1

Here they were: the drunks and the sinners, the gambling men
and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt chasers, and all
the jolly crew. They knew where they were going, of course, but
they didn’t seem to be particularly concerned at the moment.
The blinds were drawn on the windows, yet it was light inside,
and they were all sitting around and singing and passing the
bottle and laughing it up, telling their jokes and bragging their
brags, just the way Daddy used to sing about them in the old
song.
“Mighty nice traveling companions,” Martin said. “Why, I’ve
never seen such a pleasant bunch of people. I mean, they seem
to be really enjoying themselves!”
“Sorry,” the conductor told him. “I’m afraid things may not
be quite so enjoyable once we pull into that Depot Way Down
Yonder.”
–Robert Bloch (That Hell-Bound Train)

1

‘It’s not the kind of story that the columnists like to print; it’s not the yarn press-agents love to tell. When I was still in the Public Relations Department at the studio, they wouldn’t let me break it. I knew better than to try, for no paper would print such a tale. We publicity men must present Hollywood as a gay place; a world of glamor and star-dust. We capture only the light, but underneath the light there must always be shadows. I’ve always known that—it’s been my job to gloss over those shadows for years—but the events of which I speak from a disturbing pattern too strange to be withheld. The shadow of these incidents is not human.’

—Robert Bloch (Return to the Sabbath)

1

What the devil was wrong with him, anyway? Henderson smiled apologetically at the empty darkness. This was the smell of the costumer’s shop, and it carried him back to college days of amateur theatricals. Henderson hiad known this smell of moth balls, decayed furs, grease paint aind oils. He had played amateur Hamlet and in his hands he had held a smirking skull that hid all knowledge in its empty eyes—a skull, from the costumer’s. –Robert Bloch (The Cloak)

1

“Of glass it is,” replied the man, sighing more heavily than ever; “but the glass of it was tempered in the flames of hell. An imp lives in it, and that is the shadow we behold there moving: or so I suppose. If any man buy this bottle the imp is at his command; all that he desires—love, fame, money, houses like this house, ay, or a city like this city—all are his at the word uttered. Napoleon had this bottle, and by it he grew to be the king of the world; but he sold it at the last, and fell. Captain Cook had this bottle, and by it he found his way to so many islands; but he, too, sold it, and was slain upon Hawaii. For, once it is sold, the power goes and the protection; and unless a man remain content with what he has, ill will befall him.”–Robert Louis Stevenson (The Bottle Imp)

2

#Lucifer #horrorstories #books #horrorstory #horrorshorts #shorts #satanunrepentant #writing #horrorwriting ‘Mine all-indomitable eyes, shall see A maimed and dwindled Godhead cast among The stars of His creating, and beneath The unnumbered rush of swift and shining feet Trodden into night; or mark the fiery breath Of His infuriate suns blaze forth upon And scorch that coarsened […]

1

#vampire #Ghost #youtube #books #horrorstories #youtube #horrorstory #booktube #horrorshorts #horrorstories #pirates #flowers ‘She was wild, almost savage, with her great dark eyes boring into him. Her skin was white, smooth as alabaster. Her hair was jet black; and a waving coil of it, like a broken cobweb of pitch strings, framed her face. Grotesque hoops […]

1

#vampires #pirates #horrorstories #shorts #books #youtube #horrorshorts #horrorstories #thedevilofblackbayou #NewOrleans #neworleans #swamphorror #jeffreyleblanc #horrorstory #vampirehorror #books ‘It’s a nightmarish image Antoine that awakens me with the coldest of chills. I don’t know why I’m having this recurring nightmare, my love, when such a thing should never occur. But at any rate I have this persistent […]

#youtube #pagan #booktube #arthurmachen #weirdtales #horrorstories #pan #faun #horrorstory #horrorshorts #thegreatgodpan #satyr #books ‘Silet per diem universus, nec sine horrore secretus est; lucet nocturnis ignibus, chorus Ægipanum undique personatur: audiuntur et cantus tibiarum, et tinnitus cymbalorum per oram maritimam.’ –Arthur Machen (The Great God Pan–Chapter 5) https://rumble.com/v3ywmuy-pagan-horror-the-great-god-pan-chapter-5-the-letter-of-advice-by-arthur-mac.html https://youtube.com/@dwellerofthedark?sub_confirmation=1 https://youtube.com/shorts/gaZAcayE96s?feature=share https://youtu.be/3UjTY8cLLPc https://youtube.com/shorts/z48NBlWR2uk?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/yQkChZJGTK4?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/BepPwq6KGAs?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/paxzvJeW0-0?feature=share https://youtube.com/shorts/-XOTSyBL6a8?feature=share […]

1

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)