The Life-Eater

Part 1

The Life-Eater

By HAROLD WARD

A terror-tale of much power, about the frightful wraith from Beyond, which brought panic and death to the little town in the Louisiana swamplands.

1. The Terror

Death stalked through the little village of La Foubelle at the edge of the great swamp. Again and again it struck, fattening the tiny, cypress-draped graveyard until there was scarcely a house that was not in mourning.

No ordinary calamity this, but a horror. Men talked of it in awed, hushed whispers. Women, hollow-eyed and gaunt from worry, pressed their little ones to their flaccid breasts as they busied themselves with their household tasks. The coming of night found the streets deserted, the townspeople huddled, white-faced and frightened, behind closed doors.

"La maladie sans maladie," they called it, this dark, formless, unspeakable terror that always came at night, striking down young and old alike--leaving in its wake a body shriveled and deflated, the skin puckered into a thousand wrinkles. They had seen their loved ones die, had these simple folk of La Foubelle--seen them twist and writhe in excruciating agony at the very last. Sometimes, when the victim was very strong, the thing took toll of him for days.

Jules Delatour, it was, who whimpered of having seen the horror hovering over the body of his dying mother--a black, transparent thing, he babbled, smoke-like and shapeless, its bestial face filled with malignant ferocity. But Jules was the village drunkard and had been in his cups the night his mother passed away, so no one believed his tale.

* * * * *

Doctor Lamontaine, sipping rum from a battered tin cup and poring over a volume of Cagliostro, noted the shadow that fell across the book as a man entered the cubbyhole of an office.

"Drink?" he growled without looking up, and shoved a second cup across the desk. "Rum. Good Jamaica rum. Help yourself."

The green-and-yellow parrot, swinging on its perch at his elbow, opened its filmy eyes and echoed its master's invitation.

"Rum!" it shrieked drowsily. "Good Jamaica rum! Hotter'n hell! Hotter'n hell!"

Lamontaine looked up when his visitor made no response to the double overture. Then he leaped to his feet, his hand outstretched, his eyes smiling a welcome under their bushy red brows.

"The dominie, by all that's holy!" he roared.

He dumped a pile of magazines from a chair, kicked them into the corner, and shoved it to his guest.

"No wonder you refused my invitation to guzzle," he chuckled. "You, the only teetotaler in the village. Sit down, my friend, and take a load off your feet."

The schoolmaster dropped wearily into the proffered seat and gazed at his host curiously.

"Will you never grow up?" he demanded whimsically.

Lamontaine shrugged his shoulders and returned the other's smile with a broad grin.

"I hope not," he chuckled. "The devil of it, dominie, is that I've sipped the nectar from the cup of knowledge and now all that's left for me is the dregs. But come, my friend, what brings you, a sick man, out in the heat of the day? Have I not warned you repeatedly against it?"

The little dominie smiled wanly.

"Evelyn l'Brest was stricken today," he said finally. "She is like--the others...."

There was silence for a moment. Lamontaine wagged his big head sagely; then he drew himself into his shell of professional reserve, for he knew that Noel Pelletier loved this slip of a girl who had been his pupil.

"I have already seen her," he said finally.

"There is nothing that you can do for her?"

Again the physician was silent. Then he arose and took a short turn about the tiny room. Returning to his desk, he dropped back into his seat and, filling the tin cup from the rum-jug at his elbow, he downed the contents at a gulp.

"I have told you before, my friend," he said finally, "that this is a case for a priest and not a physician."

Part 2

The schoolmaster crossed himself.

"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed. "Then you still insist?"

Lamontaine nodded.

"It is a question of exorcism, not physic," he growled. "All night and all this day, when I have had the opportunity, I have pored over my books. I am more convinced now than before. Listen, my friend."

He leaned across the desk and tapped the jumble of books with his long fore-finger.

