Dead Men Kill (Stories from the Golden Age) Page 8

  “There are zombies in Haiti,” said Dawn. “I’ve seen them working in the fields at night.”

  “Lord,” breathed Lane, “I’d certainly hate to be a detective there.” He glanced down at the ring on Reynolds’ hand. “You got that ring in Haiti?”

  “Yes.” The coroner looked at the emerald.

  “Well, you certainly slipped up in wearing it. It left a print on my jaw. See?” Lane tapped his cheek with his left hand. “That’s a print of the green serpent. You left your seal on me, Loup-garou.”

  The coroner gasped and stared at the ring. “Then, that’s how you knew. Why didn’t you arrest me sooner?”

  “I thought I might have to kill you, and I wanted the information about the living dead men first.”

  He lifted his head as he heard the wail of a siren in the street. “That’s Chief Leonard and his men. My job is over. No, not quite.

  “Where are the dead men?” Lane moved closer to Reynolds, the syringe in his hand.

  “In the back of my laboratory. I have them chained there. For God’s sake, man, be careful of that syringe.” Reynolds’ eyes were on the metal barrel.

  “Oh, that?” Lane smiled. “It’s filled with water. I took the tip from Dawn, here. She did the same for me—that’s why I’m not one of your walking dead men now.”

  Leonard, Dr. Kaler, with his head bandaged, and a number of uniformed men burst out of the elevator and charged into the library.

  “Where’s Loup-garou?” demanded the chief. “And what’s Reynolds doing tied up like that?”

  “There’s Loup-garou,” Lane indicated Reynolds. “The elusive Dr. Leroux.”

  “What?” gasped Leonard. “Why, that’s impossible!”

  “He’s admitted everything,” said Lane quickly.

  “It required a man with medical knowledge,” stated Dr. Kaler, who did not seem as startled as was the chief.

  “Right, Doctor!” Lane approached Kaler. “There’s a list of drugs here on this paper. You’ll find those living dead men all chained in Reynolds’ laboratory in back of the elevator. I left the door open.

  “You can mix up the works and shoot those living dead men in there with the dope. They’ll come back to life in a hurry.”

  “Interesting,” Dr. Kaler smiled. “I always did want to know that formula. All right, Lane—I’ll get to work at once.”

  “Yes, sir.” Detective-Sergeant Terry Lane smiled at Dawn, “I’d sure hate to be a detective in Haiti.”

  “They are nicer here,” said Dawn softly.

  Story Preview

  NOW that you’ve just ventured through one of the captivating tales in the Stories from the Golden Age collection by L. Ron Hubbard, turn the page and enjoy a preview of The Carnival of Death. Join Bob Clark, an undercover US Treasury agent who, in the course of an investigation at a carnival, stumbles upon a series of headless corpses and now must solve the murders. But a local drug ring and four escaped headhunters have other plans.

  The Carnival of Death

  RISING to a crescendo of stark horror, a scream of death hacked through the gaiety of the night. It came from the sideshows, from directly beneath the lurid banner which depicted ferocious African headhunters at their feasting. In spite of the babble of the pleasure-seeking carnival crowd, the sound lingered eerily for an instant.

  Gaming wheels stopped their monotonous whirring. Faces in the crowd grew blank and then frightened. The hardened barkers whirled in their stands and stared. The gay Ferris wheel stopped, its motor coughing and spitting in idleness. Grifter and rube alike—they all seemed to know that death stalked upon the midway.

  Seven stands away from the lurid banner, Bob Clark, carnival detective, paused for a second, held by the seeping terror of the shriek. Into his steel-colored eyes came a look of certainty. Then, before the crowd had recovered from that first shock, Bob Clark began to run.

  He rounded the corner of a tent and sprang up to a raised platform. The entrance gaped blackly before him. In the sudden hush he heard the sound of running feet and realized they came from within the tent. Whipping a flashlight from his pocket, he darted in.

  The damp mustiness of the tent dropped upon him like a cloud. He lunged into benches, tripped over ropes, sending the icy beam of his light to the uncurtained stage before him.

  He skirted the edge of a pit, stumbled up a flight of steps, and stopped as suddenly as though he had come against a stone wall. His eyes dilated, and he felt a shudder course its cold way up his tingling spine.

  Ringed by a pool of blood which seemed black in the white light lay a ghastly corpse. The hands were clutched in front of the torso; the legs were drawn up, twisted by unbearable agony. In spite of the years at his trade, Bob Clark shuddered again, for the body was without a head!

  The flashlight whipped down into the pit to display its emptiness. Not long before, at the midshow of the evening, four African headhunters had been manacled there, savage creatures on display to all who had the necessary dime.

  They had been ugly brutes, teeth filed to points, brown skins glistening under the glare of spots, faces inscrutable, eyes filled with evil. They had been brought straight from Africa for Shreve’s Mammoth Carnival.

  But now the irons gaped emptily, and the implication was plain. Entirely too plain. It was evident that the headhunters had escaped, and in escaping had murdered their barker, taking his head as grim payment for their captivity.

