Nightmares and H.P. Lovecraft

I won't be reading Lovecraft right before bed anymore.

Although I have been chewing on The Complete Collection of H.P. Lovecraft as compiled by cthuluchic from Amazon for Kindle at the ridiculously reasonable price of .99 for approximately 4 months like a ghoul gnawing on a freshly dug corpse, I have yet to pass the 25% mark.The man was prolific.

I've seriously enjoyed most of the stories and been completely creeped out by several of them (The Outsider and The Picture In The House being two I remember clearly). The Rats in the Walls gave me shudders, but Pickman's Model was apparently too much.

Yes, after reading that story, I succumbed to a terror so intense that after waking, I couldn't decide if I wanted to turn on the light to assure myself that all was well or leave it off in case it wasn't. The last time I had a nightmare that intense was following the debut of The Grudge.

This particular nightmare involved siblings Ivy and Isaiah, the basement level of a concrete parking garage and a child's toy whose unnatural proportions spoke of eldritch planes of existence. Yep. Been reading too much Lovecraft.

I won't stop reading, but I will be doing it earlier in the day. With all the lights on. And the curtains open. And a cat or two nearby. And maybe a neighbor.

Where's that nightlight?