"There is much knowledge in these," he said quietly, "knowledge that you men with religion in your souls will not admit. Black Magic? Certainly. You say that there is no such thing. I insist that it exists today just as it did in the beginning. True, the church has stamped it out to a large degree. But, nevertheless, there are many isolated cases--places far from the ken of men, such as here in La Foubelle--where it flourishes like the grass after a spring rain. Your people here are superstitious. They have given the devil fertile soil in which to plant his seeds."

"Admitted! Admitted!" the little schoolmaster said excitedly. "Against such ignorance one man can do nothing; a dozen could not handle the situation efficiently. Yet----"

Lamontaine held up a restraining hand.

"Books such as these of mine tell of strange, weird things," he interrupted, "horrible things--things of which the average man never dreams. Our ancestors knew more about spirit life--the life beyond the veil--than we shall ever know. Why? Because they lived closer to it.

"I have traveled in many lands and I have studied in innumerable out-of-the-way places," he went on heatedly, "but never have I seen such a rare opportunity for the devil and his imps as here in La Foubelle. And he has taken advantage of it, dominie. There is a terrible influence at work here--under our very noses."

The schoolmaster crossed himself again.

"Désorienté!" he exclaimed with a shudder. "Do you mean----"

"That there are many things the average man cannot--will not--understand," Lamontaine interrupted. "There are innumerable forms of spirit life--forms that function in various ways. Some of them--most of them, I might say--are kindly disposed toward us. Others are malignant. We have to deal with one of the latter in this case."

He filled and lighted his pipe, the little schoolmaster gazing at him with eyes that betrayed his horror and astonishment.

"Désorienté!" he said again. "You are beyond my depth, my friend. Explain yourself."

Lamontaine scratched his red beard reflectively.

"Primal earth forces," he said shortly, "elementals--spirit forms that have never evolved--subhuman nature spirits. They exist, together with innumerable other spirit forms, on the other side of the veil."

"Mon Dieu!" the schoolmaster gasped. "I can hardly believe it, my doctaire."

"These things are jealous of mankind, hating living beings because mankind has evolved," Lamontaine went on. "Why? Because they have never developed beyond the rudimentary stages. Consequently, they consider mankind their natural prey. One of these things is loose in our peaceful little village. Because it is out of its natural habitat, it must have vitality on which to live--human vitality. Otherwise, it ceases to be. So it feeds upon the vitality of those with whom it comes in contact, just as a vampire feeds upon human blood."

* * * * *

The face of the little schoolmaster turned a ghastly white. He half rose from his chair, then dropped back again, his teeth chattering.

"Horrible! Horrible! Blasphemous!" he ejaculated.

Lamontaine shrugged his broad shoulders.

"In order to obtain this sustenance--this vitality to prolong its existence," he continued, "an elemental must, necessarily, in its early stages, prey largely upon the sick, the weak--those who are at a low physical stage. But eventually it satiates itself with their vitality and becomes stronger. Then it seeks its victims among the more powerful. That is the cause of this plague among the members of our community."

The schoolmaster leaned back in his chair, his thin face drawn and haggard.

"Dieu avec nous!" he said in a low, awed whisper. "Then Jules Delatour told the truth! And it is this--this horrible thing--that my little Evelyn is faced with, my doctaire? Is there nothing that we can do to combat it?"

Lamontaine patted the pile of books in front of him, his eyes wearing a strange, far-away look.

"That is what I have been studying," he said finally. "But, first, let us consider how this unholy thing chanced to come to us. There must be a reason. What caused it to break through the veil?"

Part 3

The schoolmaster's hands trembled like those of a man with the ague.

"Explain!" he said hoarsely.

"Alone and unassisted, these primal forces cannot come to us," Lamontaine told him. "They must be aided by someone who is already here--someone who has the vitality to support them for the nonce. It must be one with mediumistic powers. Now do you understand?"

The little schoolmaster crossed himself again.

"It is unbelievable, horrible!" he said. Then, leaning forward, his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper:

"I would willingly give my life, doctaire, in order to save the woman I love. You, who know everything, perhaps can show me the way."

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