1. Back in the way back (1963-4) my dad gave me an anthology of one page horror stories that were so well written, I still, these many years later, will not eat a can of food sans wrapper--even if it's from my own pantry. There were also two stories about babies--one read as a prisoner escaping his cell, turning the bars, pretending to sleep when the guards came by, only to find its a toddler in his playpen.
2. This book or digest actually had short stories in comic-book form but they weren't comics per se. Two of the stories I do remember went like this and apparently these stories were based on some type of true events.
The first story involved a guy who was caught in a terrible storm. He found refuge in a dilapidated castle. It was there that he met a lady who stated that this was her home. He extended his stay and they fell in love. Her only condition was that he may never see her either in the daylight or in any sort of light (don't remember which). They had two kids together. One day, he broke that promise and saw her for what she was. Some sort of monster (kind of a cross between a wolf or bear) that walked upright. Needless to say, she banished him due to his mistake and his kids also were these creatures.
The other story involves a guy who basically wants to get rid of his wife (for whatever reason). So he takes her into the woods. Of course, he gets out of there and abandons her leaving her to the wolves who do kill her. After a period of time, the guy is looking out into the woods from his balcony when he sees the ghost of his wife floating toward him. Not believing what he sees, he leaves his house to follow said ghost. She continues to float about 15-20 feet off the ground and leads him into the woods. The last scene is of him getting attacked by wolves (probably the same ones that attacked her). In other words, she got her revenge by getting him ambushed.
3.
5. A detective is investigating the murder rape of a young girl. He arrests a man (a dwarf) who confesses
that he had done that in a ritual to obtain wings.
The detective has no other proofs, so, in
order to punish the rapist he torn out of his back the budding wings already
growing there. Found! It's "A Fly One" by Steve Sneyd, found in both Whispers III and Year's Best Horror VIII.
6. Late 1990s or early 2000s. Set in the forests of the northern U.S., or maybe Canada. Plot ultimately centered on a werewolf, and I think it featured a woman heroine.
Story begins when a man of American Indian heritage,
living in a cabin in the woods alone, wakes up one morning in early
autumn to find that a spider has spun a web across his porch. The man’s
Indian heritage leads him to take this event as a sign of an early and
harsh winter, and also as a possible omen of something much more
dreadful. The man’s misgivings are then amplified into a sense of
impending doom by a second incident on the same day: While walking in
the woods, he is attacked by a savage, angry rabbit. This latter
incident convinces the man that he is going to die that winter, and he
does in fact die in the course of the book. I remember that these
opening pages set a magnificent sense of dark impending fate in the
midst of the bright colors of a beautiful autumn morning.
7.
7. is definitely the DEVIL'S KISS series by William Johnstone. Found those at a beach house as a kid, and haven't been entirely right since.
ReplyDelete^God! I love Johnstone!
ReplyDeleteSo number 3 is Robert W. Walker. He's been quite prolific over the years, but the particular books mentioned were published by Pinnacle in the mid to late 80s. Titles like Dying Breath, Dean Man's Float, Razor's Edge. He can be found on Goodreads.com
ReplyDeleteThanks for the quick responses!
ReplyDeleteI believe #5 is A Fly One by Steve Sneyd from Years Best Horror Stories VIII.
ReplyDeleteI don't know #2 but the first story seems to be an adaption/variant of The Woman In The Snow from Kwaidan. Another variation turned up as Lover's Vow in Tales From The Darkside: The Movie.
ReplyDeleteThanks, drunkathomedad! I found "A Fly One" in my copy of WHISPERS III and just read it--correct. And yes, #2 I recalled from KWAIDAN, as well as from TALES, but otherwise I'm not sure about the comic-book format.
ReplyDelete#4 is "The Bells Will Sound Forever," by--you guessed it--Thomas Ligotti.
ReplyDelete"His body remained unmoving upon the floor in a state of sleepy paralysis, and yet he heard the sound of the jangling bells. Crumm thought that if he could just open his eyes and roll over on the floor he could see what was making the sound of the bells. But soon he lost all confidence in this plan of action, because he could no longer feel his own body. The sound of the bells became even louder, jangling about his ears, even though he was incapable of making his head move in any way and thus shake the bells on his two-pronged fool's cap. Then he heard a voice say to him, 'Open your eyes... and see your surprise.' And when he opened his eyes he finally saw his face in the wardrobe mirror: it was a tiny face on a tiny fool's head... and the head was at the end of a stick, a kind of baton with stripes on it like a candy cane, held in the wooden hand of Mrs. Pyk. She was shaking the striped stick like a baby's rattle, making the bells on Crumm's tiny head go jingle-jangle so wildly. There in the mirror he could also see his body still lying helpless and immobile upon the attic floor. And in his mind was a single consuming thought: to be a head on a stick held in the wooden hand of Mrs. Pyk. Forever... forever."
The Ligotti story (#4), can also be found in his 2007 collection TEATRO GROTTESCO, only under the title, "In A Foreign Town, In A Foreign Land," and in slightly different form, I believe.
ReplyDelete#2 sounds an awful lot like something from Mystery Comics Digest, which reprinted various comics stories from Gold Key/Western Comics titles that included Ripley's Believe It or Not and Boris Karloff. These stories often claimed to be based on true events, which is what makes me think this is probably the source. There's no source of story synopses on-line that I've found, but there are cover galleries and story credits in places like the following -- http://www.comicvine.com/mystery-comics-digest/4050-2589/
ReplyDelete