Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 120: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

116 | EVERIL WORRELL ing silence after so long to speak of them—sensed that in some way I hada deep interest in them. “You have odd tastes, Morton,” he said after a moment. “I suppose you wander into strange places sometimes—I’ve heard you speak of an enthusiasm for graveyards at night. But my advice to you is to keep away from those houses. They’re unsavory, and their reputation is unsavory. Positively, I think you'd be in danger of your life, if you go poking around there. They have been the scene of several murders, and a dope den or two has been cleaned out of them. Why in the world you should want to investigate them——” “I don’t expect to investigate them,” I said testily. “I was merely interested in them—from the outside. To tell you the truth, I’d heard a story, a rumor— never mind where. But you say there have been murders there—I suppose this rumor I heard may have had to do with an attempted one. There was a girl who lived there with her father once, and they were set upon there, or. something of the sort, and had to run away. Did you ever hear that story?” Barrett gave me an odd look such as one gives in speaking of a past horror so dreadful that the mere speaking of it makes it live terribly again. “What you say reminds me of a horrible thing that was said to have hap- pened down there once,” he said. “It was in all the papers. A little child dis- appeared in one of those houses, and a couple of poor lodgers who lived there, a girl and her father, were accused of having made away with it. They were accused—they were accused—oh, well, I don’t like to talk about such things. It was too dreadful. The child’s body was found—part of it was found. It was mutilated, and the people in the house seemed to believe it had been mutilated in order to conceal the manner of its death; there was an ugly wound in the throat, it finally came out, and it seemed as if the child might have been bled to death. It was found in the girl’s room, hidden away. The old man and his daughter escaped, before the police were called. The countryside was scoured, but they were never found. Why, you must have read it in the papers, several years ago.” I nodded, with a heavy heart. I Aad read it in the papers, I remembered now. And again, a terrible questioning’ came over mé. Who was this girl, what was ~ this girl, who seemed to have my heart in her keeping? fe Why did not a merciful God let me die then? : Betogged with exhaustion, bemused in a dire enchantment, my mind was incapable of thought. And yet, some soul-process akin to that which saves the sleepwalker poised at perilous heights sounded its warning now. My mind was filled with doleful images. There were women—t} had heard and read—who slew to satisfy a blood-lust. There were ghosts, specters—call them what you will, their names have been legion in the dark pages of that lore which dates back to the infancy of the races of the earth—who retained even in death this blood-lust. Vampires—they had been called that. I had read of them. Corpses by day, spirits of evil by night, roaming abroad in their own Gomicbook S-com)