Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb

t fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators

by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman — a howl — a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, “I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy.

The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little

tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!

Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain.”

Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.

started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight — an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off — incumbent eternally upon my heart!

whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed — a brute beast to work out for me — for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God — so much of insufferable wo

I say, the image of a hideous — of a ghastly thing — of the GALLOWS! — oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime — of Agony and of Death

I say, the image of a hideous — of a ghastly thing — of the GALLOWS! — oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime — of Agony and of Death

yes, even in this felon’s cell

although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly it at by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly — let me confess it at once — by absolute dread of the beast.

brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes

his was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but I know not how or why it was — its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed

I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it — knew nothing of it — had never seen it before.

went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

the lime of which, had then with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

pparition — for I could scarcely regard it as less — my wonder and my terror were extreme

the figure of a gigantic cat.

But I am detailing a chain of facts —

hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; — hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; — hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin — a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it — if such a thing were possible — even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man.

PERVERSENESS.

But this feeling soon gave place to irritation

I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity

grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!

The fury of a demon instantly possessed me

But my disease grew upon me — for what disease is like Alcohol!

Not that she was ever serious upon this point — and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise

his latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree

gossamer fidelity

so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions.

nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects

baroques.

ave terrified — have tortured — have destroyed me.

succinctly

Black Cat

an oval. A scream

He is aware that there are hot, floating bits of substance in the air, glowing orange and then winking out, turning to ash. For some reason he thinks of bee

he can see the figure of a child watching him grimly, hunched there, its face lit and flickering.

People say that fire "crackles," but in fact it seems like the amplified sound of tiny creatures eating, little wet mandibles, thousands and thousands of them, and then a heavy, whispered wkoofas the fire finds an­other pocket of oxyge

"I've been thinking about you a lot, ever since I die

n the dream, DJ is older. He looks to be nineteen or twenty, and he walks into a bar where Gene is hunched on a stool, sipping a glass of beer. Gene recognizes him right away-his posture, those thin shoulders, those large eyes. But now, Drs arms are long and muscular, tattooed. There is a hooded, unpleasant look on his face as he ambles up to the bar, pressing in next to Gene. D J orders a shot of Jim Beam-Gene's old favorite

"He just said he'd see you soon.

1 did not go out with anybody last night!" he says. "I did not get drunk! You can either believe me, or you can

been causing Frankie's screaming episodes.

ene can feel the small hairs on his back prickling. "Was it DJ?" he says.

DJ's eyes swol­len shut and puffy

Mom?" Frankie says. "I'm thirsty.

There is a swimming, suffocating sensation of being stared at, being watched by something that hates him, and he gasps, choking for air. A lady is bending over him, and for a moment he expects her to say: "You're very lucky, young man. You should be dead.

But in Gene's memory there was something malevolent about him, resting his head pettishly on his mother's chest, talking in that singsong, lisping voice, star­ing hard and unblinking at Gene with a little smile

But in Gene's memory there was something malevolent about him, resting his head pettishly on his mother's chest, talking in that singsong, lisping voice, star­ing hard and unblinking at Gene with a little smile

D] would suddenly slide into the room, creeping up to Mandy and resting his head on her chest, right in the middle of some important talk. "I'm thirsty," he would say, in imitation baby-talk. Though he was five years old, he would playact this little toddler voice. "Mama," he would say. "I is firsty." And Drs eyes would rest on Gene for a moment, cold and full of calculating hatred.

He'd turn his head and D] would be at the edge of the room, with his bony spine hunched and his long neck craned, staring with those strangely oversize eyes.

at D] had in some strange way almost physically transformed into something that wasn't Gene's real son

D J had been an unusually skinny child, with a head like a baby bird and long, bony feet, with toes that seemed strangely

A membrane of ancient skin is pulled taut over the eye sockets. The lips are stretched back, and there are small, chipped, rodentlike teeth. Looking at the thing, he can't help but think of DJ again, and he looks over his shoulder, quickly, the way he used to

Drs face, flickering, peering steadily from the window of the burning trailer, his mouth open in a unnatural circle, as if he's singing.

Frankie looks nothing like DJ, but when he pokes his head from behind the hanging foli­age of the willow, Gene feels a little shudder-a flicker, some­thing. He clenches his jaw.

Maybe they are dead, he thinks. Mandy and DJ. The idea strikes him a glancing blow, because of course it would make sense. The reason they've never contacted him. of course.

it occurs to him suddenly that they are dead

He puts his fingertips against his forehead

He wishes that he could tell them how sorry he is, and send them money

Fine!" he hissed. "Let's go home to your mommy, you little crybaby. 1 swear to God, I'm never taking you with me anywhere again." And he gave DJ a little shake. "Jesus, what's wrong with you? Lookit, people are laughing at you. See? They're saying, 'Look at that big boy, bawling like a girl.

ene felt horrible. He had been so happy-thinking that they were finally having themselves a memorable father-and-son moment-and he could feel his heart plunging into darkness

like a hatch in a big silver flying saucer

He felt like a good dad. He wished his own father had taken him on rides at the carnival!

1 was trying, he would think, 1 was trying, damn it, and it was as if no matter what he did, it wouldn't turn out right.

And in fact he feels it again, now. He presses the pads of his fingertips against his brow. Emotional trauma, his mind murmurs, but he is thinking of D],

Frankie himself was calm

It's so real that when he wakes, he still feels intoxicated. It takes him a few minutes to shake i

The trouble comes at night, when he's asleep.

When Karen wakes him in the morning, he often feels muffled, sluggish-as if he's hungover. He doesn't hear the alarm clock. When he stum­bles out of bed, he finds he has a hard time keeping his moodiness in check. He can feel his temper coiling up inside him.

He'd escaped his old self, he thought, and when Karen got pregnant, shortly before they were married, he told himself that now he had a chance to do things over, to do it better

driving east as far as he could go

She had been, to his relief, uncurious about his previous life

Her parents were dead. No one seemed to know where she'd gone.

A drunk, a mon­ster

t re­minds him of long ago, when an old nurse had held his hand in the hospital and said that she was praying for him

Frankie riding his bike in front of them, his training wheels squeaking. They gather on the couch and watch cartoons together, or play board games, or draw pic­tures with crayons. After Frankie is asleep, Karen will sit at the kitchen table and study-she is in nursing school-and Gene will sit outside on the porch, flipping through a newsmagazine or a novel, smoking the cigarettes that he has promised Karen he will give up when he turns thirty-five.

Something bad has been looking for for a long time, he thinks, and now, at last, it is growing near

there is a barely perceptible hum at the edge of his hearing, an intent, de­liberate static sliding along behind him as he wanders ~h~~..~h streets and streets in his van

nd that more often than not, the disturbance simply passes away

They can find no pattern to it.

he is always sound asleep, though even after months Gene can't help leaning down and pressing his ear to the child's chest, to make sure he's breathing, his heart is still going. It always is

open in an oval like a Christmas caroler

the sound of a young child dying violently-falling from a building, or caught in some machinery that is tearing an arm off, or being mauled by a predatory animal

like sharp teeth

at random times: midnight-three A.M.-five in the morning

Gene's son Frankie wakes up screaming