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Title: The life-eater
Author: Harold Ward
Illustrator: Vincent Napoli
Release date: July 21, 2025 [eBook #76539]
Language: English
Original publication: Indianapolis, IN: Popular Fiction Publishing Co, 1937
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIFE-EATER ***
The Life-Eater
By HAROLD WARD
_A terror-tale of much power, about the frightful
wraith from Beyond, which brought panic and death to
the little town in the Louisiana swamplands._
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Weird Tales June 1937.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
_1. The Terror_
Death stalked through the little village of La Foubelle at the edge
of the great swamp. Again and again it struck, fattening the tiny,
cypress-draped graveyard until there was scarcely a house that was not
in mourning.
No ordinary calamity this, but a horror. Men talked of it in awed,
hushed whispers. Women, hollow-eyed and gaunt from worry, pressed their
little ones to their flaccid breasts as they busied themselves with
their household tasks. The coming of night found the streets deserted,
the townspeople huddled, white-faced and frightened, behind closed
doors.
"_La maladie sans maladie_," they called it, this dark, formless,
unspeakable terror that always came at night, striking down young and
old alike--leaving in its wake a body shriveled and deflated, the skin
puckered into a thousand wrinkles. They had seen their loved ones die,
had these simple folk of La Foubelle--seen them twist and writhe in
excruciating agony at the very last. Sometimes, when the victim was
very strong, the thing took toll of him for days.
Jules Delatour, it was, who whimpered of having seen the horror
hovering over the body of his dying mother--a black, transparent thing,
he babbled, smoke-like and shapeless, its bestial face filled with
malignant ferocity. But Jules was the village drunkard and had been in
his cups the night his mother passed away, so no one believed his tale.
* * * * *
Doctor Lamontaine, sipping rum from a battered tin cup and poring over
a volume of Cagliostro, noted the shadow that fell across the book as a
man entered the cubbyhole of an office.
"Drink?" he growled without looking up, and shoved a second cup across
the desk. "Rum. Good Jamaica rum. Help yourself."
The green-and-yellow parrot, swinging on its perch at his elbow, opened
its filmy eyes and echoed its master's invitation.
"_Rum!_" it shrieked drowsily. "_Good Jamaica rum! Hotter'n hell!
Hotter'n hell!_"
Lamontaine looked up when his visitor made no response to the double
overture. Then he leaped to his feet, his hand outstretched, his eyes
smiling a welcome under their bushy red brows.
"The dominie, by all that's holy!" he roared.
He dumped a pile of magazines from a chair, kicked them into the
corner, and shoved it to his guest.
"No wonder you refused my invitation to guzzle," he chuckled. "You, the
only teetotaler in the village. Sit down, my friend, and take a load
off your feet."
The schoolmaster dropped wearily into the proffered seat and gazed at
his host curiously.
"Will you never grow up?" he demanded whimsically.
Lamontaine shrugged his shoulders and returned the other's smile with a
broad grin.
"I hope not," he chuckled. "The devil of it, dominie, is that I've
sipped the nectar from the cup of knowledge and now all that's left for
me is the dregs. But come, my friend, what brings you, a sick man, out
in the heat of the day? Have I not warned you repeatedly against it?"
The little dominie smiled wanly.
"Evelyn l'Brest was stricken today," he said finally. "She is like--the
others...."
There was silence for a moment. Lamontaine wagged his big head sagely;
then he drew himself into his shell of professional reserve, for he
knew that Noel Pelletier loved this slip of a girl who had been his
pupil.
"I have already seen her," he said finally.
"There is nothing that you can do for her?"
Again the physician was silent. Then he arose and took a short turn
about the tiny room. Returning to his desk, he dropped back into his
seat and, filling the tin cup from the rum-jug at his elbow, he downed
the contents at a gulp.
"I have told you before, my friend," he said finally, "that this is a
case for a priest and not a physician."
The schoolmaster crossed himself.
"_Mon Dieu!_" he exclaimed. "Then you still insist?"
Lamontaine nodded.
"It is a question of exorcism, not physic," he growled. "All night and
all this day, when I have had the opportunity, I have pored over my
books. I am more convinced now than before. Listen, my friend."
He leaned across the desk and tapped the jumble of books with his long
fore-finger.
"There is much knowledge in these," he said quietly, "knowledge that
you men with religion in your souls will not admit. Black Magic?
Certainly. You say that there is no such thing. I insist that it
exists today just as it did in the beginning. True, the church has
stamped it out to a large degree. But, nevertheless, there are many
isolated cases--places far from the ken of men, such as here in La
Foubelle--where it flourishes like the grass after a spring rain. Your
people here are superstitious. They have given the devil fertile soil
in which to plant his seeds."
"Admitted! Admitted!" the little schoolmaster said excitedly. "Against
such ignorance one man can do nothing; a dozen could not handle the
situation efficiently. Yet----"
Lamontaine held up a restraining hand.
