Avon Fantasy Reader No. 8 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

50 : ; FRANK BELKNAP LONG, JR. thought she was about to faint. Wilshire was speaking again: “We've made one momentous discovery,” he said. We crammed eagerly forward. Wilshire paused for the fraction of a second, and a faint smile of triumph curled his - lips. “There’s something in that pool,” he finished. “Out friend’s life has not been given in vain.” , [ had an absurd desire to punch his fat, triumphant face, and might have — done so, but a’scream from the others quelled the impulse. “Look,” cried Elsie. She was pointing at the black surface of the pool. It was changing color, Slowly it was assuming a reddish hue; and then a hellish something shot up and bobbed for a moment on its surface. “A human afm!” groaned Elsie and hid her face in her hands. Wilshire whistled softly. - Iwo more objects joined the first and then something round which made Elsie stare and stare through the spaces between her fingers. “Come away!” I commanded. “Come away at once.” I seized her by the " arm and was in the act of forcefully leading her from the edge of that dread- ful charnel, for charnel it had become, when I was arrested by a shout from Wilshire. “Look at it! Look at it!” he yelled, “That’s the horrid thing. God, it isn’t & human We both turned back and stared. There are blasphemies of creation that can not be described, and the thing which rose up to claim the escaping fragments of its dismantled prey was of that order. I remember vaguely, as In a nightmare of Tartarus, that it had long golden arms which.shone and sparkled in the sunlight, and a monstrous curved beak below two piercing black eyes in which I saw nothing but unutterable malice. The idea of standing there and watching it munch the fragmentary re-~ mains of the poor little diver was intolerable to me, and in spite of the loud protests of Wilshire, who wanted us, I suppose, to try and do something about it, I turned and ran, literally dragging Elsie with me. This was, as it turned out, the wisest thing that I could have done, because the. thing later emerged from the pool and nearly got several of the vacationists, Wilshire fired at it - twice with a pistol, but the thing flopped back into the water apparently unharmed and submerged triumphantly. 3. Statement of Henry Greb, Prescription Drugegist T usually shut up shop at 10 oclock, but at closing time that evening | was leaning over_the counter reading a ghost story, and it was so extremely interesting that I-couldn’t walk out on it. My nose was very close to the page © and I didn’t notice anything that was going on about me when suddenly I happened to look up and there he was standing and watching me. . a I've seen some pale people in my time (most people that come with pre: a