Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining—
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.–Edgar Allan Poe (The Lake)
Thro’ the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
Past the wan-moon’d abysses of night,
I have liv’d o’er my lives without number,
I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
—H.P. Lovecraft (Nemesis)
“Writhing, fighting with all he had left, Josef gasped out his question under the weight of the werewolf, “What do you mean?”–Thomas Swafford (Showing Gratitude: It’s Always Good to Demonstrate Appreciation)
“It was like something out of an apocalyptic movie. The only cars to be seen were parked. The streets were completely empty, not a person was in sight. “Has there been a disaster?” she said out loud.”—Thomas Swafford (Rubbed the Wrong Way: Put Some Thought Into Your Wish)
“And one by one we died and were lost in the dust of accumulated time. We knew the years as a passing of shadows, and death itself as the yielding of twilight unto night.”—Clark Ashton Smith (From the Crypts of Memory)
Long were the mansion’s mysteries, horrendous were its horrors, and vague were the details of the missing and presumed dead across the mansion grounds. For the past, and the forgetful dead had now hidden much of the sinister, and fogged the memory of the evil that had scorched the manor with a more devious name—Hell’s Forge. Jeffrey LeBlanc (Hell’s Forge)
Mighty is the storm that rages in the sky; but it is as nothing to the storm that rages in the heart of the murderer. —George Thomas Spillman (Retribution)
It floated in–slowly, slowly, as a mist of early morning might enter one’s casement or a wisp of smoke, wafted in on a stray breeze—unsubstantial, filmy, yet seeming to have the substance of flesh and blood. —Francis Marion Palmer (The Thing)
It’s Dick Hansen, calling to me through the wind and the night and the black waters! Alive or dead, I’m his till I die! —Robert E. Howard (Restless Waters)
“Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart’s desire.
She came—she came—and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.”–Mary Elizabeth Coleridge (The Witch)
“Never mind the John,” I whispered raising the knife, “Just call me Jack!”–Robert Bloch (Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper)
“Where’s…the…blood?!
The music—especially that fiery jazz, the cries of laughter, and the aroma of cloves and cayenne kicking up spicy foods, have kept the blood flowing in New Orleans for hundreds of years. For hundreds of years, the blood—the Life, has flowed down the mighty Mississippi into the dark rues, and alleys of the Quarter. And…on more than one occasion, in the city that never sleeps, a fool or the foolhardy has perished.”—Jeffrey LeBlanc (The Devil of Black Bayou (Comedic Short)
“Twilight gathers and none can save me.
Well and well, for I would not stay:
Let me speak through the stone you grave me:
He never could say what he wished to say.”–Robert E. Howard (Lines Written in the Realization That I Must Die) Weird Tales August 1938
“Well, when he hopped over the fence, the bag caught on the top strand of wire and fell back in the parking lot. I picked it up later and what do you suppose I found inside?’
“I have no idea” I told him. “Don’t keep me in suspense!”
“Dirt!” He answered. “Just plain dirt. Earth dirt.”—Joseph Payne Brennan (Who Was He?)
“Omar Khayyam was right: Hell is the reflection of a soul burning.”–John H. Green (Seven Men in a Tank)
Jeffrey LeBlanc 