"Books such as these of mine tell of strange, weird things," he
interrupted, "horrible things--things of which the average man never
dreams. Our ancestors knew more about spirit life--the life beyond the
veil--than we shall ever know. Why? Because they lived closer to it.
"I have traveled in many lands and I have studied in innumerable
out-of-the-way places," he went on heatedly, "but never have I seen
such a rare opportunity for the devil and his imps as here in La
Foubelle. And he has taken advantage of it, dominie. There is a
terrible influence at work here--under our very noses."
The schoolmaster crossed himself again.
"_Désorienté!_" he exclaimed with a shudder. "Do you mean----"
"That there are many things the average man cannot--will
not--understand," Lamontaine interrupted. "There are innumerable forms
of spirit life--forms that function in various ways. Some of them--most
of them, I might say--are kindly disposed toward us. Others are
malignant. We have to deal with one of the latter in this case."
He filled and lighted his pipe, the little schoolmaster gazing at him
with eyes that betrayed his horror and astonishment.
"_Désorienté!_" he said again. "You are beyond my depth, my friend.
Explain yourself."
Lamontaine scratched his red beard reflectively.
"Primal earth forces," he said shortly, "elementals--spirit forms that
have never evolved--subhuman nature spirits. They exist, together with
innumerable other spirit forms, on the other side of the veil."
"_Mon Dieu!_" the schoolmaster gasped. "I can hardly believe it, my
doctaire."
"These things are jealous of mankind, hating living beings because
mankind has evolved," Lamontaine went on. "Why? Because they have
never developed beyond the rudimentary stages. Consequently, they
consider mankind their natural prey. One of these things is loose in
our peaceful little village. Because it is out of its natural habitat,
it must have vitality on which to live--human vitality. Otherwise, it
ceases to be. So it feeds upon the vitality of those with whom it comes
in contact, just as a vampire feeds upon human blood."
* * * * *
The face of the little schoolmaster turned a ghastly white. He half
rose from his chair, then dropped back again, his teeth chattering.
"Horrible! Horrible! Blasphemous!" he ejaculated.
Lamontaine shrugged his broad shoulders.
"In order to obtain this sustenance--this vitality to prolong its
existence," he continued, "an elemental must, necessarily, in its
early stages, prey largely upon the sick, the weak--those who are at
a low physical stage. But eventually it satiates itself with their
vitality and becomes stronger. Then it seeks its victims among the more
powerful. That is the cause of this plague among the members of our
community."
The schoolmaster leaned back in his chair, his thin face drawn and
haggard.
"_Dieu avec nous!_" he said in a low, awed whisper. "Then Jules
Delatour told the truth! And it is this--this horrible thing--that my
little Evelyn is faced with, my doctaire? Is there nothing that we can
do to combat it?"
Lamontaine patted the pile of books in front of him, his eyes wearing a
strange, far-away look.
"That is what I have been studying," he said finally. "But, first, let
us consider how this unholy thing chanced to come to us. There must be
a reason. What caused it to break through the veil?"
The schoolmaster's hands trembled like those of a man with the ague.
"Explain!" he said hoarsely.
"Alone and unassisted, these primal forces cannot come to us,"
Lamontaine told him. "They must be aided by someone who is already
here--someone who has the vitality to support them for the nonce. It
must be one with mediumistic powers. Now do you understand?"
The little schoolmaster crossed himself again.
"It is unbelievable, horrible!" he said. Then, leaning forward, his
voice dropped to a hoarse whisper:
"I would willingly give my life, doctaire, in order to save the woman
I love. You, who know everything, perhaps can show me the way."
Lamontaine combed his long beard with his fingers, reflectively.
"My books have already told me that much," he said after a brief pause.
"If you ... care to take ... the chance."
The other nodded, a hectic spot appearing in each cheek.
"Proceed!" he commanded hoarsely.
Lamontaine rose and, walking to the little medicine cabinet, filled a
hypodermic with clear, colorless liquid.
"An injection of this liquid will lower your vitality to a point where
you will be an easy victim," he said quietly; "far easier than Evelyn,
who is strong and healthy and able to resist it. Why? Because you are
already a sick man. I have a plan to trap this thing--it must be a
secret between us--if you are willing to trust me and take the only way
out."
For an instant there was silence. Then the little schoolmaster bared
his frail arm to the needle.
_2. The Thing_
Rum-guzzler though he was, a soldier of fortune--a wild, barbaric
throw-back, born a hundred years too late--Doctor Hugo Lamontaine
was yet an occultist of international reputation and a physician
of extraordinary ability. Possessed of a fortune which made him
independent of his fellow-men, he followed the dictates of his own
conscience, caring not a whit for the conventions. To him the esoteric
practises of voodoo, obeah and demonology were open books; to study
them he had followed his beard to the end of the world.
