HOME | DD

Description
Miss Celia Blassenville - (PIGEONS FROM HELL by Robert E. Howard), a sadistic and racist member of the wealthy Blassenville family in the Deep South who was abusive toward her mulatto maid and became a "zuvembie" (female zombie with magical abilities) after dabbling with voodooism.

PLOT:
Two New Englanders, John Branner and his friend Griswell, travel in the South and spend the night in a deserted plantation manor. Griswell awakens from a dream of a yellow-faced creature looking at him. He sees Branner walk up the stairs in a trance. He is horrified when Branner returns as an animated corpse gripping the bloody axe that had split his skull. Griswell flees into the woods.

In his flight, he meets the county's sheriff, Buckner, who investigates the house and finds Branner motionless on the floor. Griswell is implicated in his friend's murder, but the sheriff gives him the benefit of the doubt and tries to clear him. Buckner gives some credence to Griswell's bizarre tale due to the manor's ominous reputation. It was the Blassenville's residence, family from the West Indies who were known for their cruelty.

After the American Civil War, the Blassenvilles fell into poverty, with all their menfolk dead and only four sisters remaining, shortly to be joined by their aunt Celia from the West Indies and her mulatto maid Joan. Celia mistreated Joan, and when the latter disappeared, it was thought she had run away. Soon after, Celia vanished as well, and it was thought that she had returned to the West Indies. Over the next months, three of the Blassenville sisters also vanished one by one. One night in 1890, the last of the Blassenvilles, Elizabeth, fled the house, claiming she had found her sisters' corpses in a secret room and that she had been attacked by the shape of a woman with a yellow face. She left for California and never returned. The manor has lain deserted since, and the local black folk shun it. The eponymous pigeons sometimes flock about the decaying manor. Legend has it that they are the Blassenvilles' souls.

The following evening, Buckner and Griswell visit the hut of an ancient voodoo man, Jacob, seeking information about the house and the Blassenvilles. Jacob tells of the extinct family and of Celia Blassenville, who mistreated her mulatto maid Joan. He claims to be a maker of "zuvembies", but he insists he cannot talk about them to a white man without Damballah sending a snake with a white crescent moon on its head to kill him. But he drifts into senility and rambles about voodoo, the god Damballah, and about zombies and their female counterparts, zuvembies, who live only to kill and have no sense of time, possess hypnotic powers, and who can live indefinitely unless wounded by "steel or lead". Finally, he tells how "she" participated in voodoo rites and that "the other" came to Jacob for the "Black Brew" that makes a woman a zuvembie. Reaching for firewood, Jacob is bitten by a venomous snake, meeting the fate he feared. Buckner and Griswell conclude that Joan transformed herself into a zuvembie to exact vengeance on Celia Blassenville and her nieces. They resolve to spend the night in Blassenville Manor to learn the truth. There they find Elizabeth Blassenville's diary, which tells of her fear that something is in the house with her, has killed her sisters, and will kill her too.

That night, while lying awake in the darkness, Griswell hears the same whistling as the previous night, which Elizabeth's diary had also mentioned. Thinking he is fleeing the house, he finds himself climbing the manor stairs against his will. He is confronted by a female apparition with a yellow face and a knife. Griswell is powerless to resist, but Bruckner, who has followed him up the stairs, shoots the creature, which flees, mortally wounded. They track its dying noises to the secret room where they find the hanging bodies of the three missing Blassenville sisters as well as the corpse of the zuvembie, which is still dressed in a ball gown.

Bruckner recognises the face of the zuvembie from a portrait he has seen. It is Celia Blassenville. The maid Joan, in revenge, gave the Black Brew she got from Jacob to her mistress and fled. Celia Blassenville, transformed into a zuvembie, killed three of her nieces and had been living in the abandoned manor, killing anyone who entered it at night.

Bruckner says that the case can be closed by saying that a madwoman had killed Griswell's friend John Branner, since nobody will believe the truth of the matter.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Ghost of Peter Quint - (THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Henry James), the ghost of the former valet at Bly who sexual abused and harassed the previous governess, Miss Jessel and his specter now haunts the mansion.

PLOT:
On Christmas Eve, an unnamed narrator and some of their friends are gathered around a fire. One of them, Douglas, reads a manuscript written by his sister's late governess. The manuscript tells the story of her hiring by a man who has become responsible for his young niece and nephew following the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London but also has a country house in Bly, Essex. The boy, Miles, is attending a boarding school, while his younger sister, Flora, is living in Bly, where she is cared for by Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper. Flora's uncle, the governess's new employer, is uninterested in raising the children and gives her full charge, explicitly stating that she is not to bother him with communications of any sort. The governess travels to Bly and begins her duties.

Miles returns from school for the summer just after a letter arrives from the headmaster, stating that he has been expelled. Miles never speaks of the matter, and the governess is hesitant to raise the issue. She fears there is some horrible secret behind the expulsion, but is too charmed by the boy to want to press the issue. Soon after, around the grounds of the estate, the governess begins to see the figures of a man and woman whom she does not recognize. The figures come and go at will without being seen or challenged by other members of the household, and they seem to the governess to be supernatural. She learns from Mrs. Grose that the governess's predecessor, Miss Jessel, and another employee, Peter Quint, had had a close relationship. Before their deaths, Jessel and Quint spent much of their time with Flora and Miles, and the governess becomes convinced that the two children are aware of the ghosts' presence.

Without permission, Flora leaves the house while Miles is playing music for the governess. The governess notices Flora's absence and goes with Mrs. Grose in search of her. They find her on the shore of a nearby lake, and the governess is convinced that Flora has been talking to the ghost of Miss Jessel. When the governess finally confronts Flora, the girl denies seeing Miss Jessel, and asks not to see the new governess again. Mrs. Grose takes Flora away to her uncle, leaving the governess with Miles, who that night at last talks to her about his expulsion. The ghost of Quint appears to the governess at the window. The governess shields Miles, who attempts to see the ghost. The governess tells Miles he is no longer controlled by the ghost, and then finds that Miles has died in her arms.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Whistle Ghost - ('OH, WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD' by M.R. James), a terrifying spirit who haunts Parkins in Burnstow after he blows a mysterious whistle.

