The Nightmare Lake

There is a lake in distant Zan,

Beyond the wonted haunts of man,
Where broods alone in a hideous state
A spirit dead and desolate;
A spirit ancient and unholy,
Heavy with fearsome melancholy,
Which from the waters dull and dense
Draws vapors cursed with pestilence.
Around the banks, a mire of clay,
Sprawl things offensive in decay,
And curious birds that reach that shore
Are seen by mortals nevermore.
Here shines by day the searing sun
On glassy wastes beheld by none,
And here by night pale moonbeams flow
Into the deeps that yawn below.
In nightmares only is it told
What scenes beneath those beams unfold;
What scenes, too old for human sight,

Lie sunken there in endless night;

For in those depths there only pace
The shadows of a voiceless race.

One midnight, redolent of ill,
I saw that lake, asleep and still;
While in the lurid sky there rode
A gibbous moon that glow’d and glow’d.
I saw the stretching marshy shore,
And the foul things those marshes bore:
Lizards and snakes convuls’d and dying;
Ravens and vampires putrefying;
All these, and hov’ring o’er the dead,
Narcophagi that on them fed.
And as the dreadful moon climb’d high,

Fright’ning the stars from out the sky,
I saw the lake’s dull water glow
Till sunken things appear’d below.
There shone unnumber’d fathoms down,
The tow’rs of a forgotten town;
The tarnish’d domes and mossy walls;
Weed-tangled spires and empty halls;
Deserted fanes and vaults of dread,
And streets of gold uncoveted.

These I beheld, and saw beside

A horde of shapeless shadows glide;
A noxious horde which to my glance
Seem’d moving in a hideous dance
Round slimy sepulchres that lay
Beside a never-travell’d way.
Straight from those tombs a heaving rose
That vex’d the waters’ dull repose,
While lethal shades of upper space
Howl’d at the moon’s sardonic face.

Then sank the lake within its bed,
Suck’d down to caverns of the dead,
Till from the reeking, new-stript earth
Curl’d foetid fumes of noisome birth.
About the city, nigh uncover’d,
The monstrous dancing shadows hover’d,
When lo! there oped with sudden stir
The portal of each sepulchre!
No ear may learn, no tongue may tell
What nameless horror then befell.
I see that lake—that moon agrin—
That city and the things within—
Waking, I pray that on that shore

The nightmare lake may sink no more!

-H.P. Lovecraft

All The Colors Of The Dark

From The Comic Vaults

Originally from Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror paperback (Pyramid Books, 1966). Adapted and illustrated by Russ Jones from a story by the incomparable H.P. Lovecraft (though, like much of his later fiction, a story that was completed after his death by August Derleth). Says Lee in the introduction:
"...we are enchanted by the whirling mists of HPL's unmentionable world, with its horrendous song of the whippoorwills, all set amidst the lurking trolls of witch-haunted Arkham. The immortal creator of the mighty Cthulhu Mythos has written nothing more eerie than Wentworth's Day."

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn

"It is at night, especially when the moon is gibbous and waning, that I see the thing. I tried morphine; but the drug has given only transient surcease, and has drawn me into its clutches as a hopeless slave. So now I am to end it all, having written a full account for the information or the contemptuous amusement of my fellow-men. Often I ask myself if it could not all have been a pure phantasm—a mere freak of fever as I lay sun-stricken and raving in the open boat after my escape from the German man-of-war. This I ask myself, but ever does there come before me a hideously vivid vision in reply. I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind—of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium."

Poe's Children: From The Bookshelf Of Fantastic Fiction

The very first story by H.P. Lovecraft I ever read, was this one, The Thing in the Moonlight. Alone in bed on a freezing winter night, I quickly finished the short story and then laid there astounded that something that read so briskly would have such a profound effect on me. With only the bedside lamp and the nearly full moon shining through the bedroom widow, I was quite literally too unnerved to leave the safety of my bed and use the bathroom, which I direly needed to do, for some time. Thus began my love affair with Lovecraft's unique world of cosmic horrors; things the slither and slime and crawl up from unfathomable depths or visit us from the blackest reaches of space and time. Things too horrifying, too gargantuan, too unspeakable to describe, lest the narrator (or possibly the reader) go mad with fright. Unimaginably evil beings older than time that regard us with indifference, for what are we but specks of dust in their monstrous clutches. In celebration of Lovecraft's birthday, it is our honor to share with you dear readers, that first unearthly kiss from one of the most uncanny lovers we've ever had.


