Erhalten Sie Zugang zu diesem und mehr als 300000 Büchern ab EUR 5,99 monatlich.
- Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Serie: Terror Tales
- Sprache: Englisch
Chains of the Living Dead by Arthur Leo Zagat is a spine-chilling journey into the realm of supernatural horror and suspense. When a remote village is plagued by a series of gruesome deaths, the locals whisper of an ancient curse and the return of the living dead. As terror grips the community, a skeptical investigator arrives to uncover the truth behind the chains that bind the restless souls. What he finds is a web of dark rituals, unholy alliances, and a horrifying force that defies explanation. Will he break the chains of the living dead and save the village, or will he become another victim of the malevolent curse? Brace yourself for a thrilling ride through the darkest corners of horror.
Sie lesen das E-Book in den Legimi-Apps auf:
Seitenzahl: 92
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Das E-Book (TTS) können Sie hören im Abo „Legimi Premium” in Legimi-Apps auf:
Ähnliche
Table of Contents
Chains of the Living Dead
I. — HOME INVASION
II. — TERROR THAT WALKED BY NIGHT!
III. — HANDPRINTS OF HORROR
IV. — TRAIL OF DESPAIR
V. — TEMPLE OF TORMENT
VI. SLAVES OF MADNESS
Landmarks
Table of Contents
Cover
Chains of the Living Dead
I. — HOME INVASION
LAURA STANDISH blurted out her husband's name before she was fully awake. "Frank!" But there was no answer. Even before she realized just what it was that had awakened her, a chill, little quiver of dread brushed her spine.
The fire on the hearth, before which she had fallen asleep, was low and there was no other light in the huge, dark-ceilinged parlor. Good Lord! It was already night and Frank wasn't back yet! He was to have been gone only an hour, ample time to go down the hill to the General Store in the village and get some food for supper. She had been too tired after their long trip from the city to go with him, and he had seemed worried about leaving her here alone. Something must have...
A sound at the door brought Laura startled to her feet. He was here at last! Returning circulation needled her cramped legs so that she could not move. Frank had a key, but...
The rasp of flesh against wood, out there in the gloomy foyer, was somehow furtive. Heat beat out from the glowing logs in the fireplace, yet Laura shivered with queasy cold. Suddenly she knew it was the very stealthiness of that groping hand—the menace implicit in its quietness—that had awakened her. And suddenly, she knew also that she was afraid.
Someone was trying to get in! And it was not Frank! For a moment, panic swept over her, and she cowered back against the fireplace, so close that the hem of her dress began to scorch. She was alone in this musty, old country house, and the deep pine woods separated her by a good mile from the village. From any ordinary prowler, she was comparatively safe. Frank had insisted on making sure, before he went, that all windows were safely locked. He had made her promise to shoot home the two heavy bolts on the big, front door.
But there was something eerie about the way whatever it was outside fumbled at the barrier, a strange quality of blindness, of mindlessness. If only Frank was here, with his capable shoulders and easy confident smile! But he was gone, had been, for hours. Overwhelming dread seized Laura Standish as she listened to the aimless groping, the queer slithering sounds, along the stout pine of the door.
Had the Thing outside caught Frank unawares as he was hurrying back to her? Was his dear body even now a cold and mutilated corpse somewhere in the depths of the woods? Did the intruder know that she was alone, a helpless, unprotected, lovely morsel?
She fought herself back to a semblance of sanity. She must not think such thoughts! She forced her trembling voice into just the right mold of casual inquiry. Perhaps, if the prowler knew she were not afraid, if he thought there were others with her in the house...
"Who is there?" she called.
Still there was no answer. The latch! Oh God, the latch! It was rising in its cradle, slowly, with infinite stealth. She stared at its inexorable movement with eyes that were frozen with terror. A new sound came—a snuffling, whining eagerness. It held no human quality in its muffled breathing; it was more like the whimper of an animal to whom human doors are insoluble puzzles.
Laura exhaled slowly. She had forgotten; the bolts in their sockets would hold. The Thing outside seemed to realize that too. The whimper became an angry snarl that pierced the double thickness of the porch. Then silence reigned for an instant, silence during which Laura, still backed against the fire, felt the blood pound madly in her veins. Had the snuffling monster given up the attempt, gone away to its lair?
CR-R-RASH! The heavy door quivered and bent inward. The stout iron bolts strained against their sockets. A screw started from its spiral bed, and sawdust fell in a tiny cloud to the floor.
Smash! Crack! Crash!
Again and again came the terrific thumps. The great, pine door groaned and sagged under the impact of the repeated blows. Each thud was a sledgehammer smashing home against Laura's skull. She could not move, she could not breathe in her terror. No human being could break down that heavy, reinforced barrier. Slam! Her stiffened lips worked soundlessly. A screw, inches long, clattered to the floor. One iron socket dangled uselessly on the precarious thread of a single fastening.
