Then, methought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.
“Wretch,” I cried, “thy God hath lent thee—by these angels he hath sent thee
Respite—respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore;
Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”–Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven)
‘Trite and grotesque the plot of the film may have been, but the actor who played the lead had instilled it with ghastly reality. He had been dead; his eyes knew. And the voice was the voice of Lazarus awakened.’–Robert Bloch (Return to the Sabbath)
Sometimes an Appalachian story is so humanistic, so brutal, and horrific, that its very existence is terrifying. We can’t believe such a tale has been allowed to fester and erupt like a malignant, rotting boil. Yarns like the one I’m about to spin, are the hideous tales whispered in the shadows and taken to the grave. But sometimes the tale, like the undead, rise up to haunt us again, and again for all eternity. And some of us have just a few meager years left to be terrified in each of our own haunted worlds. Alas, cold in the ground with the Conqueror Worm our only friend, we may continue to be tormented by the ghosts—or demons—of our past. –Jeffrey LeBlanc (Hell’s Forge: In the Beginning)
The body had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love, that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him.
–William Faulkner (A Rose for Emily)
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)
Old Masson, the caretaker of one of Salem’s oldest and most neglected cemeteries, had a feud with the rats.–Henry Kuttner (The Graveyard Rats)
“Through long nursery nights he stood
By my bed unwearying,
Loomed gigantic, formless, queer,
Purring in my haunted ear
That same hideous nightmare thing,
Talking, as he lapped my blood,
In a voice cruel and flat,
Saying for ever, “Cat! … Cat! … Cat!”— Robert Graves(A Child’s Nightmare)
So have your drink, and then my advice to you is to keep right on moving north. Whatever you do, don’t go up that road to Jerusalem’s Lot. Especially not after dark.–Stephen King.”—Stephen King (One For The Road)
“The people of Averoigne called her La Mere des Crapauds, Mother of Toads, a name given for more than one reason. Toads swarmed innumerably about her hut; they were said to be her familiars, and dark tales were told concerning their relationship to the sorceress, and the duties they performed at her bidding.”–Clark Ashton Smith” (Mother of Toads)
It was the indignant grins of the liches that made him aware. Jovial secret jests as the cretins observed the pitter of dripping water from the funeral home’s roof onto his dead wife’s waxen face. In that callous moment with this crowd of sycophants, Roger almost turned maniacal. Grumbling in a rage, he saw the owner—Trampus Hock, run to wipe the water from her cheek. –Jeffrey LeBlanc (Hell’s Forge)
“Unquenched, unquenchable,
Around, within, thy heart shall dwell;
Nor ear can hear nor tongue can tell
The tortures of that inward hell!
But first, on earth as vampire sent,
Thy corse shall from its tomb be rent:–Lord Byron (The Vampyre)
“The sun was dying, and its blood spattered the sky as it crept into its sepulcher behind the hills. The keening wind sent the dry, fallen leaves scurrying toward the west, as though hastening them to the funeral of the sun.
“Nuts!” said Henderson to himself, and stopped thinking.”–Robert Bloch (The Cloak)
“The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute.” “They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” “I smiled,—for what had I to fear?”—Edgar Allan Poe (The Tell-Tale Heart)
Long were the mansion’s mysteries, horrendous were its horrors, and vague were the details of the missing and presumed dead across the mansion grounds. For the past, and the forgetful dead had now hidden much of the sinister, and fogged the memory of the evil that had scorched the manor with a more devious name—Hell’s Forge. Jeffrey LeBlanc (Hell’s Forge)
The surviving members of the family came severally every few minutes to the casket and wept above the placid features beneath the glass. This did them no good; it did no good to John Mortonson; but in the presence of death reason and philosophy are silent.–Ambrose Bierce (John Mortonson’s Funeral)
Jeffrey LeBlanc 