  Clark jumped down into the canvas-rimmed hole. Bending quickly, he snatched up a steel wristlet and examined it, expecting to see the metal filed. He gave a low mutter of surprise when he found it was not. The wristlet was intact and had been opened with a key.

  Back on the raised platform, Clark stepped gingerly to the side of the headless corpse. He took a still-warm hand in his own and without effort parted the fingers and removed several strands of whitish hair they had clutched. He held these in the beam of his light, examining them. He frowned and thrust them into an old envelope.

  People were coming through the entrance of the tent, cautiously and without a great deal of noise. Outside the carnival had begun its song again. Bob Clark looked at the entering barkers and property men and selected two, knowing that as carnival detective he had that right.

  “Stay here with this, will you?” said Clark.

  The first of the two selected was a flashily dressed ballyhoo man from an adjoining stand.

  “Who?” he blurted tremulously. “You don’t mean me. That guy’s dead!”

  “Sure he’s dead,” rasped Clark. “You’ll stay.”

  The man started to protest and then saw the grim set of the carnival detective’s jaw. With a glazed stare, the barker sat down on a folding seat. The property man designated stood with feet wide apart, disbelief in his eyes.

  “But, good God, Clark,” stammered the property man. “Those cannibals are loose! What if they come back?”

  “They won’t,” said Clark with a grimace. “They’re miles away from here by now.”

  “I wish I believed that,” croaked the barker.

  “So do I,” snapped Clark, as he started toward the back of the tent.

  To Bob Clark this murder assumed greater proportions than a crime committed by four escaping headhunters. It was only a link in the chain he had tried so hard to break.

  He had been with Shreve’s Mammoth Carnival for three months, and during that time two distinct attempts had been made upon his own life. He had been at a loss to explain these because to his knowledge only one man with the show knew his true identity.

  That man was beyond suspicion—he was Shreve, owner of the show. And Henry Shreve had been the one who had first informed the United States Government of the curse which rode with the outfit—the curse of dope.

  That tip tallied with their own records, and the Treasury Department had not been slow in placing an operative on the case. That man was Robert W. Clark, of the Narcotics Squad, who, to date, did not have a single failure to his discredit.

>   Bob Clark knew that he walked on the brink of death, but he only shifted his light to his left hand and lifted the tent flap with his right. A blur of stakes and ropes was silhouetted against the murky sky as he looked up. He could see the fairgrounds’ grandstand against the glowing clouds which hung over the large Middle Western town.

  Then without warning a blackjack smashed down. It caught the detective a glancing blow on the side of the head and sent him reeling to one side, knocked the flashlight from his grasp. Dazedly, Clark flung out a hand, his clawing fingers clutched a sleeve. He pulled the arm savagely toward him, throwing his unseen assailant off balance.

  In an instant the detective’s head was clear. He raised the flashlight in his left hand, brought it down viciously, and heard his foe grunt with pain as the lamp thudded against his shoulder.

  They closed in. Tent ropes tripped him, death-seeking hands tore at him, the night spun crazily about him, but Bob Clark held on tenaciously. Blows pounded in his face, a writhing demon grunted animal-like in his grasp. A blackjack smashed again and again into his body.

  Clark fought silently, his breath coming in great soundless gasps.

  The detective’s assailant wrenched his arm free, a fist smacked against Clark’s chin. He felt himself hurtled backward with terrific speed. A rope was between his legs; he stumbled over it, crashed to the ground.

  Before he could rise, his foe was on top of him, pounding him with crazed strength. Into Clark’s mind darted a vision of headhunters, sharp knives and ripped bodies.

  Doubling his knees, Clark managed to jam his feet against the other’s chest. He thrust his legs out savagely, summoning every ounce of his strength. With a howl, his attacker catapulted back, hit the ground, rolled over and darted away.

  To find out more about The Carnival of Death and how you can obtain your copy, go to www.goldenagestories.com

  Glossary

  STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.

  ballyhoo man: a person who gives an attention-getting demonstration or talk to arouse interest and attract patrons to an entertainment event.

  barker: someone who stands in front of a show at a carnival and gives a loud colorful sales talk to potential customers.

  bead on, drawing a: taking careful aim at. This term alludes to the bead, a small metal knob on a firearm used as a front sight.

  blackjack: a short, leather-covered club, consisting of a heavy head on a flexible handle, used as a weapon.

  bluecoats: policemen.

  bullpen: a holding cell where prisoners are confined together temporarily; in the 1800s, jails and holding cells were nicknamed bullpens, in respect of many police officers’ bullish features—strength and short temper.

  clubbed gun: a rifle, shotgun, etc., held by the barrel so as to use the stock as a club.

  deuce, what the: what the devil; expressing surprise.

  dick: a detective.

  dint of, by: by means of.

  flatfoot: a police officer; cop.

