Tag Archives: evil

Light

2 Replies

When the lights burn
Evil spirits turn
Away
Or so they
Say.

But what of the inner dark
Where there exists no spark
Of healing light
To fright
The night
Away?

No light of day
Can get inside
The heart
Where the dark
Does hide.
And who can trace
Behind the bright
Face
The night?

(Written in response to https://sarainlalaland.com/2018/04/11/i-challenge-you/).

Demons

4 Replies

Walking the old familiar track.
There is no turning back.
I lack
The will
To drill
Down and discover
What lies under cover.
It is not buried deep
For when I sleep
Memories creep
Out
And demons shout
In my ear.
It is always near
The old familiar fear.
mocking laughter
echoing down the years.

The Thing

6 Replies

Like a living thing it lurked in the spare room quietly clicking away to itself. No one knew about it save for the boy and he told no one. What would have been the point of telling? Had he told they would have called him mad, a strange child with a tenuous grip on reality, the adults would have remarked. Sometimes even he doubted the existence of the thing. During the day the room stood silent and empty except for the presence of a chest of drawers, a single bed and a wardrobe. The homely presence of the furniture, solid and dependable reassured him during daylight that all was right with the world. When the sun shonne on the walls the horses imprinted on the wall paper filled the child with delight. He imagined them galloping across sunlit green fields their long mains blowing in the wind.

At night the thing came. Click, click it said, crouching in the corner coiled and ready to pounce. It never left it’s lair but the knowledge of the loathsome presence filled him with dread, Click, click, waiting patiently in the dark for it’s prey.

Looking back he never could recall having entered the room. Some how or other he was there in the presence of the unspeakable clicking entity. It never spoke, perhaps it was incapable of speech, the thing merely bided it’s time and when the time was right struck like a beast launching itself upon his prey. Click, click the machine whispered to itself it’s tentacles reaching for the boy’s neck. Choking he fought with the thing. It was strong but he always managed to wriggle away somehow. Perhaps it wanted him to escape. Like a cat which takes pleasure in catching a mouse, releasing it and giving chase once more the thing would let him go only to wait, patiently for the next tussle.

He called it the strangling machine on account of it’s propensity to choke him. Click, click, click, the sound echoed down the years.

By the pricking of my thumbs something wicked this way comes

Leave a reply

As a child I attended several boarding schools for blind children. During this time I shared a number of  dormatories with boys most of who’s names I can still remember! The first dormitory I can recollect had wooden floors with only small mats by each bed onto which we boys could step when dressing or undressing. Despite the huge old radiators my memory is of shivering with cold while dressing in the frosty winter mornings. Oh happy days!

Being boys we regailed one another with all kinds of stories after the lights had been switched off and we should have been in the land of dreams. Among these where stories of ghosts and ghouls. I well remember some clever soul (I think it may have been me but I can’t be sure at this distance in time) regailing his fellow dorm dwellers with a story of a boy who returned from the toilet only to find that the school had been boarded up and that he was trapped inside the building with all kinds of ghosts and ghouls. All this story telling was fine until one of us wanted to leave the room to use the toilet only to find ourselves scared half to death to go alone. What ghastly creatures lurked in the passage outside our dormitory god only knew!

I believe that my interest in ghost stories stems from my early school days. Even now I can feel cold shivers run down my spine when I read or hear a ghost story.

I am an agnostic and keep an open mind as to whether anything beyond the purely material world exists. However, irrespective of whether god or something god-like exists I continue to find ghost stories a great source of enjoyment.

Thus far I have written one ghost story, There are More Things in Heaven and Earth (http://newauthoronline.com/2013/03/17/there-are-more-things-in-heaven-and-earth/). In the story Michael,a devout atheist (now theirs a contradiction in terms if ever there was one) decides to sleep in the chamber of an old house in which a Victorian serving maid hanged herself. The result is tragic with Michael being found dead the following day.

The story suggests that Michael saw something unspeakable which brought on a massive heart attack. However the sceptic will no doubt argue that people can work themselves up to such a state of fear and/or excitement that they bring about their own demise. The imagination is an extremely powerful thing and I can recollect lying in bed at school listening to creaking floor boards and cooling pipes and being at least half convinced that unearthly forces where abroad.

I’m off to bed now to dream what I hope will be dreams lacking in ghosts and ghouls!

 

Kevin