Horror Scary Quotes

People who love horror films are people with boring lives... when a really scary movie is over, you're reassured to see that you're still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That's the real reason we have horror films - they act as shock absorbers - and if they disappeared altogether, I bet you'd see a big leap in the number of serial killers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news.

Within its gates I heard the sound Of winds in cypress caverns caught Of huddling tress that moaned, and sought To whisper what their roots had found. (“A Dream of Fear”)

Have a look around, my pretty, we are surrounded by Death in all forms – just the two of us are still alive –

Suddenly feeling tired, Bonnyman yawned with his eyes closed. When he re-opened them, the changeling stood a few feet in front of him, staring at Bonnyman like it was a meal waiting to be eaten.

Bodies lay in the sun. Bodies stood in the sun.

Nightmares are seldom a foreshadowing of real events, but always a showing of real fears.

Ms. Fang is the nicest, sweetest teacher at Scary School. She only ate twelve kids last year.

We're all hunters in my family, you know. Deer, ducks…damsels.

People says it gets easier. People are stupid." -Vlad

You don't think I could bring myself to mark your lovely skin? I'll take my knife to you, if that's the case. I'll carve my name in your breast so that every beat of your heart will remind you that you are mine—and mine alone. Because blood is binding, and because I would rather see you destroyed than see you free or in the possession of another, so I suggest you not try me, or you will suffer as no earthly creature has.” He slammed her back against the wall. “Or ever will. But that is a suggestion, and one you are free to disregard at your own peril. But you are are going to answer my question.

Zam watched as the creature began to fade, until it disappeared altogether and all that remained was his own reflection in the mirror. He wondered if he was still sleeping, wondered if his nightmares were seeping into his waking moments. Maybe he was just going crazy. The only sign he was not going crazy was the fine line of blood that slowly trailed down the inside of the mirror.

If you focus on the humanity of your stories, your characters, then the horror will be stronger, scarier. Without the humanity, the horror becomes nothing more than a tawdry parlor trick. All flash and no magic, and worst of all, no heart.

She was a predator - a creature of the night who rejoiced in the thrill of the hunt.

I think that true horror is accomplished by slowly getting into your brain. The old way is much more scary.

What I think is so neat about horror movies,” I said, “is that they shine a light on what we think is scary. Not just ghosts and demons, but what we find really scary.

My own blood always tasted disappointing. I wondered if it tasted that way to God too.

In the end, though, it's all about giving back the teeth that the current 'sweetie-vamp' craze has, by and large, stolen from the bloodsuckers. It's about making them scary again.

Snow came back, but she didn't come back right.

The human mind couldn't cope with looking at nothing for very long and, in sufficient darkness, quickly began to create its own images of what it thought belonged there.

Frequently, when I suggest to people that they detach from a person or problem, they recoil in horror. “Oh, no!” they say. “I could never do that. I love him, or her, too much. I care too much to do that. This problem or person is too important to me. I have to stay attached!” My answer to that is, “WHO SAYS YOU HAVE TO?” I’ve got news—good news. We don’t “have to.” There’s a better way. It’s called “detachment.”3 It may be scary at first, but it will ultimately work better for everyone involved.

I took the pistol off the man and shot him with it in both of his eyes. Somewhere in the back of my mind I heard a voice telling me that the blind would lead the blind.

Magic is a naughty beast.

You’re just spooked. It’s Halloween; we’re all kind of spooked. That’s just the way it is. - Tory

This isn’t how things were supposed to happen. I was supposed to be me. Not this.

The difficulty with Poe is not figuring out which of his stories rise to the level required of this collection, but rather which of his stories to exclude from it.

Telling scary stories is something people have done for thousands of years, for most of us like being scared in that way. Since there isn't any danger, we think it is fun.

Looking back on it, it's like watching a horror flick and wondering why the characters are so determined to ignore the danger signs. When a spectral voice says, GET OUT, you should do it. But in real life, you don't know that you're in a scary movie. You think your wife is being overly emotional. You quietly hope it's because she's pregnant, because a baby is what you need to lock this thing in and throw away the key.

Monsters are not naturally born. They are born through the darkness and hatred of humanity.

Strength and victory... What he would never praise himself for, but whose loss was his most obsessive fear.

Apparitions are scary but the real horror is to be found in people

If Johann was going to be a Thing with a name, then from now on he would be a Thing with power, too.

Don’t get all gothic and emo on me now. - Tory

Think of what it must have been like in the Scholomance for all those years it was closed,” said Dru, her eyes gleaming with horror-movie delight. “All the way up in the mountains, totally abandoned and dark, full of spiders and ghosts and shadows . . .” "If you want to think about somewhere scary, think about the Bone City,” said Livvy. The City of Bones was where the Silent Brothers lived: It was an underground place of networked tunnels built out of the ashes of dead Shadowhunters. “I’d like to go to the Scholomance,” interrupted Ty. “I wouldn’t,” said Livvy. “Centurions aren’t allowed to have parabatai.” “I’d like to go anyway,” said Ty. “You could come too if you wanted.” “I don’t want to go to the Scholomance,” said Livvy. “It’s in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains. It’s freezing there, and there are bears.” Ty’s face lit up as it often did at the mention of animals. “There are bears?” “Enough chatter,” said Diana.

