The life-eater
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.
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.