Tall and broad-shouldered, his hair as red as the blood that he had
shed on a dozen foreign fields, possessing the whiskers of a Viking,
slovenly in his attire, constantly spoiling for a fight or a frolic,
he was a man to be reckoned with under any conditions.
His insatiable craving for knowledge had brought him to the little
village of La Foubelle. Slumbering at the very edge of the gigantic
morass, uncontaminated by the presence of outsiders, its French-Creole
inhabitants had clung, leech-like, to the customs and superstitions of
their ancestors. Close association with the blacks who, brought from
West India as slaves at an early day, had revolted and fled to the
interior of the swamp, had intensified these weird beliefs. La Foubelle
was a virgin vein of folklore and heterodoxies, witchcraft and bizarre
customs. Lamontaine had deliberately thrown himself into the midst of
the lives of these near-barbarians. He had ingratiated himself to them
and, by degrees, had been accepted as one of them. Eventually he had
become not only their physician, but their confessor as well.
The day had brought more than its accustomed load of suffering. The
heat had made the afflicted ones worse. Making his evening rounds,
Lamontaine was filled with a premonition of death lurking close at
hand. He had the narrow street to himself. Men and women talked in
low, hushed whispers, huddling together, sheep-like, fearful of the
darkness that had dropped like a pall. Frightened children clung to
their mothers' skirts, their black eyes beady with terror. From inside
a tiny cottage came the sound of muffled sobs as a young mother rocked
her first-born, slowly wasting away.
The bell in the little schoolhouse at the end of the lane clanged
dolefully. Lamontaine halted in his tracks, his broad shoulders
drooping like those of a defeated man. For the schoolhouse was also the
church.
"_Bong! ... bong! ... bong! ... bong!_"
He counted the strokes. When they passed sixteen, he breathed a deep
sigh of relief. It meant that little Evelyn l'Brest was not the victim.
"_Bong! ... bong! ... bong!_"
He counted on until the strokes passed fifty. Then, as they continued
their doleful monody, he lifted his shoulders and took up his walk
again. It would be old Kenny Tolan, he told himself--Kenny Tolan,
eighty-two and long ago marked as a victim by the grim reaper.
And deep in his pagan heart, Doctor Hugo Lamontaine breathed a little
prayer of thanksgiving.
Evelyn l'Brest, the schoolmaster's sweetheart, still lived. There was
yet a chance.
Again he was halted by an agonized scream. It came from a cottage close
at hand--the abode of Jacques d'Arcy, at the end of the side road. He
whirled and dashed through the darkness in the direction of the low,
thatched house with its single lighted window. A white, scared face
stared at him through the darkness as a man rushed around the corner,
his gun drawn, almost colliding with him in his mad rush. It was Pierre
Le Front, the village constable.
"_Mon Dieu!_" the little man exclaimed. "You heard it, doctaire?"
Lamontaine nodded grimly. The constable by his side, he padded
noiselessly over the soft earth between the rows of trees, covered with
Spanish moss, that led to the d'Arcy home.
A man dashed toward them from the direction of the house. He saw them
and, whirling, leaped into the thicket that banked the roadside. As he
disappeared, he turned. Even though the moon was dead in the leaden
sky, Lamontaine caught a glimpse of a lean, cadaverous face, of teeth
over which the lips were drawn in a wolfish snarl, of deeply sunken
eyes that glittered ominously.
The big physician seized the little constable by the shoulder, halting
him with a violence that almost jerked him off his feet.
"Your gun! Quick!" he snarled.
He jerked the weapon from the officer's hand and emptied it in
the direction the fleeing man had taken. Then, dropping it at the
astonished constable's feet, he dashed madly in the same direction.
Le Front followed. He heard Lamontaine crash through the dank grass
and underbrush that bordered the fetid swamp. Then came the sound of a
bâteau as it swung out into the water ... the creak of oars in their
locks....
* * * * *
Lamontaine, his feet bogged by the mud, met the little man as he
struggled through the tangled growth, and cursed fluently.
"_Mon Dieu!_" the constable panted.
"Who was it? And what happened?"
"It was Aaron Kronk!" Lamontaine snarled.
From far out in the fetid waters of the swamp came a harsh, sinister
laugh.
Constable Le Front dropped to his knees and crossed himself.
Aaron Kronk! Little wonder Pierre Le Front turned a shade paler under
his coating of tan. Aaron Kronk! Master of _diablerie_ and king of
devils! He it was who, only a few weeks earlier, masquerading as the
infamous Gilles de Laval, Baron de Retz, the blue-bearded monster of
the Middle Ages, had involved himself in a saturnalia of blood from
which only the bravery and occult knowledge of Lamontaine had rescued
the community. Even now, two of his intended victims were in the
hospital at New Orleans recovering from their injuries; the old house
on the peninsula where he had made his headquarters was a mass of
charred embers and smoke-stained masonry.