I’m such a negative person, and always have been. Was I born that way? I don’t know. I am constantly disgusted by reality, horrified and afraid. I cling desperately to the few things that give me some solace, that make me feel good. I hate most of humanity. Though I might be very fond of particular individuals, humanity in general fills me with contempt and despair. I hate most of what passes for civilization. I hate the modern world. For one thing there are just too Goddamn many people. I hate the hordes, the crowds in their vast cities, with all their hateful vehicles, their noise and their constant meaningless comings and goings. I hate cars. I hate modern architecture. Every building built after 1955 should be torn down! I despise modern music. Words cannot express how much it gets on my nerves – the false, pretentious, smug assertiveness of it. I hate business, having to deal with money. Money is one of the most hateful inventions of the human race. I hate the commodity culture, in which everything is bought and sold. No stone is left unturned. I hate the mass media, and how passively people suck up to it. I hate having to get up in the morning and face another day of this insanity. I hate having to eat, shit, maintain the body – I hate my body. The thought of my internal functions, the organs, digestion, the brain, the nervous system, horrify me. Nature is horrible. It’s not cute and loveable. It’s kill or be killed. It’s very dangerous out there. The natural world is filled with scary, murderous creatures and forces. I hate the whole way that nature functions. Sex is especially hateful and horrifying, the male penetrating the female, his dick goes into her hole, she’s impregnated, another being grows inside her, and then she must go through a painful ordeal as the new being pushes out of her, only to repeat the whole process in time. Reproduction – what could be more existentially repulsive? How I hate the courting ritual. I was always repelled by my own sex drive, which in my youth never left me alone. I was constantly driven by frustrated desires to do bizarre and unacceptable things with and to women. My soul was in constant conflict about it. I never was able to resolve it. Old age is the only relief. I hate the way the human psyche works, the way we are traumatized and stupidly imprinted in early childhood and have to spend the rest of our lives trying to overcome these infantile mental fixations. And we never ever fully succeed in this endeavor. I hate organized religions. I hate governments. It’s all a lot of power games played out by ambition-driven people, and foisted on the weak, the poor, and on children. Most humans are bullies. Adults pick on children. Older children pick on younger children. Men bully women. The rich bully the poor. People love to dominate. I hate the way humans worship power – one of the most disgusting of all human traits. I hate the human tendency towards revenge and vindictiveness. I hate the way humans are constantly trying to trick and deceive one another, to swindle, to cheat, and take unfair advantage of the innocent, the naïve and the ignorant. I hate the vacuous, false, banal conversation that goes on among people. Sometimes I feel suffocated; I want to flee from it. For me, to be human is, for the most part, to hate what I am. When I suddenly realize that I am one of them, I want to scream in horror.

A shadow moved in the street below and my mind became focused on the movement. This shadow caught my attention because it moved so quickly. Usually when people remained in the shadows they moved slowly, unless they were running from something and then the sound of running could be heard. I did

The best horror novels open up, "It was beautiful summer day and the smell of flowers emanated throughout the air.

Thanks, but no thanks. I need my makeup honey. - Carol

Some people will tell you that if it isn’t scary, it isn’t horror, but I think that displays a paucity of imagination.

You'll never see us coming.

There was a cinema called The Orient outside the community centre where we rehearsed in Six Ways, and whenever it showed a horror film the queue would go all the way down the street and around the corner. ‘Isn’t it strange how people will pay money to frighten themselves?’ I remember Tony [Iommi] saying one day. ‘Maybe we should stop doing blues and write scary music instead.’

What is fear but that ‘thing’ that we believed to be as powerful as it pretended to be.

The road up and the road down are one and the same." Heraclitus

I wanted to explore this idea that the bogey man in the closet is scary, but being a mother is scarier.

No one will ever write a horror novel as scary as reading about my symptoms on WebMD.

Never tell to much. The monster is always scarier when it is still under the child's bed.

.. I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men. This I have known ever since I stretched out my fingers to the abomination within that great gilded frame; stretched out my fingers and touched a cold and unyielding surface of polished glass.

It wasn’t Dean’s fault,” Allie insists. “Seriously, it’s all on me. I freaked out for no reason.” She finally looks over at me. “See? This is why I don’t like horror movies! You watch one scary movie when you’re a kid and suddenly everyone who comes to your door is a serial killer.” “Are you kidding me right now? You’ll watch a horror movie with my sister but not me? We have to watch the cancer movie?” “Dicky,” Summer chides. “You’re being grumpy.” I glare at my sister with enough force to make her wince. “Not one word out of you,” I snap. “And don’t think I didn’t feel you kick me right before I passed out. Who does that, Summer? Who kicks a man when he’s down?” From the corner of my eye, I see Tucker sink to the floor. He buries his face in his hands, shaking with laughter. The EMT blocks my line of sight by squatting in front of me. “I need to examine you for a concussion.” Oh for fuck’s sake.

The Hearse Song Don't you ever laugh as the hearse goes by, For you may be the next to die. They wrap you up in a big white sheet From your head down to your feet. They put you in a big black box And cover you up with dirt and rocks. All goes well for about a week, Then your coffin begins to leak. The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, The worms play pinochle on your snout. They eat your eyes, they eat your nose, They eat the jelly between your toes. A big green worm with rolling eyes Crawls in your stomach and out your eyes. Your stomach turns a slimy green, And pus pours out like whipping cream. You spread it on a slice of bread, And that's what you eat when you're dead.

Being spanked and tickled by Mr. T while he chants ‘Them bats is smart, they use radar, fool!’ is just fucking scary.

