SOLVED. Lost horror short story from circa 1980-1985: disturbed boy's "imaginary friend" travels in his hair, ends up eating antagonist's head/brains. [s]

[Christine]

Horror short story (juvenile/YA?) from circa 1980-1985 -- SPOILERS AHEAD

I'm trying to locate a horror short story for which I do not have either title or author. Here's the situation: It's 1984 or 1985, and I'm in either the 7th or 8th grade. In English class we read a very creepy short story that I believe was either in our textbook or part of some kind of "Weekly reader" magazine publication.

Here's what I remember about the story: an isolated, disturbed boy developes a relationship with an "imaginary friend" that he becomes increasingly dependent upon. It isn't clear whether this "friend" is an alien, monster, demon, or what, but within a few pages you get the clear sense that this is not your ordinary imaginary friend. At some point when the boy's safety or preferred way of life is under threat, the "friend" convinces the boy to take the "friend" out into the world, hidden in the boy's hair. In an encounter with an authority figure the boy considers a threat, the "friend" leaps onto the authority figure's head and attacks, consuming that person's head and/or brains.

My memory of the ending is fuzzy, but I think the boy ends up either in prison for murder or in an insane asylum.

This story made a big impression on our class -- in retrospect, I'm a little shocked it was required reading! I also remember our teacher commenting that, as she watched the class read the story, she could tell who was reaching the climax of the story because those students started subconsciously touching their hair and their heads with their hands.

Does this plotline ring any bells? Any clues or ideas you might have would be much appreciated.

[Kris]

Christine, that's a good start. You must copy plot details from your message #1 to the topic header/title, so someone could recognize your book from that description alone. Many members only read the headers.

We have thousands of book requests. We close threads with vague headers.

Click the small "edit" link after the topic header. This only works on the full Desktop website - not the Mobile website or app. (On the Mobile website, there's a "Desktop version" link at the bottom of the page.)

[Christine]

Kris wrote: "Christine, that's a good start. You must copy plot details from your message #1 to the topic header/title, so someone could recognize your book from that description alone. Many members only read t..."

Is that better? Sorry, I'm new at this.

[Christine]

Canavan wrote: "Christine:

You also also posted this query in the Horror Aficionados group, where I answered it earlier today. I’ll answer here as well just in case anyone else in this group is curious.

This sou..."
I found a copy of Enoch online, and that's totally it. Thank you so much!

[Kris]

Glad you found your short story, Christina. Here's the link - Enoch by Robert Bloch.

Thanks for updating the topic header/title. This will help people looking for this story.