PLOT:
Discovery
Parkins, the protagonist, is a young "Professor of Ontography" at Cambridge University, who when the story opens is about to embark on a golfing holiday at the town of Burnstow (a fictionalized version of Felixstowe, Suffolk), on the east coast of England. He has secured a room at The Globe Inn for the duration of his stay, though he is somewhat uncomfortable that the room will contain a second bed. At dinner in his College, an archaeological colleague asks him to investigate the grounds of a ruined Templar preceptory near the Globe, with a view to its suitability for a dig.

On his first day at Burnstow, after a round of Golf with Colonel Wilson, another guest at the Globe, Parkins proceeds to find and examine the site of the preceptory. He happens upon a hole in the masonry, in which he finds an ancient bronze whistle. As he returns to the inn along the desolate beach, he notes that "the shape of a rather indistinct personage" in the distance appears to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but to no avail.

Inspection and calling

After an evening meal at the inn, Parkins inspects the whistle while alone in his room. First clearing the hard-packed soil from the item onto a sheet of paper, he then empties the soil out of the window, observing what he believes to be a sole individual "stationed on the shore, facing the inn". Parkins then holds the whistle close to a candle, discovering two inscriptions on the item. On one side appears "FUR FLA FLE BIS", of which Parkins is unable to make anything. The inscription on the other side reads "QUIS EST ISTE QUI UENIT", a Latin phrase which Parkins translates as "Who is this who is coming?" Upon blowing the whistle, Parkins notices sudden surge of wind outside his window, and has a vision of a "wide, dark expanse at night with a fresh wind blowing", in the middle of which he sees a solitary figure.

First night
Unable to sleep that night, Parkins experiences visions of a man desperately running and clambering over high groynes, while anxiously looking back. After the man collapses to the ground in exhaustion, Parkins sees the cause of his flight, "a figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined", moving in a strange manner and with incredible speed. Realising he is unable to dispel the visions, Parkins decides to read through the night, although when he attempts to light a match, he hears the sound of scurrying on his floor in the direction away from his bed, which he believes may be the sound of rats fleeing. Parkins then reads himself to a sound sleep, with the candle beside his bed still burning when he is woken the following morning.

Second day
As he prepares to leave the inn, Parkins is informed by a maid that both beds in his room appeared to have been slept in. The maid had already made both beds, explaining the sheets on the bed he had not slept in were "crumpled and thrown about all ways". Parkins supposes he must have disturbed the sheets while unpacking. He then leaves the inn to play golf with an acquaintance, Colonel Wilson, whom he tells about the whistle. The Colonel, who has "pronouncedly protestant views", says that he would "be careful about using a thing that had belonged to a set of Papists".

Returning to the inn, Parkins and Wilson encounter a terrified boy running from it, who explains he has just seen a strange, white figure waving at him from the window of one of the rooms. Parkins realises from the boy's description that the room must be his own. Investigating, they find the room still locked, but find that the sheets on the unused bed are twisted and contorted.

Second night
That night, Parkins is woken from sleep by the collapse of an improvised partition that he had constructed to block the moonlight. He sees a figure sitting on the unused bed, which causes him to jump from his own bed in the direction of the window, to retrieve his cane. As he does so, the "personage in the empty bed" moves into a position in front of the door, with arms outspread. This apparition remains stationary in the shadows for several moments as Parkins's fear escalates. It then gropes blindly about the room in a stooping posture, darting towards Parkins's bed, and feeling about the pillow and sheets for his body. Realising he is no longer in the bed, the apparition moves into the moonlit part of the room; Parkins's impression is of "a horrible, an intensely horrible, face of crumpled linen".

Parkins lets out a cry of disgust, revealing his general location by the window. The figure moves rapidly at him, and he is backed half-way through the window, screaming, as its face is "thrust close into his own". Arriving just in time, Colonel Wilson kicks the door to his room open; before he reaches the window, the apparition tumbles to the floor, a heap of bed-clothes, while Parkins collapses in a faint. The following day, the Colonel removes the whistle and throws it into the sea.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harold the Scarecrow - (SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK by Alvin Schwartz), an unnerving-looking life-size doll created by two farmers after an infamous farmer they both despised and was used as a punching bag for them before obtaining a life of his own.

PLOT:
When it got hot in the valley, Thomas and Alfred drove their cows up to a cool, green pasture in the mountains to graze. Usually they stayed there with the cows for two months. Then they brought them down to the valley again. The work was easy enough, but, oh, it was boring. All day the two men tended their cows. At night they went back to the tiny hut where they lived. They ate supper and worked in the garden and went to sleep. It was always the same.

Then Thomas had an idea that changed everything. "Let's make a doll the size of a man." he said. "It would be fun to make, and we could put it in the garden to scare the birds."

"It should look like Harold," Alfred said. Harold was a farmer they both hated. They made a doll out of old sacks stuffed with straw. They gave it a pointy nose like Harold's and tiny eyes like his. Then they added dark hair and a twisted frown. Of course they also gave it Harold's name.

Each morning on their way to the pasture, they tied Harold to a pole in the garden to scare away the birds. Each night they brought him inside so that he wouldn't get ruined if it rained.

When they were feeling playful, they would talk to him. One of them might say, "How are the vegetables growing today, Harold?" Then the other, making believe he was Harold, would answer in a crazy voice, "Very slowly." They both would laugh, but not Harold.

Whenever something went wrong, they took it out on Harold. They would curse at him, even kick or punch him. Sometimes one of them would take the food they were eating (which they both were sick of) and smear it on the doll's face. "How do you like that stew, Harold?" he would ask. "Well, you better eat it - or else." Then the two men would howl with laughter.

One night, after Thomas had wiped Harold's face with food, Harold grunted. "Did you hear that?" Alfred asked.

"It was Harold," Thomas said. "I was watching him when it happened. I can't believe it."

"How could he grunt?" Alfred asked, "He's just a sack of straw. It's not possible."

"Let's throw him in the fire," Thomas said, "and that will be that."

"Let's not do anything stupid," said Alfred. "We don't know what's going on. When we move the cows down, we'll leave him behind. For now, let's just keep an eye on him."

So they left Harold sitting in the corner of the hut. They didn't talk to him or take him outside anymore. Now and then the doll grunted, but that was all. After a few days, they decided there was nothing to be afraid of. Maybe a mouse or some insects had gotten inside Harold and were making those sounds.