* * * * *
They hurried back toward the house of Jacques d'Arcy. Once more the
wild shrieks assailed their ears, speeding their footsteps. Mingled
with the screams was a low, gurgling moaning. It grew fainter as they
approached. By the time they reached the low, whitewashed gate, it had
ceased.
The front door was thrown hurriedly open and a white face peered out at
them, terror written in every lineament.
In a rustic wicker chair in the low-ceilinged room an old woman was
weaving backward and forward, shrieking hysterically. Around her stood
three other women--two of them neighbors, one a daughter. A fourth had
opened the door.
They greeted the newcomers with gasps of relief.
"_On connait l'ami au besoin_--a friend is known in time of need!" the
younger woman exclaimed. "Eet ees ze doctaire!"
Lamontaine seized her by the shoulder.
"What happened?" he snapped.
She twisted her tattered handkerchief about her fingers nervously.
"Zat I do not rightly know," she finally managed to ejaculate. "Père
d'Arcy, he ees dying, we theenk. We were weeth heem. We hear a noise
outside. We look through ze window. Zere was a face peering een at
us--a horrible face, doctaire. Eet was ze face of _le Diable_."
She stopped, shuddering like one who suffers from the ague. Lamontaine
glared at her and she continued.
"We scream. Zen ze awful face disappear and through ze window come ze
shape--ze shapeless shape! Lak' a ghos' eet was--wizout form, yet eet
had ze form! _Oui_, I cannot explain eet, doctaire!"
She broke off her recital and gave way to shuddering sobs, her face
buried in her hands. Lamontaine seized her by the shoulder again and
shook her roughly. The old woman recommenced her hysterical howling.
"Talk!" Lamontaine snapped, shaking the woman until her teeth
chattered. "Time is of value now. Talk!"
The woman ceased her convulsive sobbing and looked at the big physician
pathetically.
"Eet was awful--horrible!" she said finally. "Père d'Arcy, he give ze
wild scream. Ze theeng--ze awful theeng--drop upon heem like ze great
veil. Jacques, he moan again and again. Zen, ze moan, eet, too, stop.
We have rush out and we are here. We are afraid of ze theeng. Zen you
come----"
Lamontaine shoved her aside and, darting to the door of the sickroom,
seized the knob and jerked it open.
The room was in darkness, yet the light, shining through the open
door from the outer room, was strong enough to reveal the scene that
was being enacted. Even Lamontaine, inured though he was to death and
violence, shrank back.
Old Jacques d'Arcy lay upon the floor by the side of the bed. His face,
glaring up at them, was twisted into a horrible contortion, the eyes
protruding as if they had been squeezed from their sockets. His body
was shriveled into a million wrinkles; it was like a toy balloon that
has been deflated.
Over the dead man was a form--a strange, gossamer-like wraith, vague,
shadowy, indistinct. The physician had an impression of malignant eyes
glaring at him--of a slit of a mouth drawn back into a wolfish snarl.
Yet there were no eyes--no mouth. The thing was shapeless.
Recovering himself, Lamontaine took a step forward. The hellish thing
seemed about to spring at him. Then it drew back as if reluctant to
leave the body of its victim.
Slowly it dissolved itself--floating away like a bit of vapor, through
the open window.
Lamontaine turned to the others who stood shuddering in the doorway.
The old woman took up her hysterical wailing again.
A faint odor filled the room. It was strange, indistinguishable,
horrible, nauseating. It was the odor of death.
The thing from beyond, gorged with vitality, had reached a point in its
development where it was visible to human eyes.
_3. Out of the Night_
It was apparent to Lamontaine that Aaron Kronk was the medium by which
the horrific spirit form from the other world had been materialized.
Yet the burly physician was puzzled. What sinister motive did the
diabolical Kronk have in thus wreaking his vengeance upon the
inoffensive, simple-minded inhabitants of the sleepy little village?
They had done him no harm. Until a few weeks earlier, when Lamontaine
had met and bested him in his struggle for the de Laval fortune, these
people had never known of his existence.
Yet in Lamontaine's mind there was no doubt that Kronk was possessed of
more than ordinary mediumistic ability and that it was through him that
the terrible primal force had been developed. But why? He asked himself
the question a hundred times as he completed his rounds of the sick,
following the horrible death of Jacques d'Arcy.
It was late when he had finished. Now, even though it was well past
midnight, he still sat in his darkened office, his feet upon the desk,
his eyes, half closed, gazing out of the open window. He had kicked
off his shoes and thrust his toes into carpet slippers. His shirt was
tossed carelessly into the corner and his suspenders hung down over his
hips.
The little village had long since quieted down for the night. Here and
there a dim light glimmered in a curtained window, marking the home of
some helpless victim who was fighting the horror that was hovering over
the peaceful little hamlet like a great pall--a horror that he, the man
in whom these simple village folk had learned to place their trust, was
unable to combat.
