return and set fire to the mattress.”
I pulled out the gag. She had to clear her throat several times before words would come through. “In that dresser—a bunch of keys. One for the chains—another unlocks the room—across the way—a gunroom. It’s the truth. Please, don’t—don’t torture me again.”
“So you can’t take it yourself!” I said, replacing the gag.
The bunch of keys were in the dresser drawer all right. I had to take the chance that they were the right ones. I stood over her and pointed to each key in turn. She nodded when I indicated the one for the chains and the one for the gunroom.
This time she hadn’t dared to lie. No sound came through the door of the room across the hall. The key worked and I found myself in a cozily furnished den. Stuffed animals and fish were on the walls and on a rack were a dozen hunting rifles and shotguns. I selected five rifles, found cartridges to fit, and, burdened with the guns, went downstairs.
All the servants were occupied with the women. In the torture chamber I found the four men still in their chains and the horrible corpse of Inez Spaulding dangling from the ceiling. The men, knowing what was happening to their wives upstairs, seemed more dead than alive.
For a while they refused to believe the testimony of their eyes. But when I at last had them all free and was distributing the rifles, their expressions changed from hopeless to relentless thirst for vengeance.
“God, I want just one shot at them!” Victor Rooney exclaimed, stating what all of us felt. “Hurry!” Frank Bord urged. “Our poor wives up there!”
We had to leave Rob Spaulding behind, because he would be no use to us. He crawled over to the dangling corpse of his wife and jabbered up at it. He was utterly mad.
I led the way to the upstairs room and kicked in the door. The other three crowded behind me, and momentarily we froze with horror.
* * * *
The four huge creatures were on the floor, each with one of our wives. In order to whet their bestial appetites they were toying with them, slobbering over their quivering bodies. And the women were still going through the futile motions of struggling, so that I knew, with a lifting of my heart, that we had not arrived too late.
Emil was with my wife, and it was he who first became aware of our presence. Bellowing, he rose to his feet and charged at me like an enraged bull. I was ready and put a bullet in his massive chest before he was halfway across the room. And still he came on!
We had prepared our strategy while coming up the stairs. I slid away from the doorway and Cuyler took my place. His bullet dropped Emil. Then Rooney was in the doorway, his gun ready.
The servants were unarmed, and as they plunged toward the door one of us was always there to meet him with a bullet. By the time four bullets had been fired, it was again my turn at the door. In the interim I had reloaded my rifle. Two were dead and one wounded. The fourth, Wick, was crouching behind Lillian Bord, using her as a shield.
Our tactic had been calculated to keep our wives out of the line of our bullets. I dropped the wounded servant, then we advanced into the room. Wick screeched as we moved around his living shield. Then he reared up and got his mighty hands on Bord. He would have snapped Bord’s head like a twig if Rooney hadn’t jabbed the bore of his rifle up under Wick’s chin and blasted away. The discharge almost lifted the monster’s head off.
Each of us went hysterical then, snatching up his wife and crushing her to him. Suddenly Frank Bord cried out.
Naked, Tala Mag stood in the doorway. She had managed to free herself. In her hands was a double-barreled shotgun. Her face was contorted with hate.
We had dropped our rifles. Both barrels of that shotgun could do frightful damage in the confines of the room. The final triumph, was, after all, Tala Mag’s.
Her lips curled back over pointed white teeth. Her finger tightened on the trigger.
We did not notice the shape that loomed up behind her. We saw only an arm whip about her neck and yank her backwards. The gun thundered; the discharge tore into the ceiling. And then Tala Mag was on the floor, thrashing in the grip of Bob Spaulding.
He had come up after all, and now he was repaying, to some measure, for the horrible death of his wife. We did not interfere. I doubt if all of us could have torn away the hands of the madman from Tala Mag’s throat.
Her face turned blue. The thrashing of her body ceased. And still Bob Spaulding held on.
In the end we had to pull him away from the dead woman. He struggled with us, raving that he wanted to tear Tala Mag’s body apart, but at last we quieted him and led him downstairs.
Our wives waited out on the terrace while we went for the last time into the torture chamber and took down Inez Spaulding’s body and gathered up the clothing. While the women dressed we found the switches which controlled the ponderous gates. Then silently we got into our cars and drove away in the night from that living hell.
THE SHRIEKING POOL, by G. T. Fleming-Roberts
Staring at the crooked cross of a sign that marked the fork in the road, an unaccountable shudder rippled along Corrin’s spine. It was a very unprepossessing sign, all mottled where old white paint had peeled off. One arm of the cross pointed out that three miles to the east lay Ottville. The other arm; pointing in the opposite direction, carried the words, “To Black Pool.”
When he had asked the old wattle-necked farmer, who ran the roadside filling station, the way to Black Pool, the soul had dropped out of the old man’s eyes. Nor would a ten dollar bill buy the desired information. “Ef you get there, young feller,” he had said, “you get there because the Devil hisself guided you. I ain’t hankerin’ for to have your blood on my hands by tellin’ you how to get there!”
And Larry remembered the incoherent note that Dean Wile, owner of Black Pool Lodge, had sent him:
Black Pool has fallen into ill repute. It is thought to have an insatiable appetite for human flesh. But if you’re willing to gamble on getting a story for your paper, we’d be glad to have you join us for the week-end. Frankly, we need your help. I can’t tell you anything more without giving you the impression that I am a little unbalanced.
And the trip along the Ottville road had been anything but pleasant. A pall of black sky had draped the dying sun; night was born too soon. Pale lightning reveled thunderously around the horizon. Little breezes that wandered above the waste land, stirred the frail, plumose pines, brought exotic, unpleasant perfumes from the moldering swamp that lay hidden in the shadows.
There was a vague, unfamiliar quality in the gathering darkness that no searchlight could dispel.
Then the forks in the Ottville road came in the most unexpected places. The last one had resulted in the bogging of his car. He had proceeded on foot, stumbled across the wreck of a sign that pointed out his destination. But instead of that sense of relief that normally follows the completion of a tiresome journey, Larry Corrin felt an inexplicable dread. Black Pool! An insatiable appetite for human flesh!
To the west, the road mounted slowly to higher and consequently drier ground; the trees became more vigorous, hedging in the road until it was scarcely more than a path. Parting a veritable curtain of vines, Larry came suddenly upon Black Pool. Instantly he recalled how Dean Wile had described it: “A jewel in the hand of a Titan.”
