Category: arctichorror

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One morning early in May I stood before the steel safe in my bedroom, trying on the golden jewelled crown. The diamonds flashed fire as I turned to the mirror, and the heavy beaten gold burned like a halo about my head. I remembered Camilla’s agonized scream and the awful words echoing through the dim streets of Carcosa. They were the last lines in the first act, and I dared not think of what followed—dared not, even in the spring sunshine, there in my own room, surrounded with familiar objects, reassured by the bustle from the street and the voices of the servants in the hallway outside. For those poisoned words had dropped slowly into my heart, as death-sweat drops upon a bed-sheet and is absorbed. –Robert W. Chambers (The King in Yellow: The Repairer of Reputations)

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‘Yes, after fifty years of law enforcement I know how hideous, cruel, and evil, people can be. Whether the Devil made them do it, who knows? How many times did I face true evil in my career? It’s hard to really say, and I have certainly lost count. And to be honest, I often do my damnedest to try and forget. I’ve heard you can only stare into darkness for so long before it stains you. Or–as in my case–it locks its claws into you, never to let go.’
—Thomas Swafford (Skinwalker)

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Lost from those archangelic thrones that star,
Fadeless and fixed, heaven’s light of azure bliss;
Forbanned of all His splendor and depressed
Beyond the birth of the first sun, and lower
Than the last star’s decline, I still endure,
Abased, majestic, fallen, beautiful,
And unregretful in the doubted dark,
Throneless, that greatens chaos-ward, albeit
From chanting stars that throng the nave of night
Lost echoes wander here, and of His praise
With ringing moons for cymbals dinned afar,
And shouted from the flaming mouths of suns.–Clark Ashton Smith (Satan Unrepentant)

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“McReady raised his head, looked vaguely at the knife in his hand, and dropped it. His laugh was shaky, almost a laugh of relief. “Well, whoever did it can speak up now. He was an inhuman murderer at that—in that he murdered an inhuman. I swear by all that’s holy, Kinner was a lifeless corpse on the floor here when we arrived—but when it found we were going to jab it with the power gadget there—it changed.” –John W. Campbell (Frozen Hell)

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“McReady raised his head, looked vaguely at the knife in his hand, and dropped it. His laugh was shaky, almost a laugh of relief. “Well, whoever did it can speak up now. He was an inhuman murderer at that—in that he murdered an inhuman. I swear by all that’s holy, Kinner was a lifeless corpse on the floor here when we arrived—but when it found we were going to jab it with the power gadget there—it changed.” –John W. Campbell (Frozen Hell)

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Warm my hand lives, in the moment kind and caring
But reaching for you now, can I do so, deathly chill
For I lie beneath hallowed grave ground,
Long shall I haunt your days, and ice your spine on ghostly nights
When you plead to the Angel of Death to reap your wicked soul
My heart will beat, and the worm removes fanged lips as my life roars again,
I give you mercy—a conscience cleared; a burden lifted—reach for my chilled grasp—
My withered fingers rest on your shoulder.
—Jeffrey LeBlanc (Cold Hand)

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The Sea Witch

Part One

I

The night winds were a torrent of darkness amongst the sea and foam,

The coppery moon heaved as a haunted galleon upon golden waves to roam,

The beach trail weaved as a moonlit strand over the skull-white dunes,

And the Sea Witch came gliding—

            Gliding—gliding—

The Sea Witch came gliding, up to the druid runes.—Jeffrey LeBlanc (The Sea Witch)

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“She lighted another match, and then she found herself sitting under a beautiful Christmastree. It was larger and more beautifully decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door at the rich merchant’s. Thousands of tapers were burning upon the green branches, and colored pictures, like those she had seen in the show-windows, looked down upon it all. The little one stretched out her hand towards them, and the match went out.”—Hans Christian Andersen (The Little Match Girl)

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I just can’t explain my apprehension going near vast forests these days. Part of it is because of an uncanny feeling—not quite dread, and not quite fear. Maybe, it’s knowing that there is something that terrifying out there. Maybe, on occasion, when I get near the forested wilderness, I can’t help that the thing or one of its kin, might be watching us. –Jeffrey LeBlanc (The Shadow on the Mountain”–Book Excerpt)