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    Spooky Stories: Tales of Fear, Terror, Apprehension, and Murder
    Spooky Stories: Tales of Fear, Terror, Apprehension, and Murder
    Spooky Stories: Tales of Fear, Terror, Apprehension, and Murder
    Ebook68 pages50 minutes

    Spooky Stories: Tales of Fear, Terror, Apprehension, and Murder

    By Jeffrey Lant

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    About this ebook

    This book came about after facing my own personal nightmare. My life changed from a happy joyous thing full of possibilities to that which was threatened, my end no longer just problematic, no longer possible, but probable; now flashing before my eyes, just the way the movies say.

    Such great consequences from such a trifling act... falling down. This fall and blow to the head had everything necessary for my personal demise, rendering me unconscious.

    When I awoke I could not move. I was trapped in the darkness.

    Now I began to know terror.

    I looked upon my own body, unable to move and I knew the deep despair of separation, life from death, hour after hour.

    Welcome to Spooky Stories.

    There are two kinds of terror... slapstick and intellectual. Slapstick terror is the kind where predictable ghosts, ghouls, witches, sorcerers, appear to do some hideous deed, which is manifest by mass chaos, confusion, mayhem, and panic.

    I am not frightened by this kind of terror, though I may be startled by it, which is not at all the same thing. Instead of this slapstick approach, and purists may cavil at my use of the term, I confess to being terrified by the only true terror that is terrible, and resides forever in your own mind. All the great writers of intellectual terror, starting with my esteemed colleague Edgar Allen Poe know that by seizing a man's mind, and glimpsing what horrifies him, he will thereafter control that being, in all his times and situations.

    Think for example of Winston Smith from the novel "1984" (1949) by George Orwell. His captors had discovered his deep and abiding fear of rats. And so, when they wanted to control him, which they did sometimes for the sheer joy of it, they had but to show him pictures of writhing ratdom, and he was rendered paralyzed by his own personal fears. That is what a true terror writer aims for. For each of us may be controlled by a thing, a thing which the next person in life's queue may find harmless, innocuous, even pleasant.

    This is the great secret of terror. Terror must take the thing you most love and turn it into a missile of destruction and hate... a deep, abiding fear and devilry. To each man, his own terror and God help us.

    I have long had an interest in stories of apprehension, terror, confusion, puzzlement, and I have watched as the great writers use their talents to transform a little thing into the greatest of menaces... as I do in these spooky tales.

    There are five stories in this book, each of which explores an element of the fragile human condition in which anything may be turned into a missile of destruction, lamentation, and grief.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJeffrey Lant
    Release dateSep 24, 2016
    ISBN9781536558982
    Spooky Stories: Tales of Fear, Terror, Apprehension, and Murder
    Author

    Jeffrey Lant

    Dr. Jeffrey Lant is known worldwide. He started in the media business when he was 5 years old, a Kindergartner in Downers Grove, Illinois, publishing his first newspaper article. Since then Dr. Lant has earned four university degrees, including the PhD from Harvard. He has taught at over 40 colleges and universities and is quite possibly the first to offer satellite courses. He has written over 50 books, thousands of articles and been a welcome guest on hundreds of radio and television programs. He has founded several successful corporations and businesses including his latest at …writerssecrets.com His memoirs “A Connoisseur’s Journey” has garnered nine literary prizes that ensure its classic status. Its subtitle is “Being the artful memoirs of a man of wit, discernment, pluck, and joy.” A good read by this man of so many letters. Such a man can offer you thousands of insights into the business of becoming a successful writer. Be sure to sign up now at www.writerssecrets.co

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      Book preview

      Spooky Stories - Jeffrey Lant

      INTRODUCTION https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEBq-gsdI58

      I've been waiting for you...

      C:\Users\Pat\Downloads\Introduction(2).jpg

      Special reading by Dr. Jeffrey Lant at: https://youtu.be/5FNt7HIXO1w

      Author's program note: I knew at once that I had a problem... a terrible problem. A moment ago, life, moving in its usual rhythms, was a happy joyous thing full of possibilities. But now, just a moment later, it was threatened, my end no longer just problematic, no longer possible, but probable; now flashing before my eyes, just the way the movies say.

      I can remember a terrible pain, then the thought that I was indeed in trouble. Just then, I passed out.

      This was the beginning of my own personal nightmare. Such great consequences from such a trifling act... falling down. Just falling down. However the fall had everything necessary for my personal conclusion. My head grazed the granite corner of an old chest, which once graced a chateau in Switzerland. That corner was shaped like an arrowhead, and had it gone only an eighth of an inch either way, I would not be here to tell you this tale.

      The arrowhead made a quick glancing blow, as I fell with unimaginable speed, my head hitting the wall... the wall that took so much effort to color properly until I found a hue called Card Room Green, which the Queen used in Buckingham Palace and had to come especially from England. Pop!

      Then, the descent gathering speed concluded by slapping my cheek against the hard wooden floors... beautiful, highly polished oak, now an instrument in my torment. Then, I was able to look up for just a moment. 8 P.M. The room was dark... no sound, except perhaps a groan from me, and the stark realization that this could be the end.

      I am not sure now how long I stayed unconscious just then, but I knew I needed to get up, find the door, stand, and move on... call for assistance. But I could do none of these things, and I knew the first whiff of despair and the terrible feeling that my bedroom, so warm, comfortable, and exquisite, its walls covered in Old Masters and the beauty of the ages... that it could be here... here... what I would use as my launching pad into eternity. And I was indeed in despair... and blacked out again.

      I woke up to a terrible pain in my legs, and when I tried to get up and walk, I could not walk. Now I was frightened indeed, for I was trapped in a dark room, whose dark hues floated like so many inky clouds, for black is not a color, it is a swirling mass of dark possibilities. And there I was, prostrate on the floor, surrounded by the deep intensities of unremitting darkness, unable to get up, unable to move, unable to walk.

      Now I began to know terror. I tried to pull myself along the floor in search of a door, a window, anything which would enable me to get a new perspective. However the bed was too high... and the window too far... and the door... yes the door, was gone! I remember thinking: what would Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849) do in this situation? But Poe never tells, for he is the master of the terror tale that has no discernible ending. It is what has made his stories so powerful. We want to know... we want him to tell us... but he is our mute unrevealing master.

      Then as God is my witness, I began to write a story called The Door, in which a man like me, having had a fall like I did, searches aimlessly for the bedroom door he entered just hours before. He knew this door. He had been through this door a thousand times, but now, he could not find it in the darkness, and concern waxed into panic.

      Where was the door? Why couldn't he find it? Why couldn't he find something he was so familiar with? But there was nothing but wall. No familiar element, just the smoothness of the wall and the remembrance of a door once prominent, now no longer there. And now there was despair.

      I looked upon my own body,

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