Deep sadness is an artist of powers that affects people in different ways. To one it comes like the stroke of an arrow, shocking all the emotions to a sharper life. To another, it comes as the blow of a crushing strike.
I would not die, and leave no name behind. Three centuries have passed since I quaffed the fatal beverage: another year shall not elapse before, encountering gigantic dangers–warring with the powers of frost in their home–beset by famine, toil, and tempest–I yield this body, too tenacious a cage for a soul which thirsts for freedom, to the destructive elements of air and water–or, if I survive, my name shall be recorded as one of the most famous among the sons of men; and, my task achieved, I shall adopt more resolute means, and, by scattering and annihilating the atoms that compose my frame, set at liberty the life imprisoned within, and so cruelly prevented from soaring from this dim earth to a sphere more congenial to its immortal essence.
When Lazarus left the grave, where, for three days and three nights he had been under the enigmatical sway of death, and returned alive to his dwelling, for a long time no one noticed in him those sinister oddities, which, as time went on, made his very name a terror.
An utterly strange story of three mad volumes and a weird woman who sat by a fountain in the house of twenty-six bluejays.
“Oh…dear…friend. I see that you’ve had a meltdown. Just remember this final lesson Rodney Hebert. The vilest of you…truly…are divine!”
There was no sound and at first I could see nothing but nitre-encrusted walls and wet stone floor. Presently, however, in a far corner, just beyond the flickering halo of the faggot torch, I saw two tiny, fiery spots of red. I tried to convince myself that they were two red jewels, two rubies, shining in the torchlight.
But I knew at once – I felt at once – what they were. They were two red eyes and they were watching us with a fierce, unwavering stare.–Joseph Payne Brennan
The man was Halpin Frayser. He lived in St. Helena, but where he lives now is uncertain, for he is dead.–Ambrose Bierce
Will anyone let this “little monster” out of his cellar?
Tardy traveller, beware
Of that spectre gibbering there;
Close your eyes, and urge your steed
To the utmost of his speed;–
For beneath that cross, I ween,
Lies a Vampyre’s corpse obscene!
That was the train the drunks and the sinners rode — the gambling men and the grifters, the big-time spenders, the skirt-chasers, and all the jolly crew.
In that same silver paradise of shimmering night, as an alligator bellowed, mosquitoes hummed, and green tree frogs chirped….a million crickets rubbed their wings together and sang.–JL
Can Old Masson dig to the secret of the graveyard rats? Or will his feud with them be another game of cat and mouse?
The people on the block decided definitely that Jules was crazy when they heard about his composition.
Children of horror, we are passing haunted Avalon Island. Hear the roar of towering waves as they crash against rock, whispering marsh, and sand shore off the coast of Louisana. In the distance between freezing ice and rolling fog we see a twisted, wrecked pirate ship. As you smell the brine and seaweed, you can see the long, ghostly shadows haunting the ancient vessel. The aged, creaking hull solemnly sits in foamed surf. Cold winds howl their discontent and invite you to stay an eternal guest onboard the decayed structure.
This is the ancient crypt of Antoine Valterre, “The Devil of Black Bayou”. And the following sums up the man’s existence best.
“Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck,
And the dim blue fire that lights her deck
Doth play on as pale and livid a crew
As ever yet drank the churchyard dew!”
–The Ghost Ship by Sir Thomas Moore
Yet, are we mistaken, as he fades in and out, in curious time as the arcs of lightning?
As you smell the scent of rain, sea, and something ancient and dead, you hear ghastly laughs around you as the storm continues to approach. Shadows continue to whisper. There is no escape and no reprieve from the whisperers beyond.
Out of the singed heart of cosmic horror, and electrifying arcs of slime, we introduce you to the terrifying dimensions of the mortal immortal, Isaac Abramovitch in “The Masque of Death”.
William Blake captured Isaac’s nightmarish world so poignantly in the verses below.
Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face
Terror, the Human Form Divine
And Secrecy, the Human Dress
The Human Dress, is forged Iron
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal’d
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge –William Blake (A Divine Image)
Follow on children of horror through winding, spiraling, dark dimensions as we journey ever on into thunderheads on sandy shores, shadowed waterways, fog-foetid bayous, and amongst the darkness of decayed swamp without torch, flashlight, or candle flame with only electric arcs to light our way.
Those distant, shadowed whispers you hear are nothing to fear. And the tentacle monstrosity climbing out of a ripped dimension circling you can’t be a d—, or can they? There’s no such thing of course.
Jeffrey LeBlanc 