So Thomas and Alfred went back to their old ways. Each morning they put Harold out in the garden, and each night they brought him back into the hut. When they felt playful, they joked with him. When they felt mean, they treated him as badly as ever.

Then one night Alfred noticed something that frightened him. "Harold is growing," he said.

"I was thinking the same thing." Thomas said.

"Maybe it's just our imagination," Alfred replied. "We have been up here on this mountain for too long."

The next morning, while they were eating, Harold stood up and walked out of the hut. He climbed up on the roof and trotted back and forth, like a horse on its hind legs. All day and all night, he trotted like that. In the morning Harold climbed down and stood in a far corner of the pasture. The men had no idea what he would do next. They were afraid.

They decided to take the cows down into the valley that same day. When they left, Harold was nowhere in sight. They felt as if they had escaped a great danger and began joking and singing. But when they had gone only a mile or two, they realized they had forgotten to bring the milking stools.

Neither one wanted to go back for them, but the stools would cost a lot to replace. "There really is nothing to be afraid of," they told one another. "After all, what could a doll do?"

They drew straws to see which one would go back. It was Thomas. "I'll catch up with you." he said, and Alfred walked toward the valley.

When Alfred came to a rise in the path, he looked back for Thomas. He did not see him anywhere. But he did see Harold. The doll was on the roof of the hut again. As Alfred watched, Harold kneeled and stretched out a bloody skin to dry in the sun.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lestat de Lioncourt - (INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE by Anna Rice), an elegant, charismatic and sadistic vampire aristocrat.

PLOT:
A vampire named Louis de Pointe du Lac tells his 200-year-long life story to a reporter referred to simply as "the boy".

In 1791, Louis is a young indigo plantation owner living in Louisiana. Distraught by the death of his brother, he seeks death in any way possible. Louis is approached by a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt, who desires Louis' company. Lestat turns Louis into a vampire and the two become immortal companions. Lestat spends time feeding off slaves while Louis, who finds it morally repugnant to murder humans to survive, feeds from animals. Louis and Lestat are forced to leave when Louis' slaves begin to fear the vampires and instigate an uprising.

Louis sets his own plantation aflame; he and Lestat kill the slaves to keep word from spreading about vampires living in Louisiana. Gradually, Louis bends under Lestat's influence and begins feeding from humans. He slowly comes to terms with his vampire nature, but also becomes increasingly repulsed by what he perceives as Lestat's total lack of compassion for the humans he preys upon.

Escaping to New Orleans, Louis feeds off a plague-ridden, five-year-old girl, whom he finds next to the corpse of her mother. Louis begins to think of leaving Lestat and going his own way. Fearing this, Lestat then turns the girl into a vampire "daughter" for them, to give Louis a reason to stay. She is then given the name Claudia.

Louis is initially horrified that Lestat has turned a child into a vampire, but soon begins to care for Claudia. Claudia takes to killing easily, but she begins to realize over time she can never grow up; her mind matures into that of an intelligent, assertive woman, but her body remains that of a young girl.

Claudia blames Lestat for her state and, after 60 years of living with him, hatches a plot to kill Lestat by poisoning him and cutting his throat. Claudia and Louis then dump his body into a nearby swamp. As Louis and Claudia prepare to flee to Europe, Lestat appears, having recovered from Claudia's attack, and attacks them in turn. Louis sets fire to their home and barely escapes with Claudia, leaving a furious Lestat to be consumed by the flames.

Arriving in Europe, Louis and Claudia seek out more of their kind. They travel throughout eastern Europe first and do indeed encounter vampires, but these vampires appear to be nothing more than mindless, animated corpses. It is only when they reach Paris that they encounter vampires like themselves, meeting the 400-year-old vampire Armand and his coven at the Théâtre des Vampires.

Inhabiting an ancient theater, Armand and his vampire coven disguise themselves as humans and feed on terrified humans in mock plays before a live audience (who think the killings are merely a very realistic performance). Claudia is repulsed by these vampires and what she considers to be their cheap theatrics, but Louis and Armand are drawn to each other.

Convinced that Louis will leave her for Armand, Claudia convinces Louis to turn a Parisian doll maker, Madeleine, into a vampire to serve as a replacement companion for her. Louis, Madeleine, and Claudia live together for a brief time, but all three are abducted one night by Armand's coven.

Lestat arrives, having survived the fire in New Orleans. His accusations against Louis and Claudia result in Louis being locked in a coffin to starve, while Claudia and Madeleine are locked in an open courtyard. Armand arrives and releases Louis from the coffin, but Madeleine and Claudia are burned to death by the rising sun; a devastated Louis finds their ashen remains.

Louis returns to the Theatre late the following night, burning it to the ground and killing all the vampires inside, leaving with Armand. Together, the two travel across Europe for several years, but Louis never fully recovers from Claudia's death, and the emotional connection between himself and Armand quickly dissolves.

Tired of the Old World, Louis returns to New Orleans in the early 20th century. Living as a loner, he feeds off any humans who cross his path, but lives in the shadows, never creating another companion for himself.

Telling the boy of one last encounter with Lestat in New Orleans in the 1920s, Louis ends his tale; after 200 years, he is weary of immortality and of all the pain and suffering to which he has had to bear witness.

The boy, however, seeing only the great powers granted to a vampire, begs to be made into a vampire himself. Angry that his interviewer learned nothing from his story, Louis refuses, attacking the boy and vanishing without a trace. The boy then leaves to track down Lestat in the hopes that he can give him immortality.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde - (THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson), a reserved and mild-mannered scientist who invents a serum which transforms him into Edward Hyde, his psychotic and murderous alter ego and a physical manifestation of his dark side.

PLOT:
Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago, he saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde trample a young girl after accidentally bumping into her. Enfield forced Hyde to pay her family £100 to avoid a scandal. Hyde brought Enfield to this door and gave him a cheque signed by a reputable gentleman later revealed to be Doctor Henry Jekyll, Utterson's friend and client. Utterson fears Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll, as Jekyll recently changed his will to make Hyde the sole beneficiary. When Utterson tries to discuss Hyde with Jekyll, Jekyll tells Utterson he can get rid of Hyde when he wants and asks him to drop the matter.

