Words that came to mind while I was reading
The Pit and the Pendulum – horror, terror, darkness, despair, nightmarish. What a creepy story. Short, yet so effective. As the narrator’s doom literally sinks towards him, I felt glued to the page. My heart beat faster with each painstakingly described moment.
The man, his all-white judge and jury, his sentence of death and the delirium that follows, all unbearable to witness, but even in this darkness of thought, he perseveres with a little bit of luck by avoiding the death trap in the middle of his prison.
I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I had escaped.
His captors are not so easily foiled. A new nightmare awaited, much worse than the first.
Having failed to fall, it was no part of the demon pan to hurl me into the abyss, and thus (there being no alternative) a different and a milder destruction awaited me. Milder! I half smiled in my agony as I though of such application of such a term.
The steel blade of the pendulum perceptibly descended. And still they tempted him with food barely within reach. The rats! His torture was complete, but in the last moment his tormentors were his saviors, and he was free of the bindings that held him in place of certain death.
Or so he thought.
What a story!
In
A Tale of the Ragged Mountains, Poe delves into the truly weird and uncanny with a story about a man named Bedloe who gets lost while traveling in mountain passages on a day out from his home. He finds himself in a dream-like state in a completely different land and time period, caught in a battle with a people the likes of which he has never seen in his life.
He believes himself killed in this battle, but then he awakens, and finds his way back to his village, still alive, still breathing much to his amazement.
But why was he thrust back into this particular time and place? Was it time travel or reincarnation, or even just an odd dream? All is explained by the end of the story. I had no idea Poe wrote anything thing the likes of which could be called science fiction.
If you're looking for some great October spookiness, these stories are thoroughly engrossing and not that hard to read. Be sure to put in your order for dark stormy skies before hand though, thus ensuring you'll never go to sleep again! Ha.
Up next:
The Murders in the Rue Morgue and
The Purloined LetterHelluva Halloween Challenge and the Classics Reading Challenge
Gourd artist, Tom Nardone, is wondering when pumpkin art went from scary to cute. He's written and illustrated a book attempting to set the record straight, reminding us that Halloween is supposed to keep us shaking in our boots! Want your neighbors to think your crazy? Insane? Not playing with a full deck? That you're bored with too much time on your hands? If your a man, that you can't get a girlfriend? Ever.
I'm a grown-up for crying out loud, and I was totally creeped out by most of them, covering a wide variety of haunting subjects. A new bride locked in a trunk forever in The Bride. Being buried alive in Rings on Her Fingers. The Ghost in the Mirror was enough to give me nightmares forever. Wonderful Sausage about a secret ingredient that just happens to be human flesh. The Cat's Paw. The Dead Man's Hand. In some he even includes actions in parenthesis like (Now rush at someone in the audience and SCREAM: AAAAAAAAAAAAH!)
These pictures would give my eleven-year-old nightmares. They'd give my fifteen-year-old nightmares! They gave me nightmares!
How do you fix a jack-o-lantern?