A choked scream tore at her throat "Help! Frank! Help!" she cried in an agony of fear. Then dreadful realization clamored in her brain, sagged her limbs to a feral crouch. Frank, her husband, could not hear. Perhaps never again would he?!
She glared around with mounting madness. There was no hope, no escape for her. It was a small, summer cabin they had rented for the season, intent only on primitive seclusion and the cozy warmth of the two together alone. The ground floor was all one room—a timbered parlor with a gigantic native-stone fireplace for its kitchen. Overhead were two bedrooms, now empty and forlorn. There was no rear door through which she could flee, and her fingers twisting frantically at the window latches would bring the mysterious attacker down upon her.
Thick, ominous silence succeeded the smash of a heavy body against a weakening portal. The Thing had heard her cry for help, was waiting stealthily, flesh flattened against the rough pine. She could hear the slobbering wheeze of its breath, the whimpering sound in its throat.
Oh God! What dreadful monster was crouching out there, waiting for her to cry out again, resting before the final attempt that would bring the door and hinges and all crashing to the ground?
In the very extremity of her fear, Laura found new strength. She must see what it was that had come out of the night, that sought terrible entrance into the lonely cabin. She must see—before it was too late. Her limbs were no longer part of her. They moved her away from the dull-red embers of the hearth, across a long, interminable expanse of flooring, where the shadows ebbed and flowed with each flicker of the dying flames, toward the thick-curtained window that gave on the porch. One dreadful thought swelled and swelled inside her skull until the thin bone ached and reeled under its impact.
Why was the attacker slamming with unhuman strength against the door; why had he not forced an easier entrance through a window?
She shrank desperately from the sinister implications of that thought; she spewed it out like an unclean thing. Outside, the whimper grew to an eager, slavering whine. It had heard her slow, tortured progress across the floor. It was waiting for her to open the door!
The thought rocked her consciousness, made her senses reel and swim. She tore at the heavy stuff of the curtain with terror-strong hands. It swung back to disclose a long, narrow panel of corpse-white luminance. A cold, dead moon struggled to pierce the dense, black shadows of the pines, the taller gloom of the hemlocks. A little beyond, where the old lumber road bent in an arc past the house, the victorious beams bunched in an irregular patch of leprous white.
But Laura saw only the crouching Thing on the porch. It was flattened against the tottering door as if it were listening, waiting. A slanting dart of moonlight spread shudderingly over its massive frame, bathed it in an eerie glow that paralyzed her limbs, exploded red horror in her brain.
And as if it had heard the moan that tore involuntarily from her pallid lips, the monster sprang away from the door, turned its head.
For one, long, terrible moment their eyes met, locked. Dear God, it was a man! But a man such as Laura had never seen before. No light of human reason showed in those glaring eyeballs, or softened the bestial madness of that ape-like face. Yellow froth dripped from the corners of the slobbering mouth, and the thick spume gurgled audibly in the throat. Worn, tattered pants and an even more tattered shirt of indistinguishable hue covered the barrel-thickness of the body. Long, hairy arms dangled almost to the ground.
Laura tried to shrink back, but could not. Her hand gripped the curtain as if glued. Her muscles were beyond control. She knew now that the man outside was mad; stark, irretrievably mad. Prayers, pleas for mercy, could not penetrate that distorted brain. She was beyond all help, all human aid.
The madman whirled on bare, misshapen feet like a cat. His right hand, hidden in the shadows, swung into view. Great God in Heaven! The moon glinted with unholy glee on a broad band of greyish metal that encircled his powerful wrist, and sprayed in a shower of frozen light on the chain that dangled therefrom. The last link showed jagged, broken edges of metal where it had been snapped in two.
Laura felt herself fainting, yet she did not fall. She tried to tear her hand away from the revealing curtain, to run madly, anywhere, away from that awful sight. But a nightmare paralysis held her in icy embrace. The madman had been chained, like a wild beast, like a slave! He had broken away with superhuman strength to roam the wild woods, to find her, a hapless victim for his maniacal will!
The creature thrust his manacled hand toward the window in a strange gesture. The links rattled hideously. He opened his thick lips and a curious whimpering, like that of a beaten dog, spewed from his mouth. As if—almost as if he were imploring her to open the door, to let him in.
Terror flared in Laura's eyes. She dared not, she must not. It was the cunning born of a diseased mind, luring her to destruction. The maniac seemed to sense her loathing, to read her great fear aright. A change came over his bestial face. His lips snarled back to show yellowed teeth; he lunged against the already battered portal. There was a great rending sound. The loosened bolt flew with a doomful thud to the floor. Only one shaky bolt remained between her and his raging lust.
