I call…I call…I call to you,
I call…I call…I call to you,
I call to you,
Lover hear…lover hear…lover hear my pleas!
Lover hear…lover hear…lover hear my pleas!
Lover come….lover come…lover come warm me in the snow,
Lover come….lover come…lover come warm me in the snow.
–SNOW ANGEL
What had I seen back in 1989? What was the memory I was recollecting, so long ago, sending my old ticker to thundering like rattling tin during a hurricane? More importantly, why did I suffer three months of God-awful nightmares after that not-so-great experience? Haunting dreams so bad, evil visions so unnerving, that they made me erratic enough to swear off booze. Well, on the latter, at least habanero peach whiskey.
–ONE SCOTCH, ONE BOURBON, & ONE BEER
‘The transference of emotion is a phenomenon so common, so constantly witnessed, that mankind in general have long ceased to be conscious of its existence, as a thing worth our wonder or consideration, regarding it as being as natural and commonplace as the transference of things that act by the ascertained laws of matter. Nobody, for instance, is surprised, if, when the room is too hot, the opening of a window causes the cold fresh air of outside to be transferred into the room, and in the same way no one is surprised when into the same room, perhaps, which we will imagine as being peopled with dull and gloomy persons, there enters some one of fresh and sunny mind, who instantly brings into the stuffy mental atmosphere a change analogous to that of the opened windows.
–E.F. Benson (THE TERROR BY NIGHT)
‘Night is approaching. I can feel the change of temperature in the tomb. The worms are becoming more active in their squirming all around me. The maggots inch by the dozens across my chest. I hear the excited squealing and clawing of the rats too.’ –Jeffrey LeBlanc (SARAH ETERNALLY ENTOMBED)
‘The pale man shook his head. “At twenty-five dollars an hour,” he said, “are you kidding? I can barely afford to have my cape cleaned once a month.” “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Why do you wear it?” “You ever hear of a vampire without a cape? It’s part of the whole schmear, that’s all. I don’t know why!” –Charles Beaumont (BLOOD BROTHER)
‘Tonight, I have died. Tomorrow morning I will die again in thirty million brains, caught like a fly in a web, sucked dry by the multitentacled public, and flushed on through the transits of their minds to be replaced by: HEIRESS MARRIES DUKE! INCOME TAX INCREASE DUE! COAL MINERS STRIKE!’ –RAY BRADBURY (It Burns Me Up!)
‘His name was Wandering Oscar, and he was a skeleton.’
–Stephen Sinclair (Wandering Oscar)
‘Again the withered hag poured forth the monotonous words of a prayer that was not meant to be acceptable in Heaven; and soon, in the pauses of her breath, strange murmurings began to thicken, gradually increasing so as to drown and overpower the charm by which they grew. Shrieks pierced through the obscurity of sound, and were succeeded by the singing of sweet female voices, which in their turn gave way to a wild roar of laughter, broken suddenly by groanings and sobs, forming altogether a ghastly confusion of terror and mourning and mirth.’
–NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (The Hollow of the Three Hills)
A collection–witches, scarecrows, werewolves and more– to kick the HALLOWEEN spirits!
To my surprise he staggered and fell to his knees, his hand on his heart and his face contorted by a spasm of agony. –Edmond Hamilton (VAMPIRE VILLAGE)
Welcome ….to…. Dweller of the Dark!
https://youtube.com/@dwellerofthedark?sub_confirmation=1
I thought of underground rites in temples now given to dust; of posturing worship before great idols of gold—manshaped figures bearing the heads of crocodiles. I recalled the tales of darker parallel worships, bearing the same relationship as Satanism now does to Christianity; of priests who invoked animal-headed gods as demons rather than as benignant deities. Sebek was such a dual god, and his priests had given him blood to drink. In some temples there were vaults, and in these vaults were eidolons of the god shaped as a Golden Crocodile. The beast had hinged and barbed jaws, into which maidens were flung. Then the maw was closed, and ivory fangs rended the sacrifice so that blood might trickle down the golden throat and the god be appeased. Strange powers were conferred by these offerings, evil boons granted the priests who thus sated beast-like lusts. It was small wonder that such men were driven from their temples, and that those sanctuaries of sin had been destroyed.
–Robert Bloch (The Eyes of the Mummy)
“Paul” I said, “you may as well tell me the whole story.”
–Robert A.W. Lowndes (CLARISSA)
Ye little skelpie-limmer’s face!
I daur you try sic sportin’,
As seek the foul thief ony place,
For him to spae your fortune.
Nae doubt but ye may get a sight!
Great cause ye hae to fear it;
For mony a ane has gotten a fright,
And lived and died deleeret
On sic a night.
–Robert Burns (Hallowe’en)
“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)
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)
Jeffrey LeBlanc 