating their flesh. But the creepy part of Bateman is that he's able to be a brutal serial killer and still be a totally normal and successful Wall Street bro. He's... basically just toxic male privilege personified.

In the world of Philip Pullman's Golden Compass, every person has a dæmon, an animal familiar that embodies their very soul. Mrs. Coulter seems like a sweet, accomplished socialite at first, but there is something very off about her golden monkey dæmon. Of course, Mrs. Coulter is later revealed to be a horrifying woman who experiments on children, but it's really that silent monkey with its black doll eyes that gives us the creeps.

I don't know that It from It really counts as a character so much as a freaky spider monster, but Pennywise has enough charisma that I'm willing to call him a real character, and a creepy one at that. Pennywise is your classic murder clown: all cute and fun until he sucks you into his storm drain to die. Get out of that storm drain, Pennywise, it looks very damp in there.

Merricat Blackwood is the narrator of We Have Always Lived in the Castle. She lives with her sister and her uncle in a big house. Everyone else in their family is dead. Even before you get to the bottom of the Blackwood family murders, though, there is something very unnerving about Merricat's childlike narration, her lack of empathy for anyone but her sister, and her strange "games" in the backyard.

Anyone who can look this creepy while drinking a glass of milk is someone you want to stay far away from. Alex from A Clockwork Orange is a fan of "ultra violence," which essentially means that he gleefully assaults people for sport. He's one of the most upsetting literary anti-heroes, but the real creepiness shines through in just how much fun he's having as he violates and murders innocent people.

At the risk of doubling down on Stephen King characters, you can't get much creepier than Annie Wilkes from Misery. She rescues her favorite author from a car accident, takes him to her home to convalesce... and then chops off his foot so he can never leave. Wilkes is your classic depraved, book-loving serial killer with a cheery disposition.

To be fair, Boo Radley isn't bad or evil... but oh boy is he creepy. Living your entire adult life as a widely hated recluse would make anyone creepy, but still. Even though Boo ends up saving Jem and Scout at the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, he's still none too great at interacting with the outside world in a non-creepy way.

Look, out of all the classic creatures of the night, Dracula has got to be the creepiest. And also the sexiest. It's confusing. The Count manages to balance creep factor with suave: people are drawn to his charisma, but also he's probably going to eat you. If anyone can be both elegant and creepy, it's the original sexy vampire himself.

The creepiest thing about reading The Witches as a kid was that anyone could be a secret witch. Well, any woman wearing gloves, at least. The idea of someone peeling the skin off of her face is universally creepy, even without the whole "turning kids into mice" angle.

Beloved from Beloved is a murdered baby who has come back to reawaken her family's suppressed trauma. Or at least, that's who she seems to be. It's hard to blame the grown up ghost of a murdered baby for holding a grudge, but from the moment she appears on her mother's doorstep, soaking wet, there's something more than a little "off" about Beloved.

The creepiest creepiness lies in taking something familiar (like your mom) and making it just slightly wrong (like your mom but nicer and with buttons for eyes). The Other Mother from Coraline is so intensely creepy because she's so very sweet and yet so very wrong. Plus, buttons for eyes is just classic nightmare fuel.

Last but not least, there's the queen of creep herself: Mrs. Danvers. In Rebecca, Mrs. Danvers is the head housekeeper at Manderley, a rich country estate. She spends her time skulking around the empty halls and trying to convince the new lady of the house to kill herself. Mrs. Danvers liked her previous boss, Rebecca, way more, you see, and she will do anything to ensure that Rebecca's memory is properly "honored."