THE "Red Death" had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal -- the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.
But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the "Red Death."
What are some of your favorite Halloween/horror stories?
Source: The Literature Network
My favorite horror story is probably Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft. I really love found-footage horror movies, and this is kind of the literary equivalent of that, since it's all done in diary articles. That's also why I really love Dracula, since it's done in a mixture of journals, news articles, and I think a shipping manifest at one point.
ReplyDeleteMy other would have to be The Stand by Stephen King. It isn't horror in the traditional sense, but it's Stephen King. This horrible disease sweeps the earth, killing (I think) 99.97% of the population. The rest survive completely unaffected for no obvious reason. They end up congregating in two places, Boulder, CO and Las Vegas and it's just a really nice mixture of natural disaster and supernatural.
I don't actually read a lot of horror, other than the classics (like Poe, Frankenstein, Dracula, etc.), and as for "Halloween" stories, the only one I can think of off the top of my head is "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Out of Poe's works, my favorite is "The Gold-Bug" because it's got many of the same elements as an adventure story.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I occaisonally read and/or watch updates of the classic stories, like the new Sleepy Hollow tv show, which I happen to enjoy.