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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)

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As he clambered over the rocks he was suddenly conscious of a strange sensation, as though keen eyes were focused upon him — eyes that watched and warned! Vaguely in his mind rose up the gaunt face of his uncle, Michael Leigh, the deep-set eyes glowing. But swiftly this was gone, and he found himself before a deeper niche of blackness in the cliff face. Into it he knew he must go.–robert Bloch & Henry Kuttner (The Black Kiss)

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‘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)

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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)

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I was rid of feeling, because I had been killed, but perception and thought were in my unhappy soul. The dawn widened, and I saw the desolate houses that crowded the marge of the river, and their dead windows peered into my dead eyes, windows with bales behind them instead of human souls. I grew so weary looking at these forlorn things that I wanted to cry out, but could not, because I was dead. Then I knew, as I had never known before, that for all the years that herd of desolate houses had wanted to cry out too, but, being dead, were dumb. And I knew then that it had yet been well with the forgotten drifting things if they had wept, but they were eyeless and without life. And I, too, tried to weep, but there were no tears in my dead eyes. –Lord Dunsany

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“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)

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#horrorstories #satyr #horrorstory #horrorgram #books #bookstagram #booktube #booktubecommunity The blackened face, the hideous form upon the bed, changing and melting before your eyes from woman to man, from man to beast, and from beast to worse than beast, all the strange horror that you witness, surprises me but little. –Arthur Machen (The Great God Pan–CHAPTER […]

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#apocalypse #horrorstories #horrorstory #horrorshorts #youtube #books #booktube #horror ‘I had a dream, which was not all a dream. The bright sun was extinguish’d, and the stars Did wander darkling in the eternal space, Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air; Morn came and went—and came, and brought […]

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#Lucifer #horrorstories #books #horrorstory #horrorshorts #shorts #satanunrepentant #writing #horrorwriting ‘Mine all-indomitable eyes, shall see A maimed and dwindled Godhead cast among The stars of His creating, and beneath The unnumbered rush of swift and shining feet Trodden into night; or mark the fiery breath Of His infuriate suns blaze forth upon And scorch that coarsened […]