What your mind sees when you close your eyes marks the entrance to an endless universe: your imagination.

Darkness fell, gathering sin.

She shoved her to the dirty floor and pressed an open palm against her shoulder to hold her down while her rage and sorrow blossomed into a glistening thorn.

Niall is a big fan of horror movies. Not only because they are scary, but also because it would give him an excuse to snuggle up with his girlfriend if she got scared.

I’m getting the feeling that you two don’t like me. - Kristy

Come out, come out, wherever you are... come out, come out, or you'll end up in the tar...

Ghosts are drawn to the dark underground areas of a house like bats to a cave. Maybe it reminds them of the graves where they belong.

Death is democratic. At the end, regardless of whether you are white, dark, rich or poor, we all end up as skeletons.

I’m not a big fan of Halloween. Except for the dressing up part. I love picking out a costume. - Tory

BUT YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY AVOID IF: Let's be honest. if you're reading this book Hereditary is too scary for you. It's very nearly too scary for me, and this is my job.

Beware, for she is here! Beautiful and delicate as a rose… making a sweet sound as she wanders into the house. But behind the façade, lies a wretched spirit. Waiting to come to full force.

And while people claimed to be creeped out, their smiles suggested that none of this was truly scary. It was like going to see a horror movie with a big group of friends: it was fun to be frightened, but when you were part of a large, noisy group, you knew nothing sinister was going to happen.

In the dark behind the glare of the television, like a mannequin behind it, I could see a silhouette and it wasn’t moving. It was maybe six foot high with its shoulders hunched and I blinked to make sure it was real. The TV fuzzed grey and white and black and I had a lump in my throat that I couldn’t swallow away. “Rory” I whispered. Clawing out gently beneath the duvet cover, reaching for his hand. But I couldn’t find it. And he didn’t answer.

Human beings are small and insignificant in a big, scary universe, and in a horror story - be it a movie, a book, or a haunted house - we have to face that fact. But no matter how scary things get, no matter what the audience has to confront or to endure, there's always a happy ending. When the credits roll, or the reader closes the book, or when our guests walk out tonight, their lives will go on. Because they faced the dark, the sun will shine a little brighter tomorrow, and the real-life monsters won't seem so bad. For a day, or an hour, or even a moment, life will be better

I stared down at my hands and saw the blood coat them, how warm and real something felt when it wasn’t just ink and stains. This was life and I was holding it in my hands. I drew my eyes back up and beneath the flickering streetlight and the throng of drunken cattle, I saw nothing else but the dead girl. Somebody out there had taken her life, her heart, and there I was with her warm, sticky blood. Feeling the most alive I’d felt in years. I had to find him. I just had to.

What I find consistently scary is ambiguity, uncertain footing. Is the shadow on my floor my imagination, or a trick of the light, or something else, something malevolent or supernatural? How much am I willing to let myself give in to my fear, to believe?

So you're exactly like a Venus flytrap. You reel 'em in. Clamp 'em down. Eat 'em up." I didn't respond. "Mmmmm," he said. "You're like a sexy super scary plant." I close my eyes. Covered my mouth in horror. "Why is that so wrong?" he said then bent down to meet my gaze. Tugged on a lock of my hair to get me to look up. "Why does this have to be so horrible? Why can't you see how awesome this is?

His body walks out onto the darkened stage , and a roar goes up from the crowd. He stands in front of the mic, and he can feel his face twist in a sneer-the Elvis sneer from his dreams-though he never told it to move. He is powerless now, a spectator at his own moment of glory.

In the jumbled, fragmented memories I carry from my childhood there are probably nearly as many dreams as images from waking life. I thought of one which might have been my earliest remembered nightmare. I was probably about four years old - I don't think I'd started school yet - when I woke up screaming. The image I retained of the dream, the thing which had frightened me so, was an ugly, clown-like doll made of soft red and cream-coloured rubber. When you squeezed it, bulbous eyes popped out on stalks and the mouth opened in a gaping scream. As I recall it now, it was disturbingly ugly, not really an appropriate toy for a very young child, but it had been mine when I was younger, at least until I'd bitten its nose off, at which point it had been taken away from me. At the time when I had the dream I hadn't seen it for a year or more - I don't think I consciously remembered it until its sudden looming appearance in a dream had frightened me awake. When I told my mother about the dream, she was puzzled. 'But what's scary about that? You were never scared of that doll.' I shook my head, meaning that the doll I'd owned - and barely remembered - had never scared me. 'But it was very scary,' I said, meaning that the reappearance of it in my dream had been terrifying. My mother looked at me, baffled. 'But it's not scary,' she said gently. I'm sure she was trying to make me feel better, and thought this reasonable statement would help. She was absolutely amazed when it had the opposite result, and I burst into tears. Of course she had no idea why, and of course I couldn't explain. Now I think - and of course I could be wrong - that what upset me was that I'd just realized that my mother and I were separate people. We didn't share the same dreams or nightmares. I was alone in the universe, like everybody else. In some confused way, that was what the doll had been telling me. Once it had loved me enough to let me eat its nose; now it would make me wake up screaming. ("My Death")

The sleepless hum of the city was abidingly in his ears, and the lamps that dotted the misty pavements stared at him blinkingly all along the route. The tall black buildings rose up grimly into the night; the faces that flitted to and fro along the pavements, kept ever sliding past him, melting into the darkness; and the cabs and 'buses, still astir in the streets, had a ghostly air as they vanished in the gloom. ("An Unexpected Journey")