  G-men: government men; agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  gourde: a paper money and monetary unit of Haiti.

  grifter: crooked game operator; a person who operates a sideshow at a circus, fair, etc., especially a gambling attraction.

  ha’nt: a ghost.

  hop: drugs, especially opium.

  midway: an avenue or area at a carnival where the concessions for exhibitions of curiosities, games of chance, scenes from foreign life, merry-go-rounds, and other rides and amusements are located.

  newshawk: a newspaper reporter, especially one who is energetic and aggressive.

  papaloi: (Haitian dialect) voodoo priest.

  property men: propmen; members of the crew in charge of stage properties.

  proverbial straw: pertaining to the proverb (short popular saying): “A drowning man snatches at straws,” meaning a desperate person will try anything to save himself, no matter how unlikely.

  rod: another name for a handgun.

  rube: one of the local townspeople who make up a sideshow audience or become customers.

  scareheads: headlines in exceptionally large type.

  Scheherazade: the female narrator of The Arabian Nights, who during one thousand and one adventurous nights saved her life by entertaining her husband, the king, with stories.

  spot: 1. to place or position on a particular place. 2. single out; pick out; identify.

  swallowtails: the back part of a man’s fitted coat that descends in a pair of tapering skirts.

  wee sma’s: wee small hours; the early hours of the morning, especially those just after midnight.

  zombie: a reanimated human body devoid of consciousness; in voodoo, it is a dead person who has been revived by a voodoo priest, and remains under the control of the priest, since they have no will of their own.

  L. Ron Hubbard in the

  Golden Age of

  Pulp Fiction

  In writing an adventure story

  a writer has to know that he is adventuring

  for a lot of people who cannot.

  The writer has to take them here and there

  about the globe and show them

  excitement and love and realism.

  As long as that writer is living the part of an

  adventurer when he is hammering

  the keys, he is succeeding with his story.

  Adventuring is a state of mind.

  If you adventure through life, you have a

  good chance to be a success on paper.

  Adventure doesn’t mean globe-trotting,

  exactly, and it doesn’t mean great deeds.

  Adventuring is like art.

  You have to live it to make it real.

  — L. Ron Hubbard

  L. Ron Hubbard

  and American

  Pulp Fiction

  BORN March 13, 1911, L. Ron Hubbard lived a life at least as expansive as the stories with which he enthralled a hundred million readers through a fifty-year career.

  Originally hailing from Tilden, Nebraska, he spent his formative years in a classically rugged Montana, replete with the cowpunchers, lawmen and desperadoes who would later people his Wild West adventures. And lest anyone imagine those adventures were drawn from vicarious experience, he was not only breaking broncs at a tender age, he was also among the few whites ever admitted into Blackfoot society as a bona fide blood brother. While if only to round out an otherwise rough and tumble youth, his mother was that rarity of her time—a thoroughly educated woman—who introduced her son to the classics of Occidental literature even before his seventh birthday.

  But as any dedicated L. Ron Hubbard reader will attest, his world extended far beyond Montana. In point of fact, and as the son of a United States naval officer, by the age of eighteen he had traveled over a quarter of a million miles. Included therein were three Pacific crossings to a then still mysterious Asia, where he ran with the likes of Her British Majesty’s agent-in-place for North China, and the last in the line of Royal Magicians from the court of Kublai Khan. For the record, L. Ron Hubbard was also among the first Westerners to gain admittance to forbidden Tibetan monasteries below Manchuria, and his photographs of China’s Great Wall long graced American geography texts.

  Upon his return to the United States and a hasty completion of his interrupted high school education, the young Ron Hubbard entered George Washington University. There, as fans of his aerial adventures may have heard, he earned his wings as a pioneering barnstormer at the dawn of American aviation. He also earned a place in free-flight record books for the longest sustained flight above Chicago. Moreover, as a roving reporter for Sportsman Pilot (
featuring his first professionally penned articles), he further helped inspire a generation of pilots who would take America to world airpower.

  L. Ron Hubbard, left, at Congressional Airport, Washington, DC, 1931, with members of George Washington University flying club.

  Immediately beyond his sophomore year, Ron embarked on the first of his famed ethnological expeditions, initially to then untrammeled Caribbean shores (descriptions of which would later fill a whole series of West Indies mystery-thrillers). That the Puerto Rican interior would also figure into the future of Ron Hubbard stories was likewise no accident. For in addition to cultural studies of the island, a 1932–33 LRH expedition is rightly remembered as conducting the first complete mineralogical survey of a Puerto Rico under United States jurisdiction.

  There was many another adventure along this vein: As a lifetime member of the famed Explorers Club, L. Ron Hubbard charted North Pacific waters with the first shipboard radio direction finder, and so pioneered a long-range navigation system universally employed until the late twentieth century. While not to put too fine an edge on it, he also held a rare Master Mariner’s license to pilot any vessel, of any tonnage in any ocean.

  Capt. L. Ron Hubbard in Ketchikan, Alaska, 1940, on his Alaskan Radio Experimental Expedition, the first of three voyages conducted under the Explorers Club Flag.