Lamontaine cursed aloud as he realized the futility of his struggle
against the thing from beyond. He had found in his books no surcease of
sorrow--no way to scotch the demon. It was something that he must think
out--reason out for himself.
His only chance lay in the trap he had laid by means of the little
schoolmaster. Had he done right in thus exposing Noel Pelletier to the
terrible danger? There was no other way. He consoled himself with the
thought that Pelletier had no desire to live if Evelyn l'Brest died.
And unless he was successful in his assault on the malevolent spirit
through the little dominie, Evelyn l'Brest must surely go.
And yet he had no set plan. He was trusting to luck--blind luck--hoping
against hope that he would succeed.
There was a light footstep on the gravel outside the window. He looked
out. It was Pierre Le Front, the constable, making his midnight rounds.
Seeing the physician sitting in the open window, he had entered the
yard. Now, at Lamontaine's invitation, he stepped inside.
The physician picked the rum-jug from the floor and, filling a cup for
himself, tossed another across the desk to the officer and jerked his
thumb toward the jug.
"Drink?" he growled. "Jamaica rum. It'll do you good on a night like
this--a night when the very atmosphere tingles with death."
"_Mon Dieu!_ Yes, yes!" Le Front ejaculated. "I, too, feel eet een ze
air, doctaire."
He filled the cup and tossed off the contents with an appreciative
smack of his lips.
"Ze dominie ees worse," he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his
hand. "I am go zere and stay ze night weeth heem w'en I feenish my
round. He ees fear to stay alone."
Lamontaine cursed again--full, man-sized oaths.
"And there's not a damned thing that I can do," he mourned. "Not a
damned thing!"
Le Front leaned forward, the better to see through the darkness the
face of the man on the other side of the desk.
"Zen eet ees true, zat wheech ze dominie wheesper to me--zat ze theeng
wheech we see awhile ago at d'Arcy's ees not a ghost--zat eet navaire
lived lak' you an' me?"
For a moment Lamontaine made no answer. Then he nodded solemnly.
"True," he answered finally. "And the thing that's agitating my mind,
my friend, is the reason for all this? Why should Kronk wreak such
diabolical vengeance upon this little village?"
Le Front helped himself to the rum. Then, as the fiery liquor raced
through his veins, he grew more loquacious.
"I theenk I know," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.
He leaned forward and poured forth his story to Doctor Lamontaine. The
big man listened quietly; then, when Le Front had finished, he burst
forth.
"May a just God burn his damned soul in hell!" he snarled. "God! Le
Front! Can a man be so cold-blooded for the sake of gold?"
"Zat ees my opinion," the constable said earnestly. "I haff reason' eet
out een my head."
Lamontaine wagged his long red beard solemnly. That for which he had
been groping for so long was gradually filtering through his brain. He
was beginning to see a bright and shining light.
"In the morning I will go to N'Orleans and look into that," he promised.
The little constable nodded and, helping himself to the rum again,
left to take up his lonely vigil in the bachelor quarters of the
schoolmaster.
Neither of them noticed the sinister figure that had been standing
in the darkness close beside the open window listening to their
conversation. Now, as the constable left, he darted to the shadow of a
near-by bush, his sunken eyes gleaming malevolently at the big man who
sat just inside the window, his long beard resting on his breast, his
head bowed in thought.
It was Aaron Kronk.
* * * * *
Lamontaine was weary--horribly so. All of the night before he had sat
by the bedside of one of the dying villagers. The day had been spent
in study and in making his rounds. Now, sitting with his feet upon the
desk again, his chair tilted backward, he tried to concentrate--to
reason out the horrible events of the past few days. What Le Front told
him had placed things in a new light. If it proved correct, he might be
able to win yet over the monster from beyond the pale.
Then outraged nature finally gave way, and he slept.
Someone was looking at him. He knew it--_felt_ it. He was aware, too,
of a feeling of bodily discomfort--a peculiar sensation that, beginning
in his brain, crept down through his nerves and muscles, leaving him
cramped and paralyzed. His subconscious physician's mind automatically
analyzed it as a sort of _rigor_. It constricted his throat, twisting
itself around his huge limbs like hoops of steel, crushing him like
an incubus. He fought with himself in an effort to open his eyes. A
voice was commanding him to sleep. He mastered the desire and raised
his eye-lids. A mocking face was glaring into his own. It was that of
Aaron Kronk.
Hugo Lamontaine had yet to know the meaning of fear. He had faced death
laughingly in a thousand ways on modern battlefields. Yet, gazing into
the malevolent eyes of Aaron Kronk, bound hand and foot by invisible
bands, he realized now what it meant. The thin man was gazing at him
with malignant ferocity. His eyes, bearing a message of hatred, seemed
to tear the physician's brain from its very roots. He tried to struggle
against them, but in vain. They dissolved themselves into a single,
glittering orb--an eye that whirled and grew closer and closer like the
headlight of an oncoming locomotive.