Justin: I am falling so in love with you. Her body electrified. Celeste wiped her eyes and read his text again. The drone of the plane disappeared; the turbulence was no more. There was only Justin and his words. Justin: I lose myself and find myself at the same time with you. Justin: I need you, Celeste. I need you as part of my world, because for the first time, I am connected to someone in a way that has meaning. And truth. Maybe our distance has strengthened what I feel between us since we’re not grounded in habit or daily convenience. We have to fight for what we have. Justin: I don’t know if I can equate what I feel for you with anything else. Except maybe one thing, if this makes any sense. Justin: I go to this spot at Sunset Cliffs sometimes. It’s usually a place crowded with tourists, but certain times of year are quieter. I like it then. And there’s a high spot on the sandstone cliff, surrounded by this gorgeous ice plant, and it overlooks the most beautiful water view you’ve ever seen. I’m on top of the world there, it seems. Justin: And everything fits, you know? Life feels right. As though I could take on anything, do anything. And sometimes, when I’m feeling overcome with gratitude for the view and for what I have, I jump so that I remember to continue to be courageous because not every piece of life will feel so in place. Justin: It’s a twenty-foot drop, the water is only in the high fifties, and it’s a damn scary experience. But it’s a wonderful fear. One that I know I can get through and one that I want. Justin: That’s what it’s like with you. I am scared because you are so beyond anything I could have imagined. I become so much more with you beside me. That’s terrifying, by the way. But I will be brave because my fear only comes from finally having something deeply powerful to lose. That’s my connection with you. It would be a massive loss. Justin: And now I am in the car and about to see you, so don’t reply. I’m too flipping terrified to hear what you think of my rant. It’s hard not to pour my heart out once I start. If you think I’m out of mind, just wave your hands in horror when you spot the lovesick guy at the airport. Ten minutes went by. He had said not to reply, so she hadn’t. Justin: Let’s hope I don’t get pulled over for speeding… but I’m at a stoplight now. Justin: God, I hope you aren’t… aren’t… something bad. Celeste: Hey, Justin? Justin: I TOLD YOU NOT TO REPLY! Justin: I know, I know. But I’m happy you did because I lost it there for a minute. Celeste: HEY, JUSTIN? Justin: Sorry… Hey, Celeste? Celeste: I am, unequivocally and wholly falling in love with you, too. Justin: Now I’m definitely speeding. I will see you soon.

Meeting writers is usually disappointing, at best. Writers who write sexy thrillers aren't necessarily sexy or thrilling in person. Children's book writers might look more like accountants, or axe murderers for that matter. Horror writers are very rarely scary looking, although they are frequently good cooks.

Basically people who love horror movies are people with boring lives. They want to be stimulated, and they need to reassure themselves, because when a really scary movie is over, you’re reassured to see that you’re still alive and the world still exists as it did before. That’s the real reason we have horror films—they act as shock absorbers—and if they disappeared altogether it would mean losing one of the few ways we have to ease the anxiety of the imagination. And I bet you’d see a big leap in the number of serial killers and mass murderers. After all, anyone stupid enough to get the idea of murdering people from a movie could get the same idea from watching the news, right?

Long black hair and deep clean blue eyes and skin pale white and lips blood red she's small and thin and worn and damaged. She is standing there. What are you doing here? I was taking a walk and I saw you and I followed you. What do you want. I want you to stop. I breathe hard, stare hard, tense and coiled. There is still more tree for me to destroy I want that fucking tree. She smiles and she steps towards me, toward toward toward me, and she opens he r arms and I'm breathing hard staring hard tense and coiled she puts her arms around me with one hand not he back of my head and she pulls me into her arms and she holds me and she speaks. It's okay. I breathe hard, close my eyes, let myself be held. It's okay. Her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and my heart slows and I stop shaking an the Fury melts into her safety an she holds me and she says. Okay. Okay. Okay. Something else comes and it makes me feel weak and scared and fragile and I don't want to be hurt and this feeling is the feeling I have when I know I can be hurt and hurt deeper and more terribly than anything physical and I always fight it and control it and stop it but her voice calms me and her arms warm me and her smell lightens me and I can feel her heart beat and if she let me go right now I would fall and the need and confusion and fear and regret and horror and shame and weakness and fragility are exposed to the soft strength of her open arms and her simple word okay and I start to cry. I start to cry. I want to cry. It comes in waves. THe waves roll deep and from deep the deep within me and I hold her and she holds me tighter and i let her and I let it and I let this and I have not felt this way this vulnerability or allowed myself to feel this way this vulnerability since I was ten years old and I don't know why I haven't and I don't know why I am now and I only know that I am and that it is scary terrifying frightening worse and better than anything I've ever felt crying in her arms just crying in her ams just crying. She guides me to the ground, but she doesn't let me go. THe Gates are open and thirteen years of addiction, violence, hell and their accompaniments are manifesting themselves in dense tears and heavy sobs and a shortness of breath and a profound sense of loss. THe loss inhabits, fills and overwhelms me. It is the loss of a childhood of being a Teeenager of normalcy of happiness of love of trust anon reason of God of Family of friends of future of potential of dignity of humanity of sanity f myself of everything everything everything. I lost everything and I am lost reduced to a mass of mourning, sadness, grief, anguish and heartache. I am lost. I have lost. Everything. Everything. It's wet and Lilly cradles me like a broken Child. My face and her shoulder and her shirt and her hair are wet with my tears. I slow down and I start to breathe slowly and deeply and her hair smells clean and I open my eyes because I want to see it an it is all that I can see. It is jet black almost blue and radiant with moisture. I want to touch it and I reach with one of my hands and I run my hand from the crown along her neck and her back to the base of her rib and it is a thin perfect sheer and I let it slowly drop from the tips of my fingers and when it is gone I miss it. I do it again and again and she lets me do it and she doesn't speak she just cradles me because I am broken. I am broken. Broken. THere is noise and voices and Lilly pulls me in tighter and tighter and I know I pull her in tighter and tighter and I can feel her heart beating and I know she can feel my heart beating and they are speaking our hearts are speaking a language wordless old unknowable and true and we're pulling and holding and the noise is closer and the voices louder and Lilly whispers. You're okay. You're okay. You're okay.

