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- Herausgeber: Al-Mashreq eBookstore
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Serie: Terror Tales
- Sprache: Englisch
The Man Who Would Not Die by Arthur Leo Zagat is an electrifying thriller that delves into the realms of the inexplicable and the extraordinary. When a renowned scientist develops a revolutionary method to defy death, he becomes the target of sinister forces eager to exploit his discovery. As the scientist battles against time and invisible enemies, he must uncover the truth behind a series of shocking events that threaten not only his life but the future of humanity. With each revelation more startling than the last, the question remains: Can he survive the forces determined to make him their ultimate weapon, or will his quest for immortality lead to his undoing? Dive into this gripping narrative where science meets suspense in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
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Seitenzahl: 49
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Table of Contents
The Man Who Would Not Die
I. — THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE!
II. — WICKED, WATCHING EYES
III. — THE TALISMAN OF DREAD
IV. — THIS DREADFUL HOUSE
V. — THE PYRE PREPARED
Landmarks
Table of Contents
Cover
The Man Who Would Not Die
I. — THE MAN WHO WOULD NOT DIE!
BLUE flames flickered above the coal on the stone-framed hearth, blue phantoms of fire that threw no light into the vague tunnel of the long room. Even their warmth was cheerless, and their dull mutter ominous, as though brooding fear had found expression in the low crackle of the fire. There was no other sound, except the whispered rattle of a pulled-down window shade, whispering to the uncontrollable quiver of a slim hand that gripped its edge.
The woman whose white fingers crumpled the hem of the blind, pulling it away from the glass minutely to make a slit for her to peer through fearfully, was a taut, pale blur against the broader, vertical shadow of the window's embrasure. The man just behind her, shrouded in gloom so that only the glimmer of his white shirt-front and the pallid oval of his blunt-jawed face were visible; ached to take her slender, maturely rounded form in his arms—to cover her lips with kisses—although his scalp was a cap squeezing his skull and his spine was an icy shiver. But instead, his hand tightened on the rough butt of an automatic in the pocket of his dinner jacket; his ears strained for some hint of approaching menace.
Outside, the long slope of the hill was a boundaryless down-sweep of soft luminousness into which great white snowflakes were endlessly falling out of the night. They came down in hushed myriads, silent as Death, implacable as Time, fluttering straight down in slow haste, merging with those that had fallen before till the blanched field seemed to lift visibly, inch by inch—a rising tide of soundless doom.
But it was not the snow of which the two watchers were afraid. Not the chill smooth snow, blanketing the brown earth. The woman whimpered, far back in her throat. The man stirred, laid a hand on her bare, cold arm. "Come, dear, this is foolish. Even if you were right, he won't come tonight. No one could get here from the valley. The snow must be six feet deep by now and..."
She didn't move, but her vibrant contralto voice, tight-cadenced with the fight she was making for control, cut across his speech. "He will come. Tonight. And—and then—God help us."
"Good Lord, Miriam!" the other was suddenly gruff. "That's impossible!" The harshness of his voice rose to shrillness. "You identified his body yourself—what was left of it when they put the fire out and pulled, it out of the wrecked train."
She whirled at that, half-crouching with virulence, and her response was staccato, bitter. "Yes, I said it was he. The watch was his, and the scarf-pin. That charred, blackened thing wasn't even human, but I was sure it was his corpse. I..."
"There you are. A woman couldn't be mistaken after she had been married to a man for five years..."
"Not if he were an ordinary man, but you know what he could do to himself. The critics called him the greatest artist in make-up ever born. I am not sure that I ever saw him as he really was."
"That's more nonsense. His screen-stuff—"
"Was nothing to what he did at home. I sometimes thought that the parts he played, the monsters and madmen, had warped his soul till he became like them. He used his skill to torture me, to try and drive me insane. He came into my room once, as a bent old man, with eyes sunk in a cadaverous, leprous face—with long-nailed claws with which he tore my night clothes from me and—" She stopped, a shudder ran through her. "He was that awful old man, Ned. How do I know that his usual aspect was less of a fraud? How do I know that it wasn't my wild hope of release at last—and the thought of you—that made me certain the corpse they showed me was his?"
"No one escaped from that smoking car. He must have been killed." Ned said it defiantly but his eyes slid to the shade, smoky, still half dubious. "It is impossible that he is still alive."
Miriam seemed to be listening, listening intently for a sound that did not come. Words dripped slowly from her lips. "Then he is dead. But, alive or dead, he has sent me a message that he will be here tonight. And when he does appear—" her voice dropped to a husked whisper, "we shall not know him—until he strikes."
"A message!" Ned jerked out. "You call that a message!" He twisted. A stride of his long legs took him to the center of the room. A lamp switch clicked and light swirled down to lay a cloth of luminousness on a table-top. A tiny object seemed to gather the light into itself, tinting it yellow—a semi-circle of gold, half of a broken ring. The man glowered down at it as if it were something vile, something beyond the pale. "That piece of junk!"
