If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise.
STICKS is Karl Edward Wagner's homage to the weird tradition, and has been collected several times since it first appeared in Whispers back in the early '70s. It's also, purportedly, based on a true story of illustrator Lee Brown Coye's experiences in 1938 in a farmhouse in the Mann Brook region. I didn't know that when I first read it, in the Arkham House reprint of the 'Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos' anthology, and even if I had, it couldn't have made the impact of the tale any stronger than it was already.
I don't know if it's because I'm a country lad and spent a lot of my time rambling in woodland and playing with sticks myself, but something in this story crept into me and stayed there. I was reminded of it strongly in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, and that made the movie even more creepy for me, but the story itself, simple enough as it is in plot, has depth and heft and a capacity to make you look over your shoulder to make sure you're not being watched. It still strikes a chord today, even after repeated readings.
It's the kind of story I aspire to write, and reminds me, in a way, of Algernon Blackwood's THE WILLOWS, or Machen's THE WHITE PEOPLE. It's in good company, and deserves to be.