HORROR books online

Reading books horror If you are looking for a good book horror, you should visit our website. Electronic library is gaining popularity. Influenced by modern technology and the advent of new gadgets, people are increasingly turning to electronic libraries because it allows them to read online everywhere . Every reader thanks to his smartphone, laptop or computer, can visit our website at any time. Reading ebooks help people to make good use of free time. Our elibrary has a huge selection of genres for every taste and request.


Today we want to introduce you horror genre. Horrors are very popular among people who like to tickle their nerves. Main characters in the horror genre are demons, evil spirits, monsters,vampires and ghouls. But it’s very often, when book based on true events, for example psychological thrillers.
In Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, horrors were told to each other like myths, that carry the story of the death and afterlife. Ancient people believe that reincarnation exists. Modern horror novels are include new fantastical creatures, like ghosts, vampires, werewolves, and witches.



Nowadays it’s very hard to force a person to believe in the truth of history, but modern reader just expects to be frightened and shocked. Horror books on our website are elicit a sense of dread in the reader through frightening images, themes, and situations.
The atmosphere of the book provokes our imagination. If the book will in your mind long time after reading , so the horror writer did his job well. After horror genre books you can even get insomnia or very bad and scary dreams.But that shouldn't stop you from reading horror ebooks. So our electronic library invite you to be a part of the mystery world of free ebooks without registration.




Take a look at the Thriller or Mystery,Crime section where you can find your favorite books

Read books online » Horror » The Familiar by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (book club books .TXT) 📖

Book online «The Familiar by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (book club books .TXT) 📖». Author Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu



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was apparent;

especially as no sound, either of retreating steps or any

other kind, was audible to direct his pursuit.

 

With the tumultuous sensations of one whose life has just

been exposed to a murderous attempt, and whose escape has

been the narrowest possible, Captain Barton turned again;

and without, however, quickening his pace actually to a run,

hurriedly pursued his way.

 

He had turned, as I have said, after a pause of a few

seconds, and had just commenced his rapid retreat, when on a

sudden he met the well-remembered little man in the fur cap.

The encounter was but momentary. The figure was walking at

the same exaggerated pace, and with the same strange air of

menace as before; and as it passed him he thought he heard

it say, in a furious whisper, “Still alive, still alive!”

 

The state of Mr. Barton’s spirits began now to work a

corresponding alteration in his health and looks, and to

such a degree that it was impossible that the change should

escape general remark.

 

For some reasons, known but to himself, he took no steps

whatsoever to bring the attempt upon his life, which he had

so narrowly escaped, under the notice of the authorities; on

the contrary, he kept it jealously to himself; and it was

not for many weeks after the occurrence that he mentioned

it, and then in strict confidence, to a gentleman, whom the

torments of his mind at last compelled him to consult.

 

Spite of his blue devils, however, poor Barton, having no

satisfactory reason to render to the public for any undue

remissness in the attentions exacted by the relation

existing between him and Miss Montague, was obliged to exert

himself, and present to the world a confident and cheerful

bearing.

 

The true source of his sufferings, and every circumstance

connected with him, he guarded with a reserve so jealous,

that it seemed dictated by at least a suspicion that the

origin of his strange persecution was known to himself, and

that it was of a nature which, upon his own account, he

could not or dared not disclose.

 

The mind thus turned in upon itself, and constantly

occupied with a haunting anxiety which it dared not reveal

or confide to any human breast, became daily more excited,

and, of course, more vividly impressible, by a system of

attack which operated through the nervous system; and in

this state he was destined to sustain, with increasing

frequency, the stealthy visitations of that apparition

which, from the first, had seemed to possess so terrible a

hold upon his imagination.

 

It was about this time that Captain Barton called upon the

then celebrated preacher, Dr. –-, with whom he had a slight

acquaintance, and an extraordinary conversation ensued.

 

The divine was seated in his chambers in college,

surrounded with works upon his favourite pursuit, and deep

in theology, when Barton was announced.

 

There was something at once embarrassed and excited in his

manner, which, along with his wan and haggard countenance,

impressed the student with the unpleasant consciousness that

his visitor must have recently suffered terribly indeed, to

account for an alteration so striking — almost shocking.

 

After the usual interchange of polite greeting, and a few

common-place remarks, Captain Barton, who obviously

perceived the surprise which his visit had excited, and

which Doctor was unable wholly to conceal, interrupted a

brief pause by remarking:

 

“This is a strange call, Doctor –-, perhaps scarcely

warranted by an acquaintance so slight as mine with you. I

should not under ordinary circumstances have ventured to

disturb you; but my visit is neither an idle nor impertinent

intrusion. I am sure you will not so account it, when I

tell you how afflicted I am.”

 

Doctor –- interrupted him with assurances such as good

breeding suggested, and Barton resumed.

 

“I am come to task your patience by asking your advice.

When I say your patience, I might, indeed, say more; I might

have said your humanity — your compassion; for I have been

and am a great sufferer.”

 

“My dear sir,” replied the churchman, “it will, indeed,

afford me infinite gratification if I can give you comfort

in any distress of mind! but — you know –-”

 

“I know what you would say,” resumed Barton, quickly; “I

am an unbeliever, and, therefore, incapable of deriving help

from religion; but don’t take that for granted. At least

you must not assume that, however unsettled my convictions

may be, I do not feel a deep — a very deep — interest in the

subject. Circumstances have lately forced it upon my

attention in such a way as to compel me to review the whole

question in a more candid and teachable spirit, I believe,

than I ever studied it in before.”

 

“Your difficulties, I take it for granted, refer to the

evidences of revelation,” suggested the clergyman.