One night in October, a servant sees Hyde beat Sir Danvers Carew, another one of Utterson's clients, to death and leave behind half a broken cane. The police contact Utterson, who leads officers to Hyde's apartment. Hyde has vanished, but they find the other half of the broken cane. Utterson recognizes the cane as one he had given to Jekyll. Utterson visits Jekyll, who shows Utterson a note, allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for the trouble that he has caused. However, Hyde's handwriting is similar to Jekyll's own, leading Utterson to conclude that Jekyll forged the note to protect Hyde.

For two months, Jekyll reverts to his former sociable manner but, in early January, he starts refusing visitors. Dr. Hastie Lanyon, a mutual friend of Jekyll and Utterson, dies of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter to be opened after Jekyll's death or disappearance. In late February, during another walk with Enfield, Utterson starts a conversation with Jekyll at his laboratory window. Jekyll suddenly slams the window shut and disappears, shocking and concerning Utterson.

In early March, Jekyll's butler, Mr. Poole, visits Utterson and says Jekyll has secluded himself in his laboratory for weeks. Utterson and Poole break into the laboratory, where they find Hyde's body wearing Jekyll's clothes, apparently having killed himself. They find a letter from Jekyll to Utterson. Utterson reads Lanyon's letter, then Jekyll's. Lanyon's letter reveals his deterioration resulted from the shock of seeing Hyde drink a serum that turned him into Jekyll. Jekyll's letter explains he had indulged in unstated vices and feared discovery. He found a way to transform himself and thereby indulge his vices without fear of detection. Jekyll's transformed body, Hyde, was evil, self-indulgent, and uncaring to anyone but himself. Initially, Jekyll controlled the transformations with the serum, but one night in August, he became Hyde involuntarily in his sleep.

Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. Despite this, one night he had a moment of weakness and drank the serum. Hyde, his desires having been caged for so long, killed Carew. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations. Then, in early January, he transformed involuntarily while awake. Far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde needed help to avoid capture. He wrote to Lanyon in Jekyll's hand, asking his friend to bring chemicals from his laboratory. In Lanyon's presence, Hyde mixed the chemicals, drank the serum, and transformed into Jekyll. The shock of the sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and death. Meanwhile, Jekyll's involuntary transformations increased in frequency and required ever larger doses of the serum to reverse. It was one of these transformations that caused Jekyll to slam his window shut on Enfield and Utterson.

Eventually, one of the chemicals used in the serum ran low, and subsequent batches prepared from new stocks failed to work. Jekyll speculated that one of the original ingredients must have had some unknown impurity that made it work. Realizing that he would stay transformed as Hyde, Jekyll wrote out a full account of the events and locked himself in his laboratory with the intent to keep Hyde imprisoned and, as Poole and Utterson smashed down the door to the laboratory, committed suicide by poison.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Morlock - (THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells), a member of a race of troglodyte-like, subterranean and technologically-advanced humanoid species evolved from low-class humans who worked underground and dominating an era in the far future where humanity is long gone.

PLOT:
The book's protagonist is a Victorian English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. Similarly, with but one exception (a man named Filby), none of the dinner guests present are ever identified by name, but rather by profession (for example, "the Psychologist") or physical description (for example, "the Very Young Man").

The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension and demonstrates a tabletop model machine for travelling through the fourth dimension. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person through time, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator.

In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device. At first he thinks nothing has happened but soon finds out he went five hours into the future. He continues forward and sees his house disappear and turn into a lush garden. The Time Traveller stops in A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, and adhere to a fruit-based diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline. They appear happy and carefree but fear the dark, and particularly moonless nights. Observing them, he finds that they give no response to mysterious nocturnal disappearances, possibly because the thought of it alone frightens them into silence. After exploring the area around the Eloi's residences, the Time Traveller reaches the top of a hill overlooking London. He concludes that the entire planet has become a garden, with little trace of human society or engineering from the hundreds of thousands of years prior, and that communism has at last been achieved.

Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller is shocked to find his time machine missing and eventually concludes that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Luckily, he had removed the machine's levers before leaving it (the time machine being unable to travel through time without them). Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Exploring one of many "wells" that lead to the Morlocks' dwellings, he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise of the Eloi possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the favoured aristocracy has become the intellectually degraded Eloi, and their mechanical servants have become the brutal light-fearing Morlocks.

Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that due to a lack of any other means of sustenance, they feed on the Eloi. The Time Traveller theorizes that intelligence is the result of and response to danger; with no real challenges facing the Eloi, they have lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of humanity at its peak.

Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure dubbed "The Palace of Green Porcelain", which turns out to be a derelict museum. Here, the Time Traveller finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he must fight to get his machine back. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest for the night. They are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, whereby Weena faints. The Traveller escapes when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks turns into a forest fire; Weena and the pursuing Morlocks are lost in the fire and the Time Traveller is devastated over his loss.

The Morlocks open the Sphinx and use the time machine as bait to capture the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He reattaches the levers before he travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth: Menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches chasing enormous butterflies, in a world covered in simple lichenous vegetation. He continues to make jumps forward through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.

Overwhelmed, he goes back to the machine and returns to his own time, arriving at the laboratory just three hours after he originally left. He arrives late to his own dinner party, whereupon, after eating, the Time Traveller relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange white flowers Weena had put in his pocket.

The original narrator then takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him preparing for another journey and promising to return in a short time. However, the narrator reveals that he has waited three years before writing and stating the Time Traveller has not returned from his journey.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lycaon - (METAMORPHOSES by Ovid), the legendary king of Arcadia who was transformed into a wolf by Zeus for attempting to trick him into consuming human meat in an effort to test his omniscience.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lucifer - (DIVINE COMEDY by Dante Alighieri), also known as "Satan", a powerful and unholy fallen angel, the ancient ruler of the Nine Circles of Hell and the king of all demons who was frozen on ice in the very center of Hell.

PLOT:
Inferno: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_…
Purgatorio: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgator…
Paradiso: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradiso…

Description
Miss Celia Blassenville - (PIGEONS FROM HELL by Robert E. Howard), a sadistic and racist member of the wealthy Blassenville family in the Deep South who was abusive toward her mulatto maid and became a "zuvembie" (female zombie with magical abilities) after dabbling with voodooism.