A voice commanded him to sleep ... sleep ... sleep....
Then consciousness left him.
In spite of the command that had chiseled itself into his brain, he
was subconsciously fighting against it. He floated back from his
hebetude ... wondered if he was dreaming. At first he believed that
he was--that he would soon wake up and find that he suffered from a
nightmare. Then, by slow gradations, realization crept over him....
He was surrounded by something. It enveloped him like a thin cloud,
pressing him down like a weight, inhibiting his breathing. He tried
to struggle against it--to open his eyes. But that commanding voice
continued to order him to sleep ... _sleep_....
His throat and chest seemed to constrict. He attempted to summon his
laggard will-power--in vain. The slow, relentless pressure continued.
The breath was being slowly pumped from his body, from his lungs, his
heart....
He knew that he was on the verge of asphyxiation--that his huge
frame was being slowly deflated--robbed of its vitality as surely
and inexorably as it had been stolen from the emaciated body of old
Jacques d'Arcy. He tried to open his eyes. They were held down by
invisible fingers.
He did not realize that he had succeeded. Yet he suddenly found himself
looking into two gleaming orbs--red, blood-shot, filled with hatred and
demoniac fury. Upon his breast rested a _thing_--a horrible, nauseous,
formless monstrosity, shapeless, faceless, headless. Yet it had a face
and head, for its eyes were the eyes that were glaring into his own.
And, too, it had a mouth--a red gash framed by leathery lips. It was
pressed against his own in a clammy, vacuum-like kiss. It was lapping
his breath, sucking the vitality from his great body, deflating it
until it was rapidly growing as flat as a bursted tire. Its long,
sinuous arms were fastened about him, its legs wrapped, leech-like,
about his own.
[Illustration: "Upon his breast rested a thing."]
And, knowing these things, Lamontaine brought to his aid all of the
tremendous will-power that was his heritage. He tried to push the
incubus from him, but he could not lift his arms. But as he struggled,
he felt the mental influence that was oppressing him gradually lessen.
A sort of inertia swept over him and he ceased his struggles for an
instant. The incubus, which had been driven back a pace, sprang forward
again, once more pressing him to his chair.
Somewhere in the distance a dog howled dolefully. It awakened him
from his lethargy. Subconsciously he knew that it foretold the death
of someone. Was he to be the victim? Like a man in a dream, he threw
his arms about. His twitching fingers came in contact with something
cold and hard. A thrill went through his benumbed body. It was his gun
snugly tucked away in the open drawer of his desk.
His fingers clutched the weapon spasmodically. He felt the thing that
was smothering him shrink away. With a tremendous effort of will, he
drew the weapon from the drawer, pressed it protectingly to his breast.
Again the loathsome spirit form shrank back.
His breath was returning to him now. And with the fresh night air came
realization. He remembered that elementals fear the touch of iron;
the steel from which the gun was made had been manufactured from this
element.
He thrust the weapon forward until it touched the horrible monstrosity
pressing him down--passed through its vaporish body. It squeaked like a
cornered rat as it darted away.
Then it slowly floated out through the open window, leaving him gasping
and panting....
_4. Exorcism_
Consciousness returned to Doctor Lamontaine slowly. For a few moments
he lay in a daze trying to recollect what had happened. He opened his
eyes. The first gray of dawn was breaking in the east. He straightened
up, almost over-turning the chair in which he was still sitting.
He wondered if it had all been a dream. The sight of the gun lying on
the floor beside the chair told him that such was not the case. His
throat and lungs ached; the pressure on his windpipe had been such
that breathing was still difficult. He leaned across the desk, and
picking up the rum-jug, managed to pour himself a drink. The potion
strengthened him. He staggered back to the living-quarters in the rear
of the house and brewed himself a pot of strong coffee. Mixing rum with
the black coffee, he gulped down several cupfuls. Feeling better, he
returned to his little office and, filling and lighting his pipe, sat
down to think the problem out.
Bit by bit the happenings of the night were coming back to him.
Somewhere in the hidden fastness of the fetid swamp the man who called
himself Aaron Kronk had his habitat. From this hiding-place he was
directing the campaign which was rapidly laying waste the little hamlet
of La Foubelle and which would, unless speedily checked, make of it
another deserted village. In the red-headed physician he had recognized
the only barrier in his way; therefore he had set upon Lamontaine the
dreadful thing that his sorcery had conjured from behind the veil. His
hypnotic power had paved the way for the monstrosity's attack. Only the
chance finding of the gun with its content of iron had kept him from
glutting his vengeance to the full.
Why? Lamontaine believed that he knew the reason and could bring the
orgy of horror to a stop. It was a question of obtaining the evidence.
Little use to search for Kronk in the midst of the swamp. It was filled
with tiny islets and oases where a man might hide for weeks without
being found. No, there were other ways of laying the fiend by the heels.