 

“Why — no — not altogether; in fact, I am ashamed to say I

have not considered even my objections sufficiently to state

them connectedly; but — but there is one subject on which I

feel a peculiar interest.”

 

He paused again, and Doctor pressed him to proceed.

 

“The fact is,” said Barton, “whatever may be my

uncertainty as to the authenticity of what we are taught to

call revelation, of one fact I am deeply and horribly

convinced, that there does exist beyond this a spiritual

world — a system whose workings are generally in mercy hidden

from us — a system which may be, and which is sometimes,

partially and terribly revealed. I am sure — I know,”

continued Barton, with increasing excitement, “that there is

a God — a dreadful God — and that retribution follows guilt,

in ways the most mysterious and stupendous — by agencies the

most inexplicable and terrific; — there is a spiritual

system — great God, how I have been convinced! — a system

malignant, and implacable, and omnipotent, under whose

persecutions I am, and have been, suffering the torments of

the damned! — yes, sir — yes — the fires and frenzy of hell!”

 

As Barton spoke, his agitation became so vehement that the

Divine was shocked, and even alarmed. The wild and excited

rapidity with which he spoke, and, above all, the

indefinable horror that stamped his features, afforded a

contrast to his ordinary cool and unimpassioned

self-possession striking and painful in the last degree.

CHAPTER V

MR. BARTON STATES HIS CASE

 

“MY dear sir,” said Doctor –-, after a brief pause, “I

fear you have been very unhappy, indeed; but I venture to

predict that the depression under which you labour will be

found to originate in purely physical causes, and that with

a change of air, and the aid of a few tonics, your spirits

will return, and the tone of your mind be once more cheerful

and tranquil as heretofore. There was, after all, more

truth than we are quite willing to admit in the classic

theories which assigned the undue predominance of any one

affection of the mind to the undue action or torpidity of

one or other of our bodily organs. Believe me, that

a little attention to diet, exercise, and the other

essentials of health, under competent direction, will make

you as much yourself as you can wish.”

 

“Doctor –-,” said Barton, with something like a shudder,

“I cannot delude myself with such a hope. I have no hope

to cling to but one, and that is, that by some other

spiritual agency more potent than that which tortures me, it

may be combated, and I delivered. If this may not be, I am

lost — now and for ever lost.”

 

“But, Mr. Barton, you must remember,” urged his companion,

“that others have suffered as you have done, and –-”

 

“No, no, no,” interrupted he, with irritability — “no, sir,

I am not a credulous — far from a superstitious man. I have

been, perhaps, too much the reverse — too sceptical, too slow

of belief; but unless I were one whom no amount of evidence

could convince, unless I were to contemn the repeated, the

perpetual evidence of my own senses, I am now — now at last

constrained to believe — I have no escape from the

conviction — the overwhelming certainty — that I am haunted

and dogged, go where I may, by — by a DEMON!”

 

There was a preternatural energy of horror in Barton’s

face, as, with its damp and death-like lineaments turned

towards his companion, he thus delivered himself.

 

“God help you, my poor friend,” said Dr. –-, much

shocked, “God help you; for, indeed, you are a sufferer,

however your sufferings may have been caused.”

 

“Ay, ay, God help me,” echoed Barton, sternly; “but will

He help me — will He help me?”

 

“Pray to Him — pray in an humble and trusting spirit,” said

he.

 

“Pray, pray,” echoed he again; “I can’t pray — I could as

easily move a mountain by an effort of my will. I have not

belief enough to pray; there is something within me that

will not pray. You prescribe impossibilities — literal

impossibilities.”

 

“You will not find it so, if you will but try,” said

Doctor –-.

 

“Try! I have tried, and the attempt only fills me with

confusion: and, sometimes, terror: I have tried in vain, and

more than in vain. The awful, unutterable idea of eternity

and infinity oppresses and maddens my brain whenever my mind

approaches the contemplation of the Creator: I recoil from

the effort scared. I tell you, Doctor –-, if I am to be

saved, it must be by other means. The idea of an eternal

Creator is to me intolerable — my mind cannot support it.”

 

“Say, then, my dear sir,” urged he, “say how you would

have me serve you — what you would learn of me — what I can do

or say to relieve you?”

 

“Listen to me first,” replied Captain Barton; with a

subdued air, and an effort to suppress his excitement,

“listen to me while I detail the circumstances of the

persecution under which my life has become all but

intolerable — a persecution which has made me fear death and

the world beyond the grave as much as I have grown to hate

existence.”

 

Barton then proceeded to relate the circumstances which I

have already detailed, and then continued:

 

“This has now become habitual — an accustomed thing. I do

not mean the actual seeing him in the flesh — thank God, that

at least is not permitted daily. Thank God, from the

ineffable horrors of that visitation I have been mercifully

allowed intervals of repose, though none of security; but

from the consciousness that a malignant spirit is following

and watching me wherever I go, I have never, for a single

instant, a temporary respite. I am pursued with

blasphemies, cries of despair, and appalling hatred. I hear

those dreadful sounds called after me as I turn the corners

of the streets; they come in the night-time, while I sit

in my chamber alone; they haunt me everywhere, charging me

with hideous crimes, and — great God! — threatening me with

coming vengeance and eternal misery. Hush! do you hear

that?” he cried, with a horrible smile of triumph;

“there — there, will that convince you?”

 

The clergyman felt a chill of horror steal over him,

while, during the wail of a sudden gust of wind, he heard,

or fancied he heard, the half-articulate sounds of rage and

derision mingling in the sough.

 

“Well, what do you think of that?” at length Barton

cried, drawing a long breath through

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