HALLOWEEN CELEBRATION DAY 3: ‘Shadows’ by Frank Owens
The blackness yawned up the stairs….
The blackness yawned up the stairs….
A chill wind weaves thro’ the rows of sheaves
In the meadows that shimmer pale,
And comes to twine where the headstones shine
And the ghouls of the churchyard wail
For harvests that fly and fail.
–H.P. Lovecraft (Halloween in a Suburb)
‘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)
#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 […]
#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 […]
#ghost #ghosts #ghoul #cougar #horrorcommunity #horrorauthor #book #horrorstory #horrorshorts #HWA #foresthorror #horrorstories #books #ambrosebierce #booktube #horrorstory #youtube #death #phantom #horror #mountainlion #horrorgram #instahorror #writingcommunity #ghostsbook #phantoms #horrorSEO #horrific #horrorontiktok #horrortok #horrorbooks #horrorcommunity #horrorwriting #creepy #mountainghost #supernatural ‘There is a point at which terror may turn to madness; and madness incites to action. With no definite […]
#christmas #scrooge #books #ghosts #yule #yulestories #christmasghosts #youtube #pagan #booktube #nathanielhawthorne #hanschristianandersen #weirdtales #horrorstories #thelittlematchgirl #thechristmasbanquet #horrorstory #horrorshorts “I wear the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I […]
#halloween #halloween2023 #books #horrorstories #death #horror #booktube #farnsworthwright ‘The wind howled until the house quaked; it shrilled past the eaves and fled across the fields like a hunted ghost. And now the girl’s pounding pulses drowned out the screaming of the wind, for the presence had invaded her bedroom!’ — Farnsworth Wright (The Closing Hand) […]
‘So at first she thought it was just a trick of shadows or some flaw in the glass. The wavering outline behind her seemed to blur the reflection oddly, and she frowned. Then she began to experience what she often thought of as her “married feeling”—the peculiar awareness which usually denoted her husband’s unseen entrance into a room she occupied.’–Robert Bloch (The Hungry House)
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 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 PART TWO)
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 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. –JL (In the Beginning)