HAUNTING MUSIC HORROR: ‘Dead Singer’ by Edgar Daniel Kramer
He is gone
Like the ghost of the dew on the mountain,
Like the dawn
That gleamed a red flame on the fountain.
–Edgar Daniel Kramer (Dead Singer)
He is gone
Like the ghost of the dew on the mountain,
Like the dawn
That gleamed a red flame on the fountain.
–Edgar Daniel Kramer (Dead Singer)
There are strange tales told when the full moon shines
Of voodoo nights when the ghost-things ran—
But the strangest figure among the pines
Was Kelly the conjure-man
–Robert E. Howard (Kelly the Conjure Man)
And, like his innumerable ancestors before him, the king dares not destroy the Flower, for fear that the devil, driven from its habitation, might seek a new home, and enter into the brain or body of one of the king’s subjects- or even the heart of his fairest and gentlest, and most beloved queen!—Clark Ashton Smith (The Flower-Devil)
‘There was a positively feral light in those glorious eyes, now; and that seductive mouth had ceased to be such. With lips drawn back from her teeth (queer that I had not before noticed how sharp and cruelly pointed they seemed—like fangs!)’—Kirk Mashburn (Placide’s Wife)
‘Yes, after fifty years of law enforcement I know how hideous, cruel, and evil, people can be. Whether the Devil made them do it, who knows? How many times did I face true evil in my career? It’s hard to really say, and I have certainly lost count. And to be honest, I often do my damnedest to try and forget. I’ve heard you can only stare into darkness for so long before it stains you. Or–as in my case–it locks its claws into you, never to let go.’
—Thomas Swafford (Skinwalker)
Lost from those archangelic thrones that star,
Fadeless and fixed, heaven’s light of azure bliss;
Forbanned of all His splendor and depressed
Beyond the birth of the first sun, and lower
Than the last star’s decline, I still endure,
Abased, majestic, fallen, beautiful,
And unregretful in the doubted dark,
Throneless, that greatens chaos-ward, albeit
From chanting stars that throng the nave of night
Lost echoes wander here, and of His praise
With ringing moons for cymbals dinned afar,
And shouted from the flaming mouths of suns.–Clark Ashton Smith (Satan Unrepentant)
For my death—for death comes to us all in the end–in this hideous murk is soon. It’s the other fate, a fate worse than death, that I truly fear now. It’s inconceivable and incomprehensible to imagine that horrific fate. For should this monster I spoke of find me, I’ll be immortally frozen for all eternity—encased and alive mind you–as lifeless stone.
–Jeffrey LeBlanc (The Gorgon)
Lash me two round shot hard to my ankles;
Over the rail let me slide to the deep;
I’ll never see Bristol; the crack of a pistol
Has weighted my eyelids wi’ coming o’ sleep.
—Robert E. Howard (A Dying Pirate Speaks of Treasure)
‘We started back through the forest. We walked some distance and then night fell. We lost the brook. After a half hour’s wandering we heard it again. We started for it. The trees began to thin out and we thought we were approaching the beach. Then Waters clutched my arm. I stopped. Directly in front of us was the open space with the stone god leering under the moon and the green water shining at his feet!’ —Abraham Merrit (The Pool of the Stone God)
But deep in the seaweed-haunted halls in the green unlighted deep,
Inhuman kings await the day that shall break their chains of sleep.
And far in a grim untrodden land on a jungle-girded hill,
A pillar stands like a sign of Fate, in subtle warning still.
—Robert E. Howard (The Symbol)
Have you ever felt the tread of little feet walking across the top of your skull? Footsteps on your skull, back and forth, back and forth? —Robert Bloch (Enoch)
‘Deaf, as he would be for the rest of his days, Stewart Baker slowly glanced back. Sweat poured from his brow and mixed with the blood caked on his shirt. He half expected the colossus of the snails to roar down the trenasse in pursuit, crushing everything in its wake. He almost welcomed the death by such a terrifying beast.’
—Jeffrey LeBlanc (Island of the Giant Snail)
Apparently disembodied, or set in a face too vast for human cognizance, they burned before him in chaotic murk; Then, by degrees, he saw the other features of the sorcerer, and the details of a lurid scene; and became aware of his own situation.’
—Clark Ashton Smith (The Colossus of Ylourgne)
“The shelter of even a tomb was welcome in that pitiless tempest, and I was about to enter it when there came a flash of forked-lightning that lit up the whole expanse of the heavens. In the instant, as I am a living man, I saw, as my eyes were turned into the darkness of the tomb, a beautiful woman, with rounded cheeks and red lips, seemingly sleeping on a bier. As the thunder broke overhead, I was grasped as by the hand of a giant and hurled out into the storm. The whole thing was so sudden that, before I could realise the shock, moral as well as physical, I found the hailstones beating me down. At the same time I had a strange, dominating feeling that I was not alone. I looked towards the tomb. Just then there came another blinding flash, which seemed to strike the iron stake that surmounted the tomb and to pour through to the earth, blasting and crumbling the marble, as in a burst of flame.” —Bram Stoker (Dracula’s Guest)
For the moon obliterated, no longer controlled the tides”
—Jeffrey LeBlanc (Beyond Darkness)
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