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- Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Serie: Wonder Stories
- Sprache: Englisch
In Mistress of the Beast by Arthur Leo Zagat, a terrifying force of darkness lurks in the heart of a forgotten castle, where a cursed woman wields power over an unspeakable creature. As desperate villagers seek help to end the terror that grips their land, a brave but conflicted hero must confront the sorceress and her monstrous servant. In this thrilling tale of dark magic, twisted love, and monstrous secrets, every shadow holds a new danger. Readers who crave intense adventure, gothic mystery, and a touch of the supernatural will find themselves hooked from the first page.
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Seitenzahl: 35
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
Mistress of the Beast
I. — DEAD HOG HUMMOCK
II. — THE MOVING SHADOW
III. — "I WANT THE BOY"
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Mistress of the Beast
Were all those mad happenings but a nightmare born of young Stan Dunn's fever-ridden brain? Or did the evil woman of the fog indeed come up from the greedy swamp—to trap him and his companions with their own lust, and drag them back to horror inconceivable?
I. — DEAD HOG HUMMOCK
THE four of us were specters stalking forever through the fog that rolled greyly over the endless swamp, hiding it but not concealing its terror. Now we were four—but we had been five, when dawn had waked us to the discovery that the Mihitchee's sluggish spread was overnight a raging torrent, our flatboats carried off, our only escape through the treacherous reaches of Tallahawn Swamp. Back there, somewhere, Mike Train—freckle-faced, grinning Mike—had slipped off the slimed causeway we followed. He had been the last in file and the first we had known of his misadventure had been his one choked cry. We had heard him splash into the heaving muck, had heard his futile struggles, his screams that at the last had been squeals blubbing through the muck. And we had stood helpless, utterly unable to aid him. Unable to see him, even, underneath the slimy roil of the fog.
We were four hopeless men slogging eternally through the blinding mist. Grief marched with us, and hunger, and fear.
Jim Bradford, our leader, had sworn that this path led through the swamp to safety. He should have known. All his life he had lived on its edge. But what little light there had been was draining out of the fog till it was dully leaden—and still the swamp was on either side of us, and still underfoot was the ooze, slippery, yielding, sucking at each step as though loath to release it.
Was the path circling, eternally circling, through the noisome morass? Were we doomed forever to plod through this unreal, woolly mist in which nameless things bulked, baleful, inimical... There was one now, a vast loom ahead, pouncing!
Jim Bradford shouted wordless warning. Then there was Doc Warner's thin pipe, "Thank God!"
The path lifted under my feet. Leaves rustled. Bill Curtin, shoving his fat bulk forward, pushed me ahead of him and my head came up out of the mist.
Cypresses towered, dark and forbidding, and long grey tendrils of Spanish Moss swung from live-oaks silhouetted against a drab sky fast darkening to night. My heart pounded as I stared around me wide eyed, and I choked back a sob. We were out of the swamp. We were on high, dry ground. There was no more fog. We were saved. Saved!
I wanted to shout in jubilation, but the others were strangely quiet. Bradford peered about, his forehead creased, and I caught a swift glance that passed between him and Doc, carrying a furtive message I could not quite intercept. Even in that moment Warner struck me as ludicrous, his pointed Vandyke bedraggled, dripping, his sharp face flabby, stripped completely of its pompous, little-man's dignity. He was ludicrous, till I saw the dread lurking in his little eyes.
"Where are we, Jim?" Bill Curtin asked. Some apprehension made his deep voice tight. His dew-lapped countenance was no longer red; the broad expanse of his leather jerkin was wetted almost black, and tiny drops powdered his bald spot that was like a monk's tonsure fringed by sparse, russet hair. "Where is this?"
"I'm not sure," came the slow, musing response. "I'm not quite sure. But I think it's what they call Dead Hog Hummock."
Dead Hog Hummock! Why did that name thud on my ears with odd menace? Hadn't Dad told me once...
"Good Lord!" Curtin groaned. "Then we aren't out of the swamp at all!"