PLOT:
Two New Englanders, John Branner and his friend Griswell, travel in the South and spend the night in a deserted plantation manor. Griswell awakens from a dream of a yellow-faced creature looking at him. He sees Branner walk up the stairs in a trance. He is horrified when Branner returns as an animated corpse gripping the bloody axe that had split his skull. Griswell flees into the woods.

In his flight, he meets the county's sheriff, Buckner, who investigates the house and finds Branner motionless on the floor. Griswell is implicated in his friend's murder, but the sheriff gives him the benefit of the doubt and tries to clear him. Buckner gives some credence to Griswell's bizarre tale due to the manor's ominous reputation. It was the Blassenville's residence, family from the West Indies who were known for their cruelty.

After the American Civil War, the Blassenvilles fell into poverty, with all their menfolk dead and only four sisters remaining, shortly to be joined by their aunt Celia from the West Indies and her mulatto maid Joan. Celia mistreated Joan, and when the latter disappeared, it was thought she had run away. Soon after, Celia vanished as well, and it was thought that she had returned to the West Indies. Over the next months, three of the Blassenville sisters also vanished one by one. One night in 1890, the last of the Blassenvilles, Elizabeth, fled the house, claiming she had found her sisters' corpses in a secret room and that she had been attacked by the shape of a woman with a yellow face. She left for California and never returned. The manor has lain deserted since, and the local black folk shun it. The eponymous pigeons sometimes flock about the decaying manor. Legend has it that they are the Blassenvilles' souls.

The following evening, Buckner and Griswell visit the hut of an ancient voodoo man, Jacob, seeking information about the house and the Blassenvilles. Jacob tells of the extinct family and of Celia Blassenville, who mistreated her mulatto maid Joan. He claims to be a maker of "zuvembies", but he insists he cannot talk about them to a white man without Damballah sending a snake with a white crescent moon on its head to kill him. But he drifts into senility and rambles about voodoo, the god Damballah, and about zombies and their female counterparts, zuvembies, who live only to kill and have no sense of time, possess hypnotic powers, and who can live indefinitely unless wounded by "steel or lead". Finally, he tells how "she" participated in voodoo rites and that "the other" came to Jacob for the "Black Brew" that makes a woman a zuvembie. Reaching for firewood, Jacob is bitten by a venomous snake, meeting the fate he feared. Buckner and Griswell conclude that Joan transformed herself into a zuvembie to exact vengeance on Celia Blassenville and her nieces. They resolve to spend the night in Blassenville Manor to learn the truth. There they find Elizabeth Blassenville's diary, which tells of her fear that something is in the house with her, has killed her sisters, and will kill her too.

That night, while lying awake in the darkness, Griswell hears the same whistling as the previous night, which Elizabeth's diary had also mentioned. Thinking he is fleeing the house, he finds himself climbing the manor stairs against his will. He is confronted by a female apparition with a yellow face and a knife. Griswell is powerless to resist, but Bruckner, who has followed him up the stairs, shoots the creature, which flees, mortally wounded. They track its dying noises to the secret room where they find the hanging bodies of the three missing Blassenville sisters as well as the corpse of the zuvembie, which is still dressed in a ball gown.

Bruckner recognises the face of the zuvembie from a portrait he has seen. It is Celia Blassenville. The maid Joan, in revenge, gave the Black Brew she got from Jacob to her mistress and fled. Celia Blassenville, transformed into a zuvembie, killed three of her nieces and had been living in the abandoned manor, killing anyone who entered it at night.

Bruckner says that the case can be closed by saying that a madwoman had killed Griswell's friend John Branner, since nobody will believe the truth of the matter.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Ghost of Peter Quint - (THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Henry James), the ghost of the former valet at Bly who sexual abused and harassed the previous governess, Miss Jessel and his specter now haunts the mansion.

PLOT:
On Christmas Eve, an unnamed narrator and some of their friends are gathered around a fire. One of them, Douglas, reads a manuscript written by his sister's late governess. The manuscript tells the story of her hiring by a man who has become responsible for his young niece and nephew following the deaths of their parents. He lives mainly in London but also has a country house in Bly, Essex. The boy, Miles, is attending a boarding school, while his younger sister, Flora, is living in Bly, where she is cared for by Mrs. Grose, the housekeeper. Flora's uncle, the governess's new employer, is uninterested in raising the children and gives her full charge, explicitly stating that she is not to bother him with communications of any sort. The governess travels to Bly and begins her duties.

Miles returns from school for the summer just after a letter arrives from the headmaster, stating that he has been expelled. Miles never speaks of the matter, and the governess is hesitant to raise the issue. She fears there is some horrible secret behind the expulsion, but is too charmed by the boy to want to press the issue. Soon after, around the grounds of the estate, the governess begins to see the figures of a man and woman whom she does not recognize. The figures come and go at will without being seen or challenged by other members of the household, and they seem to the governess to be supernatural. She learns from Mrs. Grose that the governess's predecessor, Miss Jessel, and another employee, Peter Quint, had had a close relationship. Before their deaths, Jessel and Quint spent much of their time with Flora and Miles, and the governess becomes convinced that the two children are aware of the ghosts' presence.

Without permission, Flora leaves the house while Miles is playing music for the governess. The governess notices Flora's absence and goes with Mrs. Grose in search of her. They find her on the shore of a nearby lake, and the governess is convinced that Flora has been talking to the ghost of Miss Jessel. When the governess finally confronts Flora, the girl denies seeing Miss Jessel, and asks not to see the new governess again. Mrs. Grose takes Flora away to her uncle, leaving the governess with Miles, who that night at last talks to her about his expulsion. The ghost of Quint appears to the governess at the window. The governess shields Miles, who attempts to see the ghost. The governess tells Miles he is no longer controlled by the ghost, and then finds that Miles has died in her arms.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Whistle Ghost - ('OH, WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD' by M.R. James), a terrifying spirit who haunts Parkins in Burnstow after he blows a mysterious whistle.

PLOT:
Discovery
Parkins, the protagonist, is a young "Professor of Ontography" at Cambridge University, who when the story opens is about to embark on a golfing holiday at the town of Burnstow (a fictionalized version of Felixstowe, Suffolk), on the east coast of England. He has secured a room at The Globe Inn for the duration of his stay, though he is somewhat uncomfortable that the room will contain a second bed. At dinner in his College, an archaeological colleague asks him to investigate the grounds of a ruined Templar preceptory near the Globe, with a view to its suitability for a dig.

