The unique performing troupe, The Patient Creatures, presents a collection of the best fiction, essays, poetry, recipes, and articles from their website.

Contents include:
santraí, Carl, Moving Day & The Storm (from Wails from the Swale, written by award-winning author P.D. Cacek)
Animal Ghosts & Summer Cemetery Tour (from True Ghost Stories)
Horror Movies?, Were You Scared?, & King of the Movie Monsters (from Raves from the Grave)
In Defense of Halloween (from Sparks)
A Haunted Botanical, Recipes for a Summer Outing, A Visit from Naughty Claus, and much more!

Buy Essential Creatures at our store.

Excerpts:

Frightening black dogs are found especially in England. According to a pamphlet published in East Anglia in 1577, a great storm brought a black "demon dog" to a churchyard, where his presence caused two parishioners to drop dead at their prayers, and leave another "as shrunken as a piece of leather burned in a hot fire." Around this part of England, these black dogs are not unexpected, and are known as the Black Shuck. ("Shuck" comes from the Anglo-Saxon word scucca, which means demon.) The characteristics of the Black Shuck are carefully documented: They always appear at dusk in remote, lonely places, like river banks and little-used roads. Sometimes they are seen in cemeteries. They are shaggy and enormous, said to be as large as a calf, and have eyes the size of saucers that glow red or green with an unearthly fire. They walk in total silence, and those who encounter them are seized with despair.

In Suffolk, one is warned to leave a Shuck alone, lest it strike you senseless. In Stowmarket, it is said to guard a hoard of gold. And in Suffolk, it can't always be seen with the eye, but its rough coat can be felt when it passes by. In Norfolk, the Shuck is especially horrible, black as ebony and with a howl that can be heard above the loudest storms. People are said to have felt the Shuck's icy breath on the back of their necks, and motorists report having encountered it on the roads. It is said in Norfolk that no one sees the Black Shuck and lives. In Essex, on the other hand, the Shuck is said to be friendly, and will protect those travelling alone.

While travelling with a companion is no guarantee that one won't encounter the Black Shuck (there are many stories where one traveller sees the dog and the other does not,) it is said to be better than walking alone. The best protection against seeing the Shuck is to travel with a descendent of Ean MacEndroe of Loch Ewe. It is said that he once rescued a fairy and was thus given immunity (along with his descendants) from the power of the black dog.

(From Animal Ghosts, a True Ghost Story by Kuzibah)

The storm started as an insignificant, and unexpected, drizzle an hour into the Friday night "rush-hour," which allowed the veteran commuter-kamikazes to grumble and complain - silently to themselves or loudly to their car-pool brethren - about the damned weather and the god-damned weathermen who should have mentioned the 'slight chance of rain' in the previous evening's or morning's forecast.

Damn weather.

At that point, complaining was the natural thing to do. It wasn't a storm yet. Not yet. That would come during the Hour of the Wolf ... the time just after midnight when, if you believe late-shift police officers and hospital personnel, most deaths occur.

No one has ever been able to explain why; it just seems to be the time of death.

The time of the storm.

It came quickly, building from annoying drizzle to steady showers and finally to the downpour that, despite the late hour and meager pickings, still managed to whet its growing hunger.

The appetizer was a city bus heading back to the terminal; empty except for the driver and the trio of homeless men he'd allowed to accompany him on three full circuits. It was late and wet and cold and he didn't mind the damp sheep smell that filled the overheated air. "There but for the Grace of God..." had been the driver's only thought; and for this kindness the storm had taken him first, allowing his neck to snap against the front of the steering wheel when the bus nose-dived into a flooded intersection.

Storm drains are so terribly misnamed.

(From The Storm, by P.D. Cacek)