‘We lay, my love and I
Beneath the weeping willow
But now alone I lie
And weep beside the tree
Singing “Oh willow waly”
By the tree that weeps with me
Singing “Oh willow waly”
Till my lover returns to me
We lay, my love and I
Beneath the weeping willow
But now alone I lie
Oh willow I die
Oh willow I die…’
—George Auric & Paul Dehn (O Willow Waly)
‘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)
“Haunted houses are nothing but superstition. They exist only in the imagination.”
—Farnsworth Wright (The Closing Hand)
“All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.”
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Haunted Houses)
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)
It was the indignant grins of the liches that made him aware. Jovial secret jests as the cretins observed the pitter of dripping water from the funeral home’s roof onto his dead wife’s waxen face. In that callous moment with this crowd of sycophants, Roger almost turned maniacal. Grumbling in a rage, he saw the owner—Trampus Hock, run to wipe the water from her cheek. –Jeffrey LeBlanc (Hell’s Forge)
“Men fled before the flying twain or shrank with bated breath,
And they saw on the face of Adam Brand the seal set there by death.
He reeled on buckling legs that failed, yet on and on he fled;
So through the shuddering market-place, the dying fled the dead.”–Robert E. Howard (Dead Man’s Hate)
“And a strange spirit stalks
When the red surr has set.
And the soul of the watcher is filled
With faint pictures he fain would forget”.
—H. P. Lovecraft (The House)
He must be standing behind her now. He must have come in quietly, without saying anything. Perhaps he was going to put his arms around her, surprise her, startle her. Hence the shadow on the mirror. She turned ready to greet him. The room was empty.–Robert Bloch (The Hungry House)
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;