On his first day at Burnstow, after a round of Golf with Colonel Wilson, another guest at the Globe, Parkins proceeds to find and examine the site of the preceptory. He happens upon a hole in the masonry, in which he finds an ancient bronze whistle. As he returns to the inn along the desolate beach, he notes that "the shape of a rather indistinct personage" in the distance appears to be making great efforts to catch up with him, but to no avail.

Inspection and calling

After an evening meal at the inn, Parkins inspects the whistle while alone in his room. First clearing the hard-packed soil from the item onto a sheet of paper, he then empties the soil out of the window, observing what he believes to be a sole individual "stationed on the shore, facing the inn". Parkins then holds the whistle close to a candle, discovering two inscriptions on the item. On one side appears "FUR FLA FLE BIS", of which Parkins is unable to make anything. The inscription on the other side reads "QUIS EST ISTE QUI UENIT", a Latin phrase which Parkins translates as "Who is this who is coming?" Upon blowing the whistle, Parkins notices sudden surge of wind outside his window, and has a vision of a "wide, dark expanse at night with a fresh wind blowing", in the middle of which he sees a solitary figure.

First night
Unable to sleep that night, Parkins experiences visions of a man desperately running and clambering over high groynes, while anxiously looking back. After the man collapses to the ground in exhaustion, Parkins sees the cause of his flight, "a figure in pale, fluttering draperies, ill-defined", moving in a strange manner and with incredible speed. Realising he is unable to dispel the visions, Parkins decides to read through the night, although when he attempts to light a match, he hears the sound of scurrying on his floor in the direction away from his bed, which he believes may be the sound of rats fleeing. Parkins then reads himself to a sound sleep, with the candle beside his bed still burning when he is woken the following morning.

Second day
As he prepares to leave the inn, Parkins is informed by a maid that both beds in his room appeared to have been slept in. The maid had already made both beds, explaining the sheets on the bed he had not slept in were "crumpled and thrown about all ways". Parkins supposes he must have disturbed the sheets while unpacking. He then leaves the inn to play golf with an acquaintance, Colonel Wilson, whom he tells about the whistle. The Colonel, who has "pronouncedly protestant views", says that he would "be careful about using a thing that had belonged to a set of Papists".

Returning to the inn, Parkins and Wilson encounter a terrified boy running from it, who explains he has just seen a strange, white figure waving at him from the window of one of the rooms. Parkins realises from the boy's description that the room must be his own. Investigating, they find the room still locked, but find that the sheets on the unused bed are twisted and contorted.

Second night
That night, Parkins is woken from sleep by the collapse of an improvised partition that he had constructed to block the moonlight. He sees a figure sitting on the unused bed, which causes him to jump from his own bed in the direction of the window, to retrieve his cane. As he does so, the "personage in the empty bed" moves into a position in front of the door, with arms outspread. This apparition remains stationary in the shadows for several moments as Parkins's fear escalates. It then gropes blindly about the room in a stooping posture, darting towards Parkins's bed, and feeling about the pillow and sheets for his body. Realising he is no longer in the bed, the apparition moves into the moonlit part of the room; Parkins's impression is of "a horrible, an intensely horrible, face of crumpled linen".

Parkins lets out a cry of disgust, revealing his general location by the window. The figure moves rapidly at him, and he is backed half-way through the window, screaming, as its face is "thrust close into his own". Arriving just in time, Colonel Wilson kicks the door to his room open; before he reaches the window, the apparition tumbles to the floor, a heap of bed-clothes, while Parkins collapses in a faint. The following day, the Colonel removes the whistle and throws it into the sea.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harold the Scarecrow - (SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK by Alvin Schwartz), an unnerving-looking life-size doll created by two farmers after an infamous farmer they both despised and was used as a punching bag for them before obtaining a life of his own.

PLOT:
When it got hot in the valley, Thomas and Alfred drove their cows up to a cool, green pasture in the mountains to graze. Usually they stayed there with the cows for two months. Then they brought them down to the valley again. The work was easy enough, but, oh, it was boring. All day the two men tended their cows. At night they went back to the tiny hut where they lived. They ate supper and worked in the garden and went to sleep. It was always the same.

Then Thomas had an idea that changed everything. "Let's make a doll the size of a man." he said. "It would be fun to make, and we could put it in the garden to scare the birds."

"It should look like Harold," Alfred said. Harold was a farmer they both hated. They made a doll out of old sacks stuffed with straw. They gave it a pointy nose like Harold's and tiny eyes like his. Then they added dark hair and a twisted frown. Of course they also gave it Harold's name.

Each morning on their way to the pasture, they tied Harold to a pole in the garden to scare away the birds. Each night they brought him inside so that he wouldn't get ruined if it rained.

When they were feeling playful, they would talk to him. One of them might say, "How are the vegetables growing today, Harold?" Then the other, making believe he was Harold, would answer in a crazy voice, "Very slowly." They both would laugh, but not Harold.

Whenever something went wrong, they took it out on Harold. They would curse at him, even kick or punch him. Sometimes one of them would take the food they were eating (which they both were sick of) and smear it on the doll's face. "How do you like that stew, Harold?" he would ask. "Well, you better eat it - or else." Then the two men would howl with laughter.

One night, after Thomas had wiped Harold's face with food, Harold grunted. "Did you hear that?" Alfred asked.

"It was Harold," Thomas said. "I was watching him when it happened. I can't believe it."

"How could he grunt?" Alfred asked, "He's just a sack of straw. It's not possible."

"Let's throw him in the fire," Thomas said, "and that will be that."

"Let's not do anything stupid," said Alfred. "We don't know what's going on. When we move the cows down, we'll leave him behind. For now, let's just keep an eye on him."

So they left Harold sitting in the corner of the hut. They didn't talk to him or take him outside anymore. Now and then the doll grunted, but that was all. After a few days, they decided there was nothing to be afraid of. Maybe a mouse or some insects had gotten inside Harold and were making those sounds.

