Even the briefest survey of the Internet is a confrontation with bowel-evacuating terror: the Creature from the Black Lagoon's blog linking to Frankenstein's Facebook page posting a photo from Dracula's Instagram account and so on.
The political trolls, the snuff film ghouls, the selfie-taking depraved. Monsters are crawling through the sewers of our ISPs with their hideous opinions and shocking images. It's enough to make any God-fearing Internet surfer drive a stake through the heart of the nearest modem; or at least wrap a string of garlic cloves around their Wifi router.
"Never read the comments," we are warned, like weary travelers told to avoid the road that runs past the ruined castle by frightened locals. The global village reduced to a cursed village in the Carpathian mountains.
As for me, judging by this page's visitor stats, I am one of the Internet's many restless ghosts. Doomed to haunt the darker corners of the World Wide Web for mysterious reasons. No clanking chains, winding sheet, shrieking in the corridor or slamming doors for me though. Just a vague, cold spot on the floor indicating some sort of shadowy presence is here.
