"Black Bargain" / The Weird Tales of Robert Bloch: Episode 7 

I laughed out loud when he said he went in the back room and drank the sedative he'd mixed up for himself too, lol.

It's 2020 now. Hard to imagine a time when a drug store sold ice cream sundaes and the expensive cigars were 10 cents.

Now I want to read, "The Double Shadow".

BLOCH IS A LEGEND AND A TITAN OF HORROR

You spoil us good sir! Cheers all!

Wow...a writer of the lovecraft circle waiting almost a half hour for that kind of reveal is shocking! Even more surpising to me is that each story chosen for this series is one I haven't read. Oh, are we spoiled here!

"Once in a while I got a fat boy"🤣Sorry, when making pancakes last night I burst out laughing,I had headphones on and kept saying it aloud only to turn my head and notice my wife and kids looking at me like I was crazy...I'M NOT!

Excellent reading; love how you find these hidden horror gems!

Great story and narration! This one is great and I like the ending. I like the sequence of events. To see the look on the main character's eyes when he realizes what is going on. Mr. Bloch's tales are always solid.

Fantastic!I'm hooked on this channel,Ian your narration on everything I've heard is incredible.

Been waiting all week for this lol

Anyone alse feels the themes of bloch as in meeting the devil, being unappreciated compared to those "born with talent" and revenge for hubris?

" Dark dungeons of dreams" . Very few writers can use the English language like that anymore.

Outstanding story!

Amazing as always!!!

Me, during the introduction of this story: This protagonist is an unlikeable asshole. Also me: I immediately identify with this protagonist completely.

🥳🎉Just in time for dessert. Thank you! 🥃

For me this was a story of a man who wanted notoriety and wealth, but went about it in a greedy an unwise way. Bloch is one of old masters at weaving a fine tale. Thank you. Stay safe and healthy ♡

This one was great. Loved the author. Funny how he mentioned Dale Carnegie.

Love me some bloch

Blazin' brilliant ! Am so pleased to be # 800. 🐾🌏🕰❤️🌕

Top notch Gordo. Nice one mar san !!!

"I'm not even supposed to be here today!" -Dante, Clerks 1942

I'm wondering how much of this story was inspired by Carl Jung's idea of absorbing your "shadow."

happy wednesday!!! best part of hump day !

Elegantly told tale!

Great story

The 🐐! 👍🏼👍🏼

I’ve made bargains with things before. It’s funnier than you’d expect it to be.

Warren: I’m hanging out in the rue morgue stuff, pretending to be dead 🤫

This is the dark, adult, equivalent to Peter Pan. 😂

Echoes of "How Love Came To Professor Guildea"

Sounds like the work of Nyarlethotep. 💀

Well-crafted piece that reminds one of Poe, Lovecraft and, to a lesser extent, some might suggest, the Jungian shadow-self. But this shadow is a fully external, infernal entity indeed, summoned from outside the self, not projected from within. In short, a great Poe-ish horror story w/supernatural elements & one of Bloch's more approachable works.

"but my feet hurt, so i went home" thats a wise man right there

When he no more scotch for me it struck a vein lol

The shadow wore glasses but it didn’t wear any underwear! OK… OK… I get that.

Something of a continuation of the dualism theme of “The Suicide in the Study” if you ask me.

how many more bloch tales are there?

"Who was that shadow I saw you with last night?" "That was no shadow. That was my wife." Nyuk nyuk nyuk .. 😂😂 .. 😁😁 .. 😞 Lemme just slide out of here like this

👍👍👍👍👍😲

I had an encounter with a ghost when I was 15, it was a pink dress from the civil war era standing at the foot of my queen size bed filled out as if someone were wearing it. I was six feet tall and weighed 214 pounds, I turned over and shoved my face into my pillow and started crying and praying as my bed started shaking as if it were surrounded by ten men trying to shake me off of it. The shaking stopped after a few seconds but I was too afraid to look up, I woke up the next morning still in an ostrich defense with my face still shoved into the pillow.

Fritz (Frederic)'s initiation

Or get a good sleeping potion without a prescription !

How many left till the ton ? Must be less than a K if it says 99

Good morning dear Ian. Could you please explain if I a n is an English name? Who are your parents? Thank you very much. Enjoy your Thursday!🇬🇧🇷🇺

Sit down at my table Put your mind at ease If you relax it will enable me To do anything I please

This one is pretty good - guy needs to work on his assertive negotiaton skills though.

Excellent story, very creepy! It takes us back to another world------it's hard for people today to grasp that a "drug store" used to serve ice cream and sodas at a counter and had seats to sit in. The protagonist of the story is a miserable, ugly, and very unsympathetic person. He is a very unlikeable person, and as a reader, you feel no sympathy for what he suffers. This was a terrific story of an old classic idea: the devil's bargain. And as usual, the one that makes the bargain does not appreciate the cost of the bargain. The bargain was chilling, a man stalked and devoured by his own shadow. But the ending is a bit unsatisfying-----the protagonist sees the end of the man who made the bargain-----but then the story abruptly cuts off. What happened next? With a gun being fired, the police would show up, how did they explain? And what happened to the cursed book? It would have been a more satisfying ending if the protagonist took the book. Then you would be left to wonder if he would use it, despite having seen the cost of it. He is such a miserable, unhappy character you can easily see that he might talk himself into it. And that is the lure of the devil's bargain.

2nd Amendment for the win.

Wait, I've heard this premise before. It's a variation of the fairy tale "The Shadow" by Hans Christian Andersen mixed with elements from the earlier story "Peter Schlemihl's Miraculous Story" by Adelbert von Chamisso, which inspired Andersen. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_(fairy_tale)