So Thomas and Alfred went back to their old ways. Each morning they put Harold out in the garden, and each night they brought him back into the hut. When they felt playful, they joked with him. When they felt mean, they treated him as badly as ever.

Then one night Alfred noticed something that frightened him. "Harold is growing," he said.

"I was thinking the same thing." Thomas said.

"Maybe it's just our imagination," Alfred replied. "We have been up here on this mountain for too long."

The next morning, while they were eating, Harold stood up and walked out of the hut. He climbed up on the roof and trotted back and forth, like a horse on its hind legs. All day and all night, he trotted like that. In the morning Harold climbed down and stood in a far corner of the pasture. The men had no idea what he would do next. They were afraid.

They decided to take the cows down into the valley that same day. When they left, Harold was nowhere in sight. They felt as if they had escaped a great danger and began joking and singing. But when they had gone only a mile or two, they realized they had forgotten to bring the milking stools.

Neither one wanted to go back for them, but the stools would cost a lot to replace. "There really is nothing to be afraid of," they told one another. "After all, what could a doll do?"

They drew straws to see which one would go back. It was Thomas. "I'll catch up with you." he said, and Alfred walked toward the valley.

When Alfred came to a rise in the path, he looked back for Thomas. He did not see him anywhere. But he did see Harold. The doll was on the roof of the hut again. As Alfred watched, Harold kneeled and stretched out a bloody skin to dry in the sun.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lestat de Lioncourt - (INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE by Anna Rice), an elegant, charismatic and sadistic vampire aristocrat.

PLOT:
A vampire named Louis de Pointe du Lac tells his 200-year-long life story to a reporter referred to simply as "the boy".

In 1791, Louis is a young indigo plantation owner living in Louisiana. Distraught by the death of his brother, he seeks death in any way possible. Louis is approached by a vampire named Lestat de Lioncourt, who desires Louis' company. Lestat turns Louis into a vampire and the two become immortal companions. Lestat spends time feeding off slaves while Louis, who finds it morally repugnant to murder humans to survive, feeds from animals. Louis and Lestat are forced to leave when Louis' slaves begin to fear the vampires and instigate an uprising.

Louis sets his own plantation aflame; he and Lestat kill the slaves to keep word from spreading about vampires living in Louisiana. Gradually, Louis bends under Lestat's influence and begins feeding from humans. He slowly comes to terms with his vampire nature, but also becomes increasingly repulsed by what he perceives as Lestat's total lack of compassion for the humans he preys upon.

Escaping to New Orleans, Louis feeds off a plague-ridden, five-year-old girl, whom he finds next to the corpse of her mother. Louis begins to think of leaving Lestat and going his own way. Fearing this, Lestat then turns the girl into a vampire "daughter" for them, to give Louis a reason to stay. She is then given the name Claudia.

Louis is initially horrified that Lestat has turned a child into a vampire, but soon begins to care for Claudia. Claudia takes to killing easily, but she begins to realize over time she can never grow up; her mind matures into that of an intelligent, assertive woman, but her body remains that of a young girl.

Claudia blames Lestat for her state and, after 60 years of living with him, hatches a plot to kill Lestat by poisoning him and cutting his throat. Claudia and Louis then dump his body into a nearby swamp. As Louis and Claudia prepare to flee to Europe, Lestat appears, having recovered from Claudia's attack, and attacks them in turn. Louis sets fire to their home and barely escapes with Claudia, leaving a furious Lestat to be consumed by the flames.

Arriving in Europe, Louis and Claudia seek out more of their kind. They travel throughout eastern Europe first and do indeed encounter vampires, but these vampires appear to be nothing more than mindless, animated corpses. It is only when they reach Paris that they encounter vampires like themselves, meeting the 400-year-old vampire Armand and his coven at the Théâtre des Vampires.

Inhabiting an ancient theater, Armand and his vampire coven disguise themselves as humans and feed on terrified humans in mock plays before a live audience (who think the killings are merely a very realistic performance). Claudia is repulsed by these vampires and what she considers to be their cheap theatrics, but Louis and Armand are drawn to each other.

Convinced that Louis will leave her for Armand, Claudia convinces Louis to turn a Parisian doll maker, Madeleine, into a vampire to serve as a replacement companion for her. Louis, Madeleine, and Claudia live together for a brief time, but all three are abducted one night by Armand's coven.

Lestat arrives, having survived the fire in New Orleans. His accusations against Louis and Claudia result in Louis being locked in a coffin to starve, while Claudia and Madeleine are locked in an open courtyard. Armand arrives and releases Louis from the coffin, but Madeleine and Claudia are burned to death by the rising sun; a devastated Louis finds their ashen remains.

Louis returns to the Theatre late the following night, burning it to the ground and killing all the vampires inside, leaving with Armand. Together, the two travel across Europe for several years, but Louis never fully recovers from Claudia's death, and the emotional connection between himself and Armand quickly dissolves.

Tired of the Old World, Louis returns to New Orleans in the early 20th century. Living as a loner, he feeds off any humans who cross his path, but lives in the shadows, never creating another companion for himself.

Telling the boy of one last encounter with Lestat in New Orleans in the 1920s, Louis ends his tale; after 200 years, he is weary of immortality and of all the pain and suffering to which he has had to bear witness.

The boy, however, seeing only the great powers granted to a vampire, begs to be made into a vampire himself. Angry that his interviewer learned nothing from his story, Louis refuses, attacking the boy and vanishing without a trace. The boy then leaves to track down Lestat in the hopes that he can give him immortality.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dr. Henry Jekyll/Mr. Edward Hyde - (THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE by Robert Louis Stevenson), a reserved and mild-mannered scientist who invents a serum which transforms him into Edward Hyde, his psychotic and murderous alter ego and a physical manifestation of his dark side.

PLOT:
Gabriel John Utterson and his cousin Richard Enfield reach the door of a large house on their weekly walk. Enfield tells Utterson that months ago, he saw a sinister-looking man named Edward Hyde trample a young girl after accidentally bumping into her. Enfield forced Hyde to pay her family £100 to avoid a scandal. Hyde brought Enfield to this door and gave him a cheque signed by a reputable gentleman later revealed to be Doctor Henry Jekyll, Utterson's friend and client. Utterson fears Hyde is blackmailing Jekyll, as Jekyll recently changed his will to make Hyde the sole beneficiary. When Utterson tries to discuss Hyde with Jekyll, Jekyll tells Utterson he can get rid of Hyde when he wants and asks him to drop the matter.