You’re forgetting… we never get in trouble in that class. Remember I gave Mr. Hendry that lap dance last year. I’m thinking he’s expecting one this year as well. - Carol

I’ve been thinking that you, me and Kristy should all have a sleepover or something like that. Wouldn‘t that be so cool! - Carol

It's my time to scare you, it's time for scary story.

So this didn't scare you, didn't it??? So you want something scary...???

It's fun to think that one day our great, great grandchildren may get that much closer to understanding what the hell creation is doing here in the first place, and glimpsing the underlying structure and nature of matter itself. Hopefully they won't live with the same existential horrors we all quietly face today in our own lives.    There is a kind of bravery to our condition, I reckon: brought into being without an explanation, in a potentially infinite and apparently dead universe, and expected to just get on with it as though nothing strange is going on. Well it fucking is. And it's all right to have a meltdown about the whole affair from time to time, faced with the pressures of modern existence, trying to be a good human and a good worker and a good son/daughter/parent, trying to be a good citizen, trying to be wise without condescension but uninhibited without recklessness, trying to just muddle through without making any silly decisions, trying to align with the correct political opinions, trying to stay thin, trying to be attractive, trying to be smart, trying to find the ideal partner, trying to stay financially secure, trying to just find some modest corner of meaning and belonging and sanity to go and sit in, and all the while living on the edge of dying forever.    We're all in the same strange boat, grappling with the same strange condition. But it isn't quite so scary if we all do it together. So let's do it together.

The dominant narrative is a horror story. People with Alzheimer's are perceived as zombies, bodies without minds, waiting for valiant researchers to find a cure. For Alice and me, the story was different. Alzheimer's was a time of healing and magic. Of course, there is loss with dementia, but what matters is how we approach our losses and our gains. Reframing dementia as a different way of being, as a window into another reality, lets people living in that state be our teachers — useful, true humans who contribute to our collective good, instead of scary zombies.

After watching too many scary movies it was hard not to have an overactive imagination, along with an inherent distrust of seemingly benevolent (and sometimes inanimate) things, like lawn gnomes.

The minister paused in his narrative. At that moment there came a tremendous blast of wind which shook the windows of the manse, and burst open the hall door, and caused the candles to flicker and the fire to go roaring up the chimney. It is not too much to say that, what with the uncanny story, and the howling storm, we all felt that creeping sort of uneasiness which so often seems like the touch of something from another world - a hand stretched across the boundary-line of time and eternity, the coldness and mystery of which make the stoutest heart tremble. ("Sandy The Tinker")

When a single cat let loose a war cry, it was an unsettling sound. When two cats suddenly wailed at each other in a similar fashion, it was downright unnerving. When hundreds of them caterwauled at the same time, in a single voice, the sound alone was enough to make one feel as if the skin had been peeled from one's muscle and bone, to call up horrors inherited from ancestors long since dead and forgotten, raw terror before a deadly predator.

The Loneliness of the Military Historian Confess: it's my profession that alarms you. This is why few people ask me to dinner, though Lord knows I don't go out of my way to be scary. I wear dresses of sensible cut and unalarming shades of beige, I smell of lavender and go to the hairdresser's: no prophetess mane of mine, complete with snakes, will frighten the youngsters. If I roll my eyes and mutter, if I clutch at my heart and scream in horror like a third-rate actress chewing up a mad scene, I do it in private and nobody sees but the bathroom mirror. In general I might agree with you: women should not contemplate war, should not weigh tactics impartially, or evade the word enemy, or view both sides and denounce nothing. Women should march for peace, or hand out white feathers to arouse bravery, spit themselves on bayonets to protect their babies, whose skulls will be split anyway, or,having been raped repeatedly, hang themselves with their own hair. There are the functions that inspire general comfort. That, and the knitting of socks for the troops and a sort of moral cheerleading. Also: mourning the dead. Sons,lovers and so forth. All the killed children. Instead of this, I tell what I hope will pass as truth. A blunt thing, not lovely. The truth is seldom welcome, especially at dinner, though I am good at what I do. My trade is courage and atrocities. I look at them and do not condemn. I write things down the way they happened, as near as can be remembered. I don't ask why, because it is mostly the same. Wars happen because the ones who start them think they can win. In my dreams there is glamour. The Vikings leave their fields each year for a few months of killing and plunder, much as the boys go hunting. In real life they were farmers. The come back loaded with splendour. The Arabs ride against Crusaders with scimitars that could sever silk in the air. A swift cut to the horse's neck and a hunk of armour crashes down like a tower. Fire against metal. A poet might say: romance against banality. When awake, I know better. Despite the propaganda, there are no monsters, or none that could be finally buried. Finish one off, and circumstances and the radio create another. Believe me: whole armies have prayed fervently to God all night and meant it, and been slaughtered anyway. Brutality wins frequently, and large outcomes have turned on the invention of a mechanical device, viz. radar. True, valour sometimes counts for something, as at Thermopylae. Sometimes being right - though ultimate virtue, by agreed tradition, is decided by the winner. Sometimes men throw themselves on grenades and burst like paper bags of guts to save their comrades. I can admire that. But rats and cholera have won many wars. Those, and potatoes, or the absence of them. It's no use pinning all those medals across the chests of the dead. Impressive, but I know too much. Grand exploits merely depress me. In the interests of research I have walked on many battlefields that once were liquid with pulped men's bodies and spangled with exploded shells and splayed bone. All of them have been green again by the time I got there. Each has inspired a few good quotes in its day. Sad marble angels brood like hens over the grassy nests where nothing hatches. (The angels could just as well be described as vulgar or pitiless, depending on camera angle.) The word glory figures a lot on gateways. Of course I pick a flower or two from each, and press it in the hotel Bible for a souvenir. I'm just as human as you. But it's no use asking me for a final statement. As I say, I deal in tactics. Also statistics: for every year of peace there have been four hundred years of war.

