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My neck was rigid with fear, and I was terrified to look back again. I moved just enough to see a murky reflection in a picture frame, and through it, the soulless black eyes of the creature looked back at me.
     With my heart pounding, I spun around wildly and prepared to scream for help. Nothing. There it stood as always, staring back at me with a cold, emotionless gaze.
     From deep inside came the answer, like a maniacal revelation. I knew what it was. G-O-L and the other indistinguishable characters—a golem. This wasn't the image of a fallen angel Bob found in the holy land. It was a golem, a creature that, according to legend, was chiseled from stone or molded from clay and could be animated by a magical invocation to do its master's bidding. All the fragmented words suddenly begin to make sense. I knew enough to assume what the other characters stood for, and what the words meant.
     GOLEM —Let Blood Bind Servant To Master.
     I was electrified with my own maddening genius. Then the realization that this was no mere puzzle, this was a golem. I pricked my thumb and began scribbling in my own blood. I copied the inscription character-for-character on a piece of paper, and took my place in front of the inanimate idol. Could I actually bring this creature to life?
     As I stood in front of it, its stare hypnotized me. In my mind, I heard the stone moving, saw its head tilting, and its mouth open. I shut my eyes and shook my head, and when I opened them again, there it stood as it had been.
     I took heart from my vision and stepped closer, placing the paper in the creature's mouth.
     And then death gripped me.
     The golem's eyes stared blankly into mine as its stone appendages came to life. Its wings unfolded and reached out over me, its talons impaling my hands, spreading my arms away from me and lifting me off the studio floor. With a grating sound, it stepped from its perch, and as it did, the thing lifted me further above it. Its movement was a grinding yet fluid motion. Then it pulled me closer, enfolding me within its wings, staring at me with its dead, black eyes.
     Its left hand seized my throat and its right hand slashed open my chest. The creature closed its mouth on the bloodstained paper, then spat it out against my face.
     This thing was no golem. I now experienced the true revelation, the one free of madness and pure with the knowledge I had long forgotten. The word I so eagerly accepted as GOLEM was in reality GOLGOTH, the Angel of Torment.
     I can see myself dying in the reflection of its eyes. The creature's unrelenting grip around my throat allows me no last breath. "Let Blood Bind Servant To Master," the meaning of the cryptic message was clear to me now, even as my vision blurred; it was not what my power-mad mind wanted it to be. Sheer dread swept over me, as my final mortal thought was that of how my suffering would serve to nourish my newly resurrected master.

Spiders in the Attic
    by Joseph Vargo
    P ale moonlight filtered into Anna's bedroom window through the silken mesh of her curtains, casting web-like patterns on the hardwood floor. The autumn moon danced behind the clouds, appearing again and again to illuminate the darkened heavens. As she lay awake in bed, Anna drifted between the mundane reality of her adolescent life and a realm of gothic dreams and fantasies. Outside the wind whistled though the barren branches, rustling the few remaining leaves that had not yet withered and fallen. As she began to return to her dreams, another sound roused her from her sleep. Between the howls of the cool autumn breeze, she heard a voice that sounded as if it had faintly whispered her name.
     "Anna..."
     She listened more intently, but there was only wind to be heard. After a few minutes her eyelids grew heavy and she began drifting back to the land of dreams when she heard the voice call her name once