The red-haired physician's battered car was in the shed at the rear of
the house. Scribbling a hasty note to Le Front, telling him that he
had been called away for the day, he hurried out and climbed painfully
beneath the wheel. Five minutes later the little village lay behind him
and he was on his way to New Orleans.
It was late in the evening when he returned. Instead of stopping at
his own home, he skirted the village, coming in from the opposite
direction. The streets were deserted, with only an occasional light
showing in the windows behind which the afflicted lay fighting their
battle for life. He drove straight to the little cottage of the
schoolmaster and, parking his car in the rear, hastened inside.
Le Front was there. The dominie looked up at the newcomer with feverish
eyes in which there was no light of recognition. Lamontaine hastily
mixed him a sleeping-potion, then turned to the constable.
"Worse," he said non-committally.
Le Front nodded.
"I theenk zat devil weel come for heem tonight," he answered, crossing
himself hastily.
Lamontaine gave him his instructions. He made several trips to the car,
returning each time bending under the weight of many packages. Laying
them on the floor, he turned to the physician.
"You are determin' to see thees theeng through?" he asked.
Lamontaine nodded.
Le Front turned and, without a single backward glance, hurried out of
the house like a man laboring under a great fright.
* * * * *
Turning the kerosene lamp down low, Lamontaine busied himself in the
semi-darkness with the packages that Le Front had carried in from the
car. Most of them contained long strips of iron rolled as thin as
tin. Using a small tack-hammer, he nailed them over all the doors and
windows except one. He took great precautions to see that all the holes
were covered, not even a keyhole being left open. The window that he
did not close, he stripped with iron so that when it was pulled down,
the strips protruded over the edges.
His task completed, he opened the window again and, leaving the lamp
turned low, settled down to his lonely vigil. In his hand was a small
pentagon made of iron, attached to a handle. This was his only weapon.
The sick man on the bed breathed heavily, the result of the
sleeping-potion Lamontaine had given him. The physician was weary after
what he had gone through the night before and the activities of the
day; yet he did not sleep.
Then that for which he had been waiting made its appearance.
Lamontaine drew a quick breath. There had been no sound, yet its
dim shadow was easily discernible as it lurked for a moment in the
darkness. The big physician, his eyes apparently closed, watched it
with a queer, tingling sensation creeping up and down his backbone as
it waited, seemingly planning its attack.
It finally drew itself slowly through the window, a cloud-like,
shapeless monstrosity, almost formless, yet having the general outlines
of a human being. It was horrible, grotesque, diabolical.
For a moment it floated in midair as if debating which of the two men
to attack. Then, its mind--if mind it had--made up, it settled down
over the bed where the little schoolmaster lay.
Lamontaine's hand moved slowly to the window. He was about to pull it
down....
From outside came a muffled report. Lamontaine slid slowly from the
chair as a bullet grazed his head.
The window crashed shut. The automatic latch clicked. He was locked
inside the room, unconscious, with the sick man and the horrible thing
from the beyond, caught in the trap of his own making.
The monstrosity hovered, bat-like, over the form of the little dominie
for an instant. Then it settled like a malignant miasma. Its vaporish
arms wrapped themselves about the sick man; its cruel slash of a mouth
was pressed against the lips of its victim. Sleeping though he was,
his senses dulled by the potion Lamontaine had given him, Pelletier,
nevertheless, groaned in agony. Lamontaine, who had tasted the power
of the hellish thing and lived, alone knew the torture the other's
stupefied body was undergoing. He was dizzy from his own injury, his
head spinning like a gyroscope. Yet he managed to drag himself to his
feet, the handle of the pentagon in his hand.
It took him a moment to see things clearly--to make out the outlines
of the diabolical creature crouched upon the dominie's breast. Then
something within his brain exploded like a bomb. He charged forward,
roaring angrily.
The spirit form squealed like a cornered rat as the cold iron touched
its vaporish body. Then it whirled away, turning on Lamontaine, its
serpentine arms stretched forward like tentacles.
Lamontaine dodged around the bed, the pentagon extended like a
sword. For a moment the creature crouched close to the floor, its
smudgy, shapeless face turned toward its attacker. Every detail of
its exaggerated deformity was brought out in bold relief. Its dead,
slate-like eyes glared malevolently. Its incredibly horrible mouth
snapped like that of an angry cuttle-fish.
Lamontaine charged again. The thing dodged toward the window through
which it had entered, only to bound back again with a squeal of fright
as it came in contact with the iron bands. It twisted in midair like a
vortex and bounded toward Lamontaine. The big man held it off with the
pentagon. It floated through the air with incredible speed, touching
the form on the bed again as if loth to be cheated of its victim. But
once more Lamontaine warded it off with his exorcistical pentagon. It
squealed wildly and darted away again.
Little by little, he drove it into a distant corner. It dodged from
side to side, but the five-sided iron emblem always stood in its way.
