Startling

Green Girl has been telling tales in honor of the release of a friend's book. Her own tales of the things that spook her are offered in return for others' spooky tales related via comments. This has drawn up from the depths of memory the sorts of things that spook a girl... or a grown woman. Much of the truly spooky has been the result of overactive imagination, a sensitive nervous system, and a visually oriented mind. I'm more prone to being startled than spooked.
The immediate startled frights of spiders that glide down mere inches from one's face or obnoxious cousins who pop out from behind doors yelling, "Boo!" are the sort that accelerate the heart rate, but do ease quickly.
It's the case of the creeps from the visualizations that go with memory and imagination that cause gooseflesh around here. For example, the spider that descended from the eaves of the house toward me while standing at the garage door pinpad one night has gained mythical stature. It was huge. Not big. HUGE. (Just ask the daughter who ran away silently when it appeared above my head.) Now, in my mind, there is the potential for just such a thing to happen under all the eaves of the house. Or the eaves of someone else's house. Or any eaves of any house. Eesh.
Not that such things cannot be conquered. When we were both still young, my cousin spent years unresponsive to requests that he not jump out from behind doors to cause me to jump and shriek. He found it hilarious when I cried or couldn't catch my breath after one of his sudden appearances. Eventually, that sort of callous treatment built up a storehouse of resentment. That cousin jumped out at me for the last time following his recovery from being hit in the face with a fast ball. I reflexively punched him in his newly restored nose. He bled and cried. His Momma was furious. I? Was pretty sure his days of popping out at me were over.