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Blackwood, Algernon, 1869-1951

"The Empty House and Other Ghost Stories"


I fell into a violent trembling, and the perspiration poured from my
face in streams.
"They were in constant motion about me. They stood close to my side;
moved behind me; brushed past my shoulder; stirred the hair on my
forehead; and circled round me without ever actually touching me, yet
always pressing closer and closer. Especially in the air just over my
head there seemed ceaseless movement, and it was accompanied by a
confused noise of whispering and sighing that threatened every moment to
become articulate in words. To my intense relief, however, I heard no
distinct words, and the noise continued more like the rising and falling
of the wind than anything else I can imagine.
"But the characteristic of these 'Beings' that impressed me most
strongly at the time, and of which I have carried away the most
permanent recollection, was that each one of them possessed what seemed
to be a _vibrating centre_ which impelled it with tremendous force and
caused a rapid whirling motion of the atmosphere as it passed me. The
air was full of these little vortices of whirring, rotating force, and
whenever one of them pressed me too closely I felt as if the nerves in
that particular portion of my body had been literally drawn out,
absolutely depleted of vitality, and then immediately replaced--but
replaced dead, flabby, useless.


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