It shrieked like a cornered rat....
Suddenly it changed tactics. Leaping high into the air, it crashed
against the ceiling and bounded back upon the bed. Its long, spiderish
legs wrapped themselves about the body of its victim again. In spite of
his stupor, the sick man shrieked with misery as the monstrosity strove
to lap the last of his vitality. Its slit of a mouth was pressed close
to the face of the dying man. One attenuated arm was twisted about
the frail body. The other was stretched forth in an effort to seize
Lamontaine. It succeeded ... the big physician felt himself jerked
through the air.
He swung the pentagon forward. The weight of the physician's body as he
was thrown through the air worked to the undoing of the monstrosity.
The iron pentagon pierced the vaporish body--went through it and
touched against the bared breast of the man on the bed.
The wraith-like form faded into nothingness. All that was left was the
horrible, stifling odor of diabolical hatred....
Upon the white flesh of the dominie's breast was a five-sided mark
where the pentagon had touched....
Lamontaine whirled as he heard the crash of glass. The shade was pushed
aside, and through the opening peered a saturnine countenance, the
sunken eyes gleaming with malevolence. In the claw-like fingers was a
revolver.
The physician threw himself sideways as the gun crashed. The bullet
missed him by the fraction of an inch. He brought the iron pentagon
down across the wrist of the other with a wild, over-hand blow.
Aaron Kronk uttered a scream of rage as the weapon dropped from his
fingers. He leaped away from the window, his broken arm hanging
uselessly by his side. Turning, he raced madly in the direction of the
swamp.
A second report split the darkness as Constable Pierre Le Front, lying
in ambush in accordance with Lamontaine's orders, fired. Kronk's
cadaverous form crashed to the ground. He rolled over and over, then
lay still.
Le Front ran forward. Bending over the crumpled form of his victim, he
strove to gaze into the twisted face. The other's long arm reached out
and, seizing him by the ankle, gave a sudden jerk. He went down like a
log, his weapon exploding harmlessly in the air, all the wind knocked
from his body.
Kronk bounded to his feet like a rubber ball. Then, kicking the weapon
from the unconscious man's hand, he charged through the long, dank
grass that lined the edge of the swamp.
_5. Denouement_
Lamontaine, climbing through the broken window, saw what had happened
and increased his speed. As he reached Le Front, the little constable
pulled himself to a sitting position and reached for the gun on the
ground. Lamontaine seized it and emptied its contents after the fleeing
man.
Kronk chuckled derisively as he leaped into his boat and pushed it out
into the blackness of the swamp.
Lamontaine returned to the house, the crestfallen little constable at
his heels. Hastily mixing a potion, he raised the sick man's head and
forced a few drops between his lips. Pelletier stirred weakly, then
opened his eyes.
"Did it--come?" he asked finally.
Lamontaine nodded.
The dominie winced as he straightened himself in bed.
"_Mon Dieu!_" he gasped. "My entire body aches." Then he noticed for
the first time the mark of the pentagon on his breast. "That?" he
exclaimed, "What is it?"
"The brand of a man who was willing to go through hell for the sake of
the woman he loved," Lamontaine answered. "Your worries are over, my
friend. Evelyn l'Brest will live--to make you a good wife. The horror
is ended.
* * * * *
"It is easily explained, once we understand," Lamontaine said
enigmatically, stretching forth his hand for the rum-jug and filling
the battered cup. He waited until the constable had poured a libation.
The two men touched cups silently and drank.
"You gave me the idea," he continued. "In N'Orleans today I confirmed
my suspicion. A man answering the description of Kronk has secured
title to the whole of the swamp. It is wanted for a paddy by the rice
corporation. Kronk--or Koshier, as he is known there--stands to make a
cool million if the swamp can be drained.
"Unfortunately--for him--the natural watercourse leads through the
site of the village and thence to the creek which empties into the
peninsula. There is no other way. It was necessary, therefore, for him
to get rid of the village. But you La Foubellites are stubborn and
superstitious. You would never leave your homes, nor sell them, knowing
that the dead in your cemetery would be disturbed----"
"_Tout au contraire!_" Le Front interrupted excitedly.
"Exactly. Therefore he took this method of frightening you to a point
where you would leave your homes."
Le Front scratched his grizzled head wonderingly.
"Eet does not seem possible," he said. "I can scarcely believe it."
Lamontaine massaged his bruised throat tenderly.
"Perhaps it was all a bad dream," he said with a wry grin. "Kronk is a
mesmerist of ability. Maybe we were all hypnotized _en masse_."
He jerked his thumb toward the rum-jug.
"Drink?" he queried. "Rum. Good Jamaica rum. Good liquor hurts nobody."
The parrot opened its filmy eyes and gazed at its master languidly.
"_Rum!_" it croaked. "_Good Jamaica rum! Hotter'n hell! Hotter'n hell!_"
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