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Shimmering with sadness, speculative manifestations of madness with each shadow on the bough,
Filled me with exhilaration—palpable dread that crevassed never before…
THE HAUNTED OWL

You are about to meet the horrific dead. Masters of horror who made my heart race, my blood chill, and kept me up for days. Some of these dead writers you will recognize. Especially if you listened to DWELLER OF THE DARK, you most certainly will.

Now, I know it’s eerie–even for me–that century old writers can still scare the Hell out of you exquisitely. This selected group of beloved undead inspired me to become a writer. As I have clawed along, these same ghastly ghouls drove me to become a member, active writer, affiliate, and a whole lot more with the Horror Writers Association.

On to the book before the bad moon rises. HOWLING JOHN KANE is on the prowl! I see the wolf bane blooming already.

In my humble opinion, these are dreadful classics that scared many and inspired many more into the dark chasms of terrifying horror. Will you have the same dread or response as I did to each one? I don’t know. How calloused, how jaded are you to horror these days. I can say with surety though, these are the stories that got the greatest response from fans of DWELLER OF THE DARK. If these stories can haunt that devoted group of horror and supernatural maniacs, it is safe to say that you should get a ghost or two to linger.

Maybe a demon…I’m not picky.

Pleasant nightmares–JL

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“And then she died. How? I do not know. I no longer know; but one evening she came home wet, for it was raining heavily, and the next day she coughed, and she coughed for about a week, and took to her bed. What happened I do not remember now, but doctors came, wrote and went away. Medicines were brought, and some women made her drink them. Her hands were hot, her forehead was burning, and her eyes bright and sad. When I spoke to her, she answered me, but I do not remember what we said. I have forgotten everything, everything, everything! She died, and I very well remember her slight, feeble sigh. The nurse said: ‘Ah! and I understood, I understood!’
–Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant (Was It A Dream)

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Dim, dubious, bat-like creatures seemed to be flitting to and fro between one of the stone vats and the group that toiled like sculptors, clothing the bony foot with a reddish plasm which they applied and moulded like so much clay. Gaspard thought, but was not certain later, that this plasm, which gleamed as if with mingled blood and fire, was being brought from the rosy-litten vat in vessels borne by the claws of the shadowy flying creatures. None of them, however, approached the other vat, whose wannish light was momently enfeebled, as if it were dying down. –Clark Ashton Smith (The Colossus of Ylourgne)

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Dweller of the Dark
2 days ago (edited)
Haunting your hearts real soon.

‘He went right over to the pool and crouched down on the rim in his white nightgown, and I heard his whispered voice calling, “Alannah! Alannah!” in hushed tones. And then suddenly a little rippling came on the water, a vapor
that was not there before.’—August Derleth

One of the most haunting ghost stories we’ve read in a while. Maybe since GHOST STORY by Peter Straub. #ghost #ghoststories #lovestory #ghoststory #horrorgram #horrorstory #love #Halloween

https://youtu.be/LMTvF-cKf3Y

HIS voice came to us again. He said, at first, that he saw nothing in the abyss below him. Then he gasped, swayed, and almost lost his balance. We could see the sweat standing out on his brow and neck, soaking his blue shirt. There were things in the abyss, he said in hoarse tones, great shapes that were like blobs of utter blackness, yet which he knew to be alive. From the central masses of their beings he could see them shoot forth incredibly long, filamentine tentacles. They moved themselves forward and backward — horizontally, but could not move vertically, it seemed. They were, he thought, nothing but living shadows.
Robert A.W. Lowndes (THE ABYSS)