Featured Creature: Lover's Tongue

From Marge Hollander's Digest of Demons and Devils:

"Approximately three to four feet in length, the Erasti el Isnan, or Lover's Tongue, are considered one of the lesser Chimera.  In Die Tür Des Bösen, this creature is referred to also as one of the Hungry, a class of cruel rapacious demons that manipulate bodily appetites.  Reputed as petty demons of sexual obsession and jealousy, Erasti are often considered more pests than an actual demonic threat.  Erasmus Möller's account of his encounter with the Arch Duke Grahtennas, gives an indication of the Erasti el Isnan as pets of the greater demons due to the delicate erotic pain of their stings.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set VI, Within the Garden of Integrations

The further neutralization of the conflict of opposites bridges the gap between imagination and mundane reality.  The landscape literally comes to life as the elements give themselves over to the process of the creation of the new. The more they give of themselves, the more fertile and resplendent the landscape becomes.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set V, First Meeting

Fire and Water are thrust together at the borderline with chaos and violence as the fruit of their first interaction.  As they struggle to separate they blend together and transmute each other.  Their struggle cools the Fire with rising steam and impregnates the Water with the seeds of life.  The Athame plunges into the Chalice.

Featured Creature UPDATE: The Night Thing Part III

The following is the continuation of the short fiction presented for the Featured Creature piece, The Night Thing.  I will be posting each update to the original post as I go If you would like to read the pieces as a continuous whole.

The Night Thing Part III

"What the hell was that?!?" Ricky asked, but the man was gone, moved back under the covered area in front of the doors.  The man turned in a circle several times and poured the salt around him until one whole container was empty.  He tossed the container away and closing his eyes, began chanting.  It might have been Latin or maybe Spanish, but Ricky wasn't sure.  The howl came again.  Closer.  This time it extended into what sounded like a bird call, but deeper and almost clicking.

From the Archives: Ghoul

Here is a portrait of a ghoul at night.  Suddenly revealed in torchlight, perhaps disturbed during his grisly meal.

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UPDATE 011415:

This piece was Exhumed and reinvestigated with color in October 2014.  Check out the Exhumed image here.

Featured Creature: Girl in the Shadow

"Franklin and I found the missing girl at the graveyard near Hadley Heights.  A faint mist had moved in after sunset and it danced around the gravestones as we searched.  At our approach, the girl seemed to be floating in mid air.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set IV, Border Guard

This piece has been particularly challenging to bring to any kind of completion.  It has gone through four distinct phases where I thought it was finished, yet each time when I moved to post it, it felt wrong or incomplete in some way.  Each time I went back and re-explored it until it felt finished again.  This is the most final it has felt thus far.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set III, Dionysus at Sunrise

Today is the eighth anniversary of my first posts on Zombie Bites.  Although for many of those years this blog has lain fallow in terms of posts, since 2011 there has been a maelstrom of activity.  I suppose that the past two years have been more about playing catch up and getting things up to speed, but there has also been a dramatic change in the attitude and direction of my art.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set II, A Bright and Distant Plain

"In the dream, I emerged from a deep pool.

The liquid was hot and black and nearly reflectionless.  There was an olive coloured steam coming off of it in areas.  The vapor danced across the surface like flame and dissipated quickly as it rose.  The liquid flowed with a rhythm not unlike breath.  At the edges of the pool it expanded and retreated in miniature tides.  Unsettled by its motion, I moved to the edge and climbed out.  The pool was surrounded by a ring of rough white rock and as I climbed I saw the bright desert plains that extended on all sides beyond it.  

Featured Creature UPDATE: The Night Thing Part II

The following is the continuation of the short fiction presented for the Featured Creature piece, The Night Thing.  The good news bad news here is that although I am updating the story here, this isn't all of the story.  Once I got fully into editing, several plot points expanded a bit and so did the page count, which created more pages to edit.  Regardless, I will be posting each update to the original post as I go If you would like to read the pieces as a continuous whole.

The Night Thing Part II

Ricky began sweeping.  Margaret had left him a long list of cleaning duties to be done by morning.  The store was being reviewed next Wednesday and Margaret always wanted the store cleaner than a new car on review day.  That always meant more work for Ricky: clean behind the shelving units, dust every surface, reorganize the freezer, sweep and mop twice during shifts.  Margaret was generally a relaxed manager, she even let him wear his earphones on third shift, but when a review was coming around, she became a relentless bitch.

From the Archives: The Burning Dead

My vision here was of an undying creature that even fire would not destroy.  Kind of the way a burned vampire might look after an unsuccessful assassination attempt, but more of a zombie or a ghoul.  Lack of flammability would certainly makes those guys more fearsome. 

Featured Creature: The Melted Man

"I did not realize it was present until I heard the hollow groaning of its breathing.  As I turned, it made a shrill moaning noise and retreated, its skin visibly boiling at the touch of my flashlight's beam.  I felt pity for the thing's suffering and moved my light away.  I only caught a glimpse as it struggled to escape, leaving a glistening trail of itself behind as it disappeared somewhere in the depths of the cavern.

Zombie Bites New Abstract: History Set I, The Rape of Persephone

I had plans for the History Set pieces leading up to  Zombie Bites eighth year anniversary, but the universe, as usual, has other ideas.  I'm apologizing in advance for the terseness of the History Set posts.  I've run out of time and my energy over the past couple of weeks has completely bottomed out.  I think the events of this past year have taken a much greater toll than I originally thought.  I've been feeling run down lately and each new post gets harder and harder to write.