I don’t care much for this homogenised religion, and I told him so. This notion that you mustn’t think your way to faith is obviously not far from the intolerance that leads to burning books.

He hurried back. Walls seemed to shift and advance. Right here, it must be. Wasn’t this passage too short? No, it wasn’t a wall that blocked his way, only fog. The fog retreated before him – then at once yielded up a wall. Staggering crimson letters caught in the web of graffiti spelled KILLER.

One way to avoid what has already been done is to be true to yourself.

Thomas Ligotti is an absolute master of supernatural horror and weird fiction, and a true original. He pursues his unique vision with admirable honesty and rigorousness and conveys it in prose as powerfully evocative as any writer in the field. I’d say he might just be a genius.

Perhaps the woman was waiting beneath the lamps for cats to drop from the trees, like fruit.

The crying wailed, somewhere beneath the planks. Several sweeps of the light showed that the cellar was otherwise deserted. Though the face mouthed behind him, he ventured down. For God’s sake, get it over with; he knew he would never dare return.

Unlike the rest he had seen of the bungalow, the hall beyond the door was dark. He could see the glimmer of three doors and several framed photographs lined up along the walls. The sound of flies was louder, though they didn’t seem to be in the hall itself. Now that he was closer they sounded even more like someone groaning feebly, and the rotten smell was stronger too.

He slammed the door and ran blindly down the corridor, grabbing at handles. What exactly had he seen? They had been eating with their bare hands, but somehow the only thought he could hold on to was a kind of sickened gratitude that he had been unable to see their faces.

As soon as Todd drove off the motorway it vanished from the mirror, and so did the sun across the moor.

When he shut himself in his apartment he found that he hoped he was waiting for nothing at all.