After torturing our adrenaline by watching a horror movie for a couple of hours the places we are most afraid of are the doors and windows of the room even though they are the only ways for us to escape in case of occurrence such an event.

The light is faint as the hare last exhale. From thy soul will they pass into Paradise or into Lost. How the nails are driven into the paws of the rabbit, how it wears the crown of thorns, how it drapes ridiculous on the cross; as it ridicules a living God.

horror movies are her favorite, but it’s not because she wants someone to come put their arm around her & protect her during the scary parts. it’s because she likes being frightened by something so much less dangerous than walking alone to her car at night. —a movie could never murder her.

Do you know why the lotus is one of my favorite flowers?" I cocked my head to one side so I could see his expression. He shook his head. "This beautiful flower lives in the most vile, muddy water of swamps and bogs," I said and rubbed the smooth metal of the pendant between my fingers. He frowned. "No, seriously... the grosser the environment, the better," I said. "So let me get this straight. You like a flower that lives in disgusting places?" One of his eyebrows rose. "That ain't right." "No, I love this flower," I corrected. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, "Seriously?" "What?" You don't believe me?" "Sure, I believe you. It's just weird." "I'll tell you why, but only if you promise not to laugh," I said. He nodded. Taking a cleansing breath, I rested my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and took that scary first step. "This flower stays in the mud and muck all night long." I peeked at him without moving my head. His face had become set in the smooth lines of one who listens intently. "Then, at sunrise, it climbs toward the light and opens into a pristine bloom. After the sun goes down, the bloom sinks into the mire. Even though it spends the whole night underwater, the flower emerges every morning as beautiful as the day before." Smiling, I swiveled in my seat to face him. "I love this flower because it reminds me that we get second chances every day, no matter what muck life drags us through.

Like Oz, life is full of beauty and horror. Whether you’re in the magical realm or the so-called civilized one, you can look at the world around you and see both things at almost any time. But what being in Oz taught me is that no matter how horrific a situation may be, no matter how devastating or scary or chaotic, there is still always beauty in the colors of it all, even in the grays. As I look back on the last four years of my life, on everything that led me to the place where my life changed forever for a second time, I might think I wasted too many crucial years perceiving my world through a lens that leeched the color from everything I set my eyes on, but now I can forgive myself for my mistakes and maybe even be grateful for the trials I’ve faced. After all, a rainbow only comes out when it rains. The most spectacular rainbows are set against a backdrop of a half dark sky where gray clouds hover and rain batters the surface of the earth, but the horizon is clear and bright—a pure, radiant blue surrounding a shining golden sun. When I’m in Oz, that rainbow is who I am—a vivid, radiant spectrum of colors with a clear bright landscape ahead only made more rich-hued and vibrant by the darkness that lies behind it.

Women have always been the most important part of monster movies. As I walked home one night, I realized why. Making my way down dark city streets to my apartment in Brooklyn, I was alert and on edge. I was looking for suspicious figures, men that could be rapists, muggers or killers. I felt like Laurie Strode in Halloween. Horror is a pressure valve for society's fears and worries: monsters seeking to control our bodies, villains trying to assail us in the darkness, disease and terror resulting from the consequences of active sexuality, death. These themes are the staple of horror films. There are people who witness these problems only in scary movies. But for much of the population, what is on the screen is merely an exaggerated version of their everyday lives. These are forces women grapple with daily. Watching Nancy Thompson escape Freddy Krueger's perverted attacks reminds me of how I daily fend off creeps asking me to smile for them on the subway. Women are the most important part of horror because, by and large, women are the ones the horror happens to. Women have to endure it, fight it, survive it — in the movies and in real life. They are at risk of attack from real-life monsters. In America, a woman is assaulted every nine seconds. Horror films help explore these fears and imagine what it would be like to conquer them. Women need to see themselves fighting monsters. That’s part of how we figure out our stories. But we also need to see ourselves behind-the-scenes, creating and writing and directing. We need to tell our stories, too.

