MOP-HEAD

MOP-HEAD

"The thing called Mop-Head was not an animal or plant or rock, although, by now it was a little of each. It had no definite body, and it longed for one. A scrap of elemental force that had drifted down over the field from far-off places, and settled long ago in the forgotten well, it had gradually build itself a body and consciousness over the years."

"From darkness and silence and damp, out of earth-mold and wet leaves and blown dandelions, of scum and spiders' legs and ants' mandibles and the brittle bones of moles it formed a shape and a sentience."

"The rising moon glistened on its fuzzy grayness, glittered in its many eyes. Its antenna waved in the warm air and the thing whimpered a little."

"Barndollar though he saw something run out of the dead mouth— 'like a big curly-haired mole, or a kind of shaggy spider,' as he described it later."

Leah Bodine Drake, Mop-Head

Read Scott's essay about Mop-Head here

SPAWN OF ANCIENT EVIL

 SPAWN OF ANCIENT EVIL

"The structure was festooned and enwrapped by wriggling, climbing shapes, none of which he could see in their entirety, for they were so entangled in their climbing that no one of them could be see in in their entirety. There was about them a drippiness, a loathsomeness, a scaliness that left him gulping in abject terror. And there were, as well, he saw, others of them on the ground surrounding thd well, great dark, humped figures that lurched along until they crossed the track."

"He could see no eyes, but he could feel them looking."

"Heads, if they were heads, moved back and forth. There was the sense of twitching tails, although he could see no tails."

Clifford D. Simak, The Whistling Well

Read Scott's essay about The Whistling Well here

BUBBLES & OTHER

BUBBLES

"'It's curious, we are much more afraid of the Others, who aren't very dangerous, than of the bubbles. I suppose it's because the horror of the Others upsets us whereas the bubbles have a sort of perfect beauty.' It's true, bubbles are rather pretty. I often watch them float outside."

Julia Verlanger, The Bubbles

OTHER

"The Others change. Instead of being dissolved by the slime from the bubbles, they rise a moment later, apparently unharmed. But, some days later, things grow on them! Many arms, like the woman who looks like the goddess in the old book. Or loads of legs, or eyes everywhere, or two heads, or an assortment of mouths on their neck and chest. It's horrible!"

"I wonder if he is maybe outside, with lots of arms or legs, or if all his hair has fallen out and many eyes have sprouted on his head, or if... But I don't want to think about it."

Julia Verlanger, The Bubbles

Read Scott's essay about The Bubbles here