Now I must go back to Yoh-Vombis—back across the desert and down through all the catacombs to the vaster vaults beneath. Something is in my brain, that commands me and will direct me . . . I tell you, I must go . . .
“As with sounds, so with colours. At each end of the solar spectrum the chemist can detect the presence of what are known as ‘actinic’ rays. They represent colours — integral colours in the composition of light — which we are unable to discern. The human eye is an imperfect instrument; its range is but a few octaves of the real ‘chromatic scale.’ I am not mad; there are colours that we cannot see.”
As I wait to freeze, I don’t remember much these days as I’m old. But I do remember the bite of that ice storm in 1866.
And, the blood. How I remember the blood.
“And on the first winter breaker…of Grand Isle’s coldest winter, Pierre Santiny plunged into the sea and was seen no more. But none on the island will ever say he died.” –JL
The strange feelings that kept him thus awake were not easy to analyse, perhaps, but their origin was beyond all question:they grouped themselves about the picture of that deserted, tumble-down chalet on the mountain ridge where they had stopped for refreshment a few hours before.
Deep sadness is an artist of powers that affects people in different ways. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, shocking all the emotions to a sharper life. To another, it comes as the blow of a crushing strike.
I would not die, and leave no name behind. Three centuries have passed since I quaffed the fatal beverage: another year shall not elapse before, encountering gigantic dangers–warring with the powers of frost in their home–beset by famine, toil, and tempest–I yield this body, too tenacious a cage for a soul which thirsts for freedom, to the destructive elements of air and water–or, if I survive, my name shall be recorded as one of the most famous among the sons of men; and, my task achieved, I shall adopt more resolute means, and, by scattering and annihilating the atoms that compose my frame, set at liberty the life imprisoned within, and so cruelly prevented from soaring from this dim earth to a sphere more congenial to its immortal essence.
When Lazarus left the grave, where, for three days and three nights he had been under the enigmatical sway of death, and returned alive to his dwelling, for a long time no one noticed in him those sinister oddities, which, as time went on, made his very name a terror.
An utterly strange story of three mad volumes and a weird woman who sat by a fountain in the house of twenty-six bluejays.
“Oh…dear…friend. I see that you’ve had a meltdown. Just remember this final lesson Rodney Hebert. The vilest of you…truly…are divine!”
There was no sound and at first I could see nothing but nitre-encrusted walls and wet stone floor. Presently, however, in a far corner, just beyond the flickering halo of the faggot torch, I saw two tiny, fiery spots of red. I tried to convince myself that they were two red jewels, two rubies, shining in the torchlight.
But I knew at once – I felt at once – what they were. They were two red eyes and they were watching us with a fierce, unwavering stare.–Joseph Payne Brennan
The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived in St. Helena, but where he lives now is uncertain, for he is dead.–Ambrose Bierce
And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the
will, with its vigor? For God is but a great will pervading all things by nature of
its intentness. Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly,
save only through the weakness of his feeble will.
Joseph Glanvill
Will anyone let this “little monster” out of his cellar?
Tardy traveller, beware
Of that spectre gibbering there;
Close your eyes, and urge your steed
To the utmost of his speed;–
For beneath that cross, I ween,
Lies a Vampyre’s corpse obscene!
Jeffrey LeBlanc 