Crawling Madness by Arthur Leo Zagat

Author:Arthur Leo Zagat [Zagat, Arthur Leo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2013-07-27T22:00:00+00:00

* * * * *

SOMEONE was shaking her. Someone was whispering, "Mrs. Travers. Mrs. Travers. Wake up."

Someone was bending over her. Ann's eyes came open, and she saw Kane's narrow face in the moonlight, its lips writhing. Somehow she was on her feet. Bone crunched under her heel, but she did not notice it. Her hands shot out, gripped the lapels of Kane's coat.

"Where is Bob?" she shrilled. "What have you done with him?"

Strong fingers clutched her wrists, tore them away. "Come out of here," Kane said. "Quickly."

A howl sliced across the words, a howl of animal threat. Arms went around her and lifted her, cradled her. The man was running, breathing hard, was plunging through the vague moonlight that glowed around them. Ann twisted around in the arms that carried her, saw Kane's face above her, sharper, more Satanic than ever as its eyes slitted dangerously, as lips curled away from dull-white, huge teeth in a narrow mouth.

She beat at his breast with futile thrusts. "Where's Bob?"

He carried her across the silvered desert, carried her toward the black bulk of the barracks. "I don't—know," he gritted. "I don't know."

Ann squirmed, fighting to get free. The grip of his arms was unrelenting, inescapable. "You lie," she spat at him. "What have you done with him?"

"I'm not lying," the man grunted. "He wasn't there when I found the wreck. He was gone."

Fury was a red flame swirling in Ann's brain. "You lie," she screeched again. "You've got him somewhere in there, somewhere in Deadhope. I saw your flivver pass the house and I saw him in it."

"My—flivver?" The nostrils of his tremendous hooked nose flared, and white spots showed in the thin-drawn skin on either side of it. "Not mine. I have no flivver. "Look, this is my car."

They had reached the entrance to the barracks. A car puffed before it, the engine running. It was an old Dodge sedan! A Dodge? A sedan! But the car Ann had seen dart past and vanish into the barred shadows of the ghost town had been a Model T. It had been a touring car in which Kane had brought back Bob's horribly limp body...

Wait! She had not seen the driver clearly. Was it Kane? She could not be certain. Oh, God! She was not certain it had been Kane.

"He was gone when I got there," Haldon Kane said again. Ann had ceased struggling. He set her down. But he had to support her as they took the few further steps to the barracks door, so weak she was from exhaustion, from terror and wild anxiety. "I found the overturned roadster, the cushions by its side on which he had lain. But no one. No one living..."

There was a curious emphasis on the last word. Ann twisted to him. "Living! Then there was..."

A veil dropped across the glitter of his eyes. His free hand made a curious gesture, as if he were pushing something away from him, something revolting. "Never mind that." His lips seemed to move not at all.

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