‘Devil’s down in Judas Mill
Wanting my heart wanting my soul still
Till the last star’s decline
This vixen will take more than my wine!’
–Jeffrey LeBlanc (One Scotch, One Bourbon, & One Beer)
The corpse had lost much of its starved appearance and looked hideously fresh and alive. –F. G. Loring (The Tomb of Sarah)
“Yes,” continued my friend, his eyes still fixed on the spot.
“But the strange thing is that I see the body lying on the top
of it. Of course,” continued Holger, turning his head on one
side as artists do, “it must be an effect of light. In the first
place, it is not a grave at all. Secondly, if it were, the body
would be inside and not outside. Therefore, it’s an effect of
the moonlight. Don’t you see it?”
“Perfectly; I always see it on moonlight nights.” –Francis Marion Crawford (For the Blood is the Life)
HALLOWEEN ALL THE TIME roaring away!!!!
Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta’en,
Beneath the moon’s pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.
–Robert Burns (Hallowe’en)
Bats flying! Flying!
In eternal night
From the river to the cave to wheel in the twilight.
–Jeffrey LeBlanc (Song of the Vampire Bats)
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)
‘Foul vampire! accursed lamia! she-serpent of hell!’ thundered the abbot suddenly, as he crossed the threshold of the room, raising the aspergillus aloft. At the same moment, Nycea glided from the couch, with an unbelievable swiftness of motion, and vanished through an outer door that gave upon the forest of laurels.’ –Clark Ashton Smith (The End of the Story)
One drink one dance under skies
One bourbon one night no disguise
One scotch one tear that falls near
Raise your glass one last cheer –Jeffrey LeBlanc (Cajun Moonlight Tears)
She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she gaz’d and sighed deep,
And there I shut her wild sad eyes So kiss’d to sleep.
And there we slumber’d on the moss,
And there I dream’d, ah woe betide!—
The latest dream I ever dream’d On the cold hill side.’ –John Keats (La Belle Dame Sans Merci)
I cast a glance and resigned to dive in anyway. I thought,
‘It’s better to face those teeth or any of the creatures slithering out there in the smoke and abysmal waters of the bayou, than to be burned alive.’
–Jeffrey LeBlanc (For the Love of a Phantom)
“I am a vampire,”said the stranger.
Madness. I turned to flee, but the voice pursued me.
“Yes, I am a vampire,” he said. “And…so are you!”
–Robert Bloch (The Bat Is My Brother)
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)
Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse,
A mighty lesson we inherit:
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals of their fate and force;
Like thee, Man is in part divine,
A troubled stream from a pure source;
And Man in portions can foresee
His own funereal destiny;
His wretchedness, and his resistance,
And his sad unallied existence:
To which his Spirit may oppose
Itself—and equal to all woes,
And a firm will, and a deep sense,
Which even in torture can descry
Its own concenter’d recompense,
Triumphant where it dares defy,
And making Death a Victory.–Lord Byron (Prometheus)
“I walked along the silver gravel until I came to five unicorns galloping beside water of the past. Here I found a pearl, a magnificent pearl, a pearl beautiful but black. Like a flower it carried a rich perfume, and once I thought the odor was but a mask, but why should such a perfect creation need a mask?’ –Carl Jacobi (Revelations in Black)
Jeffrey LeBlanc 