One night in October, a servant sees Hyde beat Sir Danvers Carew, another one of Utterson's clients, to death and leave behind half a broken cane. The police contact Utterson, who leads officers to Hyde's apartment. Hyde has vanished, but they find the other half of the broken cane. Utterson recognizes the cane as one he had given to Jekyll. Utterson visits Jekyll, who shows Utterson a note, allegedly written to Jekyll by Hyde, apologizing for the trouble that he has caused. However, Hyde's handwriting is similar to Jekyll's own, leading Utterson to conclude that Jekyll forged the note to protect Hyde.

For two months, Jekyll reverts to his former sociable manner but, in early January, he starts refusing visitors. Dr. Hastie Lanyon, a mutual friend of Jekyll and Utterson, dies of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter to be opened after Jekyll's death or disappearance. In late February, during another walk with Enfield, Utterson starts a conversation with Jekyll at his laboratory window. Jekyll suddenly slams the window shut and disappears, shocking and concerning Utterson.

In early March, Jekyll's butler, Mr. Poole, visits Utterson and says Jekyll has secluded himself in his laboratory for weeks. Utterson and Poole break into the laboratory, where they find Hyde's body wearing Jekyll's clothes, apparently having killed himself. They find a letter from Jekyll to Utterson. Utterson reads Lanyon's letter, then Jekyll's. Lanyon's letter reveals his deterioration resulted from the shock of seeing Hyde drink a serum that turned him into Jekyll. Jekyll's letter explains he had indulged in unstated vices and feared discovery. He found a way to transform himself and thereby indulge his vices without fear of detection. Jekyll's transformed body, Hyde, was evil, self-indulgent, and uncaring to anyone but himself. Initially, Jekyll controlled the transformations with the serum, but one night in August, he became Hyde involuntarily in his sleep.

Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. Despite this, one night he had a moment of weakness and drank the serum. Hyde, his desires having been caged for so long, killed Carew. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations. Then, in early January, he transformed involuntarily while awake. Far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde needed help to avoid capture. He wrote to Lanyon in Jekyll's hand, asking his friend to bring chemicals from his laboratory. In Lanyon's presence, Hyde mixed the chemicals, drank the serum, and transformed into Jekyll. The shock of the sight instigated Lanyon's deterioration and death. Meanwhile, Jekyll's involuntary transformations increased in frequency and required ever larger doses of the serum to reverse. It was one of these transformations that caused Jekyll to slam his window shut on Enfield and Utterson.

Eventually, one of the chemicals used in the serum ran low, and subsequent batches prepared from new stocks failed to work. Jekyll speculated that one of the original ingredients must have had some unknown impurity that made it work. Realizing that he would stay transformed as Hyde, Jekyll wrote out a full account of the events and locked himself in his laboratory with the intent to keep Hyde imprisoned and, as Poole and Utterson smashed down the door to the laboratory, committed suicide by poison.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Morlock - (THE TIME MACHINE by H.G. Wells), a member of a race of troglodyte-like, subterranean and technologically-advanced humanoid species evolved from low-class humans who worked underground and dominating an era in the far future where humanity is long gone.

PLOT:
The book's protagonist is a Victorian English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. Similarly, with but one exception (a man named Filby), none of the dinner guests present are ever identified by name, but rather by profession (for example, "the Psychologist") or physical description (for example, "the Very Young Man").

The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension and demonstrates a tabletop model machine for travelling through the fourth dimension. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person through time, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator.

In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device. At first he thinks nothing has happened but soon finds out he went five hours into the future. He continues forward and sees his house disappear and turn into a lush garden. The Time Traveller stops in A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, and adhere to a fruit-based diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline. They appear happy and carefree but fear the dark, and particularly moonless nights. Observing them, he finds that they give no response to mysterious nocturnal disappearances, possibly because the thought of it alone frightens them into silence. After exploring the area around the Eloi's residences, the Time Traveller reaches the top of a hill overlooking London. He concludes that the entire planet has become a garden, with little trace of human society or engineering from the hundreds of thousands of years prior, and that communism has at last been achieved.

Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller is shocked to find his time machine missing and eventually concludes that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Luckily, he had removed the machine's levers before leaving it (the time machine being unable to travel through time without them). Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Exploring one of many "wells" that lead to the Morlocks' dwellings, he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise of the Eloi possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the favoured aristocracy has become the intellectually degraded Eloi, and their mechanical servants have become the brutal light-fearing Morlocks.

Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that due to a lack of any other means of sustenance, they feed on the Eloi. The Time Traveller theorizes that intelligence is the result of and response to danger; with no real challenges facing the Eloi, they have lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of humanity at its peak.

Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure dubbed "The Palace of Green Porcelain", which turns out to be a derelict museum. Here, the Time Traveller finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he must fight to get his machine back. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest for the night. They are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, whereby Weena faints. The Traveller escapes when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks turns into a forest fire; Weena and the pursuing Morlocks are lost in the fire and the Time Traveller is devastated over his loss.

The Morlocks open the Sphinx and use the time machine as bait to capture the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He reattaches the levers before he travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth: Menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches chasing enormous butterflies, in a world covered in simple lichenous vegetation. He continues to make jumps forward through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out.

Overwhelmed, he goes back to the machine and returns to his own time, arriving at the laboratory just three hours after he originally left. He arrives late to his own dinner party, whereupon, after eating, the Time Traveller relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange white flowers Weena had put in his pocket.

The original narrator then takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him preparing for another journey and promising to return in a short time. However, the narrator reveals that he has waited three years before writing and stating the Time Traveller has not returned from his journey.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lycaon - (METAMORPHOSES by Ovid), the legendary king of Arcadia who was transformed into a wolf by Zeus for attempting to trick him into consuming human meat in an effort to test his omniscience.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Lucifer - (DIVINE COMEDY by Dante Alighieri), also known as "Satan", a powerful and unholy fallen angel, the ancient ruler of the Nine Circles of Hell and the king of all demons who was frozen on ice in the very center of Hell.

PLOT:
Inferno: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inferno_…
Purgatorio: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purgator…
Paradiso: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradiso…