VAMPIRE HORROR: ‘The Strigae’ by Marcel Schwob
‘While one watches over the dead, one can hear the strigae: they sing airs that carry one away and which, despite oneself, one obeys.’ –MARCEL SCHWOB (The Strigae)
‘While one watches over the dead, one can hear the strigae: they sing airs that carry one away and which, despite oneself, one obeys.’ –MARCEL SCHWOB (The Strigae)
Our interview with horror master ALEX GRASS!!!
What had I seen back in 1989? What was the memory I was recollecting, so long ago, sending my old ticker to thundering like rattling tin during a hurricane? More importantly, why did I suffer three months of God-awful nightmares after that not-so-great experience? Haunting dreams so bad, evil visions so unnerving, that they made me erratic enough to swear off booze. Well, on the latter, at least habanero peach whiskey.
–ONE SCOTCH, ONE BOURBON, & ONE BEER
‘Night is approaching. I can feel the change of temperature in the tomb. The worms are becoming more active in their squirming all around me. The maggots inch by the dozens across my chest. I hear the excited squealing and clawing of the rats too.’ –Jeffrey LeBlanc (SARAH ETERNALLY ENTOMBED)
‘The pale man shook his head. “At twenty-five dollars an hour,” he said, “are you kidding? I can barely afford to have my cape cleaned once a month.” “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Why do you wear it?” “You ever hear of a vampire without a cape? It’s part of the whole schmear, that’s all. I don’t know why!” –Charles Beaumont (BLOOD BROTHER)
To my surprise he staggered and fell to his knees, his hand on his heart and his face contorted by a spasm of agony. –Edmond Hamilton (VAMPIRE VILLAGE)
Dim, dubious, bat-like creatures seemed to be flitting to and fro between one of the stone vats and the group that toiled like sculptors, clothing the bony foot with a reddish plasm which they applied and moulded like so much clay. Gaspard thought, but was not certain later, that this plasm, which gleamed as if with mingled blood and fire, was being brought from the rosy-litten vat in vessels borne by the claws of the shadowy flying creatures. None of them, however, approached the other vat, whose wannish light was momently enfeebled, as if it were dying down. –Clark Ashton Smith (The Colossus of Ylourgne)
Could it have been Love that made us immortal?
I ask you ancient silver moons of old for I am alone,
Answer me I beg! For all the golden suns are deaf and blind to my plea, To my plea
To my beloved who sits quietly in this forgotten tomb,
Damn the worm! You will not kiss my love wan and cold tenderly.
–CHARLIE’S DREAM
When the Horror passing speech
Hunted us along,
Each laid hold on each, and each
Found the other strong.
In the teeth of things forbid
And reason overthrown,
Helen stood by me, she did,
Helen all alone.
–Rudyard Kipling
FOR THE SAKE OF THE DEAD AND THE WELFARE OF THE LIVING, LET THIS SEPULCHRE
REMAIN UNTOUCHED AND ITS OCCUPANT UNDISTURBED TILL THE COMING OF CHRIST.
IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY GHOST.
–F.G. Loring (The Tomb of Sarah)
A Greek god horror story to kill all HOPE. Really dark stuff.
‘The old man continued on his way to the sea, coming after a time upon two men who were digging a grave for a third who lay dead.
“It is a holy office to bury the dead,” he remarked.
“Aye,” said one of the men, “especially if you have slain him yourself and are hiding the evidence.”
–ROGER ZELAZNY (But Not The Herald)
‘No. The face of a dark, remarkable-looking man, in black, with black hair and a grey moustache – a handsome man except for a reserved and secret air. Not a face she ever saw, or at all like a face she ever saw. Doing nothing in the dream but looking at her fixedly, out of darkness.’–CHARLES DICKENS (To Be Read At Dusk)
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!!!!