From Wikipedia: 'Sticks' is a short story by horror fiction writer Karl Edward Wagner, first published in the March 1974 issue of Whispers.It has been reprinted in several anthologies, including the revised edition of Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, indicating that it is part of the Cthulhu Mythos genre. Karl Edward Wagner’s afterword reveals that the stick designs were originally discovered by Weird Tales artist Lee Brown Coye in much the same way as Colin Leverett in the story, and subsequently appeared as a signature in his work. Well, it was unsettling to learn that there’s a basis of truth in this Lovecraftian zombie story. While his body of horror stories is small, with his later work sometimes disappointing, he wrote more genuine classics of the genre than most writers. Karl Edward Wagner was a complex figure, a giant in both the horror and sword-and-sorcery genres, but one whose battles with alcohol stopped him from building on the promise of his early work.
