Snuffling and shuffling figures pick their ways gingerly o'er awesomely white icescapes. The fallen lie wailing in slush-choked gutters – hips and hopes shattered. Frozen water everywhere, but not a drop to drink (or flush the foetid loo with). Doomed cars spinning hideously into gaping chasms.

January, 2010. A non-stop horror show of chilblains, slight inconvenience, and unwashed stinkiness. God help us all…

But wait. All has not yet turned to hypothermic and frigid despair. There is still warmth (sort of) and joy (er…) left in the online world. For the next 7 days, Dreadful Thoughts will be keeping a Lovecraftian (hell)fire burning. So gather ye round this gnarled, gargantuan and ancient fireplace and let some H. P. sauce warm your brittle bones.

"The Outsider" (html) & "The Rats in the Walls" (html), (html), (pdf).

Thoughts? Reactions? Wild fancies?

January – as the fella said – is a gelid month. A hiemal, brumal, dismal and tenebrous month.

A month when the dankest and most abysmal recesses of the human mind kick into hideous half-life. Spewing forth noxious brain-fumes and strangling our seedlings of hope with worriment. A month of bad thoughts. A month of Dreadful Thoughts.

On that cheery & heartening note let's bid welcome to 2010 by bolting the doors, stoking the fires, and settling down to read (and chatter about) some choice spooky stories of yore.

For the fourteenth meeting of our Dreadful Thoughts Story Club we finally cast our baleful gazes in the direction of Howard Phillips Lovecraft – the mad 'n' bad warlock prince of 20th Century horror. He of the sinuously baroque and esoteric lingo. He of the awesome cosmic dread. He of the…er…not liking the non-white races so much.

Your (double-bill) reading assignments are as follows. See y'all next Monday.

Stories:

a) "The Outsider" (html)

b) "The Rats in the Walls" (html), (html), (pdf).

Discussion Opens: Monday, 11th January @ 9 p.m. (and runs for seven full days).

P.S: In case anyone's staring at this post, waiting for action – the discussion thread is actually located here. Refocus your gazes.