At the end of a forgotten lane, it sits. No one alive remembers when it was last lived in. A cold wind howls over the hillside, a mournful chorus drawn from the eaves. Dead leaves rustle across the dried, patchy grasses. It is a stark and blasted land, the vegetation sparse and sere. Nothing alive can be heard. Not a bird, not even a distant dog howling...nothing but the incessant scraping of branch against branch, as of the bones of restless legions of dead things...
Yes, there are many strange and foreboding places where the warming glow of a noon-day sun never touches. And being such places of eternal darkness, there, just beneath the surface of our perception, lies an atmosphere wherein lurk malign entities culled from the darkest corners of man’s souls throughout history, straining to be set loose upon the face of a dismal planet and prey on unsuspecting passers-by. There they bide their time in seething hatred of life, and living, and ALL that it stands for: that which they can no longer have—nor ever take, ‘cept in the cold, hard hours of the night when men's fancies may give them cause to doubt the solidity of that which they otherwise call “reality”. Once sunken to the depths of this uncertain morass of darkness, men entertain other thoughts; certain ideas of deep and dreadful intent which each one assumes is his or her own secret shame as they huddle in unspoken horror that the rumors of a “hidden reality” may actually be true.
It is at times such as this that purchase is given for these two disparate realms to cross; the one warm and bright—the other, cold, dark and as murky as the depths of the deepest unknown ocean, and just as frightening. Together, the laws of nature become blurred, uncertain. Shadows of dark, heavy, seldom glimpsed shapes lumber putrescent and just out of range or around strange corners with unnatural angles that we privately pray are not there.
author and copyright belongs to
Dennis. He certainly knows how to set a chilly mood for this time of year!