They really do have nothing in common on paper, these people and him. But yet there are so many common reference points; even some unexpected ones. . . .they all want to be cool. And they're all scared but no good at showing it. . . . [t]hey all know how to act cool. after all, life's pretty scary most of the time. And the number one skill you need out there is how to show no fear. . . . Stay calm. Don't let people see that you are shy or nervous. If you watch a horror film, remember to laugh. If someone else seems scared, laugh at them. In the real world, danger is either fantasy, in which case you laugh, or too real, in which case you ignore it.

There were too many infected running around. Some looked as if they were dead already, but still they stumbled around like heroine addicts. Those ones did not move as fast as the newly infected, who were actually capable of running like a perfectly healthy person. They were the scary ones to worry about. All it took was one bite to ruin your day.

Up before sunrise. Marjorie hated getting out of bed in the dark, but loved the payoff once she was dressed and rolling down the country roads in the first light, cruising and owning them almost alone. The countryside here used to be a lot more interesting, though. She remembered it in her girlhood - orchards, small ranches, farmhouses, each one of these houses a distinct personality... Money, she thought wryly, scanning the endless miles of grapevines, all identically wired and braced and drip-lined, mile after mile - money was such a powerful organizer. As the dawn light gained strength, and bathed the endless vines in tarnished silver, it struck her that there was, after all, something scary about money, that it could run loose in the world like a mythic monster, gobbling up houses and trees, serving strictly its own monstrous appetite. ("The Growlimb")

A long time ago, there was a little girl called Mary. Now Mary, she was warned several times not to go to her neighbor’s house. Her neighbor was a grandmother. But Mary hardly listened, so she snuck off one night to spy on her. She tried the front door first, and it creaked open. Then suddenly, she heard a squeaking noise upstairs. She followed it – climbed up the wooden stairs where half of it was already rotten. She heard the squeaking noise again. It was coming from the library. She opened the door and hid behind a couch. She peered out, and she saw the grandmother.” Dave paused to drain his cup of coffee before continuing. My heart thudded so loudly, I thought that everyone could hear it. “So Mary gasped in disbelief as she heard the squeaking noise again, and the grandmother’s rocking chair was not moving at all. Then the grandmother opened her eyes and looked directly at her, holding her gaze steadily and sharply, and then suddenly, BOO!

The horror story can be the best one there is. Sometimes you want to defend it. Other times you don’t care what other people think because you’ll always have horror for yourself. And yet, it bothers you when people laugh in scary movies. It makes you want to scream in their comedies. It bothers you when people say they’re more scared by something “real.” As if a man with a knife is more frightening to them than a breathing mass of tanned flesh crouched in the corner of their kitchen.

All scary stories have two sides...Like the bright and dark of the moon. If you're brave enough to listen and wise enough to stay to the end, the stories can shine a light on the good in the world. They can guide your muzzles. They can help you survive...But...if you don't listen closely...if you turn tail from the horror and don't stay till the end, then the darkness of the story can swallow all hope. It can frighten you so deeply you'll never want to leave your den again. You'll waste away the days with your mother, forever smelling like her milk.

When I asked her why she loved horror movies so much, she merely shrugged and said that sometimes she liked to be scared. I didn’t get it, any more than I did the allure of rolling around with wheels on your feet. Why would someone want to be scared? Weren’t there more than enough scary things in real life to keep us awake at night? Now, though, I think I understand. Marge liked those films precisely because they weren’t real. Any fright she felt in the course of the film was quantifiable; it would begin, and then it would end, and she would leave the theater, emotionally spent yet relieved that all was well in the world.

Because it wasn’t enough to be accompanied by the beast who scared the crap out of every god in Heaven, Xuanzang was assigned a few more traveling companions. The gluttonous pig-man Zhu Baijie. Sha Wujing, the repentant sand demon. And the Dragon Prince of the West Sea, who took the form of a horse for Xuanzang to ride. The five adventurers, thusly gathered, set off on their— “Holy ballsacks!” I yelped. I dropped the book like I’d been bitten. “How far did you get?” Quentin said. He was leaning against the end of the nearest shelf, as casually as if he’d been there the whole time, waiting for this moment. I ignored that he’d snuck up on me again, just this once. There was a bigger issue at play. In the book was an illustration of the group done up in bold lines and bright colors. There was Sun Wukong at the front, dressed in a beggar’s cassock, holding his Ruyi Jingu Bang in one hand and the reins of the Dragon Horse in the other. A scary-looking pig-faced man and a wide-eyed demon monk followed, carrying the luggage. And perched on top of the horse was . . . me. The artist had tried to give Xuanzang delicate, beatific features and ended up with a rather girly face. By whatever coincidence, the drawing of Sun Wukong’s old master could have been a rough caricature of sixteen-year-old Eugenia Lo from Santa Firenza, California. “That’s who you think I am?” I said to Quentin. “That’s who I know you are,” he answered. “My dearest friend. My boon companion. You’ve reincarnated into such a different form, but I’d recognize you anywhere. Your spiritual energies are unmistakable.” “Are you sure? If you’re from a long time ago, maybe your memory’s a little fuzzy.” “The realms beyond Earth exist on a different time scale,” Quentin said. “Only one day among the gods passes for every human year. To me, you haven’t been gone long. Months, not centuries.” “This is just . . . I don’t know.” I took a moment to assemble my words. “You can’t walk up to me and expect me to believe right away that I’m the reincarnation of some legendary monk from a folk tale.” “Wait, what?” Quentin squinted at me in confusion. “I said you can’t expect me to go, ‘okay, I’m Xuanzang,’ just because you tell me so.” Quentin’s mouth opened slowly like the dawning of the sun. His face went from confusion to understanding to horror and then finally to laughter. “mmmmphhhhghAHAHAHAHA!” he roared. He nearly toppled over, trying to hold his sides in. “HAHAHAHA!” “What the hell is so funny?” “You,” Quentin said through his giggles. “You’re not Xuanzang. Xuanzang was meek and mild. A friend to all living things. You think that sounds like you?” It did not. But then again I wasn’t the one trying to make a case here. “Xuanzang was delicate like a chrysanthemum.” Quentin was getting a kick out of this. “You are so tough you snapped the battleaxe of the Mighty Miracle God like a twig. Xuanzang cried over squashing a mosquito. You, on the other hand, have killed more demons than the Catholic Church.” I was starting to get annoyed. “Okay, then who the hell am I supposed to be?” If he thought I was the pig, then this whole deal was off. “You’re my weapon,” he said. “You’re the Ruyi Jingu Bang.” I punched Quentin as hard as I could in the face.

