Horror Stories May 1940 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Pulp, Horreur
Publisher: Popular Publications
Published: 1940-05-09T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO

Introduction to Horror

F

OR one awful moment Leah imagined that it was a human body convulsed in a position of unendurable agony. Then she saw that it was a life-sized porcelain statue of such perfect craftsmanship that even her professional gaze had been deceived.

When she stood over the figure, she gave another start. Clara Craig had posed for it; and so keen had the eye of the sculptor been for detail that Leah had an uncomfortable sensation that she was actually looking at the nude body of Clara frozen forever in that position. In spite of the translucence of the delicate porcelain, she almost expected to feel flesh as she stretched out a hand. The surface was remarkably smooth and hard to her touch.

Yet the exquisite horror of the statue continued to hold her gaze with a sort of sickening fascination. The kneeling figure was seated on her heels with torso leaning far back from the hips at an impossible angle and head flung backward between the shoulders. The mouth was wide in a wordless scream of pain and the face expressed such suffering as could only be experienced in hell. Indeed, every line and curve and muscle was eloquent of inhuman agony—the full breasts which still gave an effect of quivering, the banded, straining muscles taut under the white skin of thigh and abdomen, the illusion wrought of lights and shadows of flesh crawling with torment.

“You like my statue?”

Darnell Reeg, his stubby body now covered with an artist’s smock, advanced into the room through the open door.

Leah bit her lips. “It’s a masterpiece. And yet so utterly horrible.”

He nodded with satisfaction. “That is what the critics have said. Horror, the handmaid of beauty. Certain critics have pretended to be disgusted, but they could not deny the strange spell of my figure. And, of course, the marvelous workmanship is obvious.”

She kept staring at the statue. Reeg had missed no slightest nuance or overtone of Clara’s voluptuous body. It was all there, the delicate texture of the skin, the strands of her wavy hair falling down behind her from her head, even a nerve caught as it throbbed against the stretched skin of her throat. And especially the agony.

“How could she have held that position?” Leah asked.

“It required only an instant,” Reeg replied.

“But I don’t see how any model could have got herself into that pose. It’s impossible.”

“Not quite,” Reeg said softly.

She faced him, conscious of the return of fear. “Am I expected to assume some such pose?”

“My dear girl, the pose you are to maintain is strictly my concern. You are being paid to model. I am ready to start work. Come with me.”

She followed him out of the room. As she shut the door, she asked: “What has become of Clara Craig who posed for that figure?”

He shrugged: “She was paid—and paid well, I may add—and then departed. I have no personal interest in the girls who work for me.”

He opened another door across the hall and she found herself in a large studio.

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