H.P. Lovecraft's The Thing in the Moonlight




Morgan is not a literary man; in fact he cannot speak English with any degree of coherency. That is what makes me wonder about the words he wrote, though others have laughed.
He was alone the evening it happened. Suddenly an unconquerable urge to write came over him, and taking pen in hand he wrote the following:
My name is Howard Phillips. I live at 66 College Street, in Providence, Rhode Island. On November 24, 1927—for I know not even what the year may be now—, I fell asleep and dreamed, since when I have been unable to awaken.
My dream began in a dank, reed-choked marsh that lay under a gray autumn sky, with a rugged cliff of lichen-crusted stone rising to the north. Impelled by some obscure quest, I ascended a rift or cleft in this beetling precipice, noting as I did so the black mouths of many fearsome burrows extending from both walls into the depths of the stony plateau.
At several points the passage was roofed over by the choking of the upper parts of the narrow fissure; these places being exceeding dark, and forbidding the perception of such burrows as may have existed there. In one such dark space I felt conscious of a singular accession of fright, as if some subtle and bodiless emanation from the abyss were engulfing my spirit; but the blackness was too great for me to perceive the source of my alarm.
At length I emerged upon a tableland of moss-grown rock and scanty soil, lit by a faint moonlight which had replaced the expiring orb of day. Casting my eyes about, I beheld no living object; but was sensible of a very peculiar stirring far below me, amongst the whispering rushes of the pestilential swamp I had lately quitted.
After walking for some distance, I encountered the rusty tracks of a street railway, and the worm-eaten poles which still held the limp and sagging trolley wire. Following this line, I soon came upon a yellow, vestibuled car numbered 1852—of a plain, double-trucked type common from 1900 to 1910. It was untenanted, but evidently ready to start; the trolley being on the wire and the air-brake now and then throbbing beneath the floor. I boarded it and looked vainly about for the light switch—noting as I did so the absence of the controller handle, which thus implied the brief absence of the motorman. Then I sat down in one of the cross seats of the vehicle. Presently I heard a swishing in the sparse grass toward the left, and saw the dark forms of two men looming up in the moonlight. They had the regulation caps of a railway company, and I could not doubt but that they were conductor and motorman. Then one of them sniffed with singular sharpness, and raised his face to howl to the moon. The other dropped on all fours to run toward the car.
I leaped up at once and raced madly out of that car and across endless leagues of plateau till exhaustion forced me to stop—doing this not because the conductor had dropped on all fours, but because the face of the motorman was a mere white cone tapering to one blood-red-tentacle. . . .
I was aware that I only dreamed, but the very awareness was not pleasant.
Since that fearful night, I have prayed only for awakening—it has not come.
Instead I have found myself an inhabitant of this terrible dream-world! That first night gave way to dawn, and I wandered aimlessly over the lonely swamp-lands. When night came, I still wandered, hoping for awakening. But suddenly I parted the weeds and saw before me the ancient railway car—and to one side a cone-faced thing lifted its head and in the streaming moonlight howled strangely
It has been the same each day. Night takes me always to that place of horror. I have tried not moving, with the coming of nightfall, but I must walk in my slumber, for always I awaken with the thing of dread howling before me in the pale moonlight, and I turn and flee madly.
God! when will I awaken?
That is what Morgan wrote. I would go to 66 College Street in Providence, but I fear for what I might find there.


The Thing in the Moonlight is based on a letter that Lovecraft wrote to Donald Wandrei on 24 November 1927.

The October Country Would Like To Wish A...

Happy Birthday to the godfather of cosmic horror. Though his readership was limited during his short lifetime, Lovecraft has since garnered the respect in death that sadly eluded him in life. Now rightfully hailed as one of the most important writers of horror and dark fantasy fiction of our time, Lovecraft is responsible for crafting not only some of the most terrifying fiction in history, but his imagination has also spawned one of the worlds most cherished bestiary of monsters including the likes of Azathoth, Cthulhu, Dagon, The Deep Ones, Nyarlathotep, Shoggoths and Yog-Sothoth among many others. His influence is still felt to this day, inspiring the hands of hundreds of writers (award winning authors Ramsey Campbell, T.M. Wright and Thomas Ligotti are but a few of his disciples) and directors (John Carpenter, Stuart Gordon and Guillermo Del Toro) working in the genre. Some of his most notable work includes; At the Mountains of Madness (1931), The Call of Cthulhu (1926), The Rats in the Walls (1923), The Shadow Out of Time (1935), The Strange High House in the Mist (1926), The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927), The Colour Out of Space (1927), The Dreams in the Witch House (1932), The Dunwich Horror (1928), The Festival (1923), From Beyond (1920), Herbert West: Reanimator (1922), The Nameless City (1921), The Music of Erich Zann (1921), The Lurking Fear (1922), Pickman's Model (1926) and The Shadow Over Innsmouth (1931) but to name a few. In addition to his works of fiction, Lovecraft was an accomplished poet and has had a wealth of his personal letters and correspondences published that far exceeds his fantastical work in terms of bulk. Born Howard Phillip Lovecraft August 20, 1890, he passed away on March 15, 1937. He would have been 121 today.

Fatal Frames

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Always Make The Audience Suffer As Much As Possible.

"Fear isn't so difficult to understand. After all, weren't we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It's just a different wolf. This fright complex is rooted in every individual."