Or is it the opposite-that the US has moved so far and so fast toward cultural permissiveness that we've reached a kind of apsidal point? It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imagine gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and Hot Wet Sluts are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief. Assume for a moment that it's not silly to see things this man's way. What cogent, compelling, relevant message can the center and left offer him? Can we bear to admit that we've actually helped set him up to hear "We 're better than they are" not as twisted and scary but as refreshing and redemptive and true? If so, then now what?

That night, I took a while falling asleep and when I did, I had a strange dream. She was sitting in my rocking chair and rocking herself, her dead eyes fixed on me. I lay on my bed, paralysed with fear, unable to move, unable to scream, my limbs refusing to move to my command. The room was suddenly freezing cold, the heater had probably stopped working in the night because the electricity supply had been cut and the inverter too had run out. At one point, I was uncertain whether I was dreaming or awake, or in that strange space between dreaming and wakefulness, where the soul wanders out of the body and explores other dimensions. What I knew was that I was chilled to the bones, chilled in a way that made it impossible for me to move myself, to lever myself to a sitting position in order to switch the bedside lamp on and check whether this was really happening. I could hear her in my head. Her voice was faint, feathery, and sibilant, as if she was whispering through a curtain of rain. Her words were indistinct, she called my name, she said words that pierced through my ears, words that meshed into ice slivers in my brain and when I thought finally that I would freeze to death an ice cold tiny body climbed into the quilt with me, putting frigidly chilly arms around me, and whispered, ‘Mother, I’m cold.’ Icicles shot up my spine, and I sat up, bolt upright in my bed, feeling the covers fall from me and a small indent in the mattress where something had been, a moment ago. There was a sudden click, the red light of the heater lit up, the bed and blanket warmer began radiating life-giving heat again and I felt myself thaw out, emerge from the scary limbo which marks one’s descent into another dimension, and the shadow faded out from the rocking chair right in front of me into complete transparency and the icy presence in the bed faded away to nothingness.

By this unhinged craziness - I sing praises to dead rabbits. Embodied by the craven of sin, their whispers exist in me. No dawn can avert me, just leave me here in this forbidding place. All I want is this noesis to leave me on this crest of soaring Alps. The bliss of this nameless nightmare will make me dwell on its snow-covered form. All I can discern are gateways leading into the deepest frozen infernos. None of them are willing to torment me - as I am already disturbed. Is this the stead where God has died? It seems to be fervently so. No Moon has ascended here - only a pallid eye-like sun was staring down at me. Only this bitter cold shows me a real horror - a dreadful worry that no monster has to reside in it. Vacancy has made the surrounding atmosphere eerily still. All there was, was a weak hum of a chirping bird whistling in the obscurity. Every Tree was massless - nameless - shapeless confined to hostile spaces that grew ahead. This aeonian, a limitless eternity of interminable suffering, has a beckon to endure fourth. Indignant cries erupt from my flaccid throat - sounding for a sob that someone can hear. All there was a deafening hush, with that ominous bird tweeting in the distance; so I believed. Within a moment, a rumbling of a devastating howl was booming and crashing directly in front of me. It was indeed not a wolf, for this was something far more malicious than any canine species. I could not perceive it with my naked eyes, for it was just another aspect of the void that can not be witnessed. Its presence did not want to be detected, it just desired for me to know its existence is here. Inconceivably, I was not able to go face-to-face with this utterly horrific thing that was invisible before me. O’ the great madness and fright was ravaging me, rendering me psychotic and deranged. Discordantly, this nemesis splendor was starting to manifest its fondness for my presence. Barren and bleak when it invoked its cryptic witchcraft, withering away my insecurities to be frightened. The bottomless pit was eager for me to be eternal, wanting to enthrone my image as the coming Lucifer. I was conceived to become the supreme embodiment of blasphemy for the emergence of hell itself. My inner consciousness was being Plunged by the menacing screaming, as my hearing was being bombarded by piercing sounds of a violin shrieking. The God-awful screech of these horribly shrill screams where just the roar of hysterical laughter. Chaos - O’ that glorious disarray - I was condemned to be impelled with an absurd compulsion for madness.