Avon Fantasy Reader No. 14 — page 107: what you’re looking at

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

disgust were piving way now to a misty sort of pity. Poor, hopeless, Godfor- saken wretches! They were so desperately frightened of, yet hungry for, con- tact with the outside world. But, I sighed to myself, better that they stay here, unknown and unmolested. The milk of human kindness ran thin throughout the world. . . . Once I thought I heard a sound in the rear of the room—the dark threshold of what was probably a sleeping-chamber. “Gran'pappy didn’t cotton to that priest none,” the cyclops was mouthing again. “When mornin’ come, damn iffen we dido’t find that pricst lyin’ in the door of the main room in the mill. His head was chopped clean off.” “Gran pappy?” T repeated stupidly. “Shore. Gran'pappy Kobold. He didn't like that old priest. He chopped his hatd off!” He griuned more hideously than ever, and edged a little claser toward me. “Though, jes’ between you and me, stranger, maybe the old priest stumbled against the door-jamb under which Gran’pappy’s ax-head is hangin’, and the shakin’ made it fall so that it hit the priest in the neck and killed him. ..» Sull’—he shrugged—“ye can't tell about sperrits. They say that them what see’s Gran’pappy’s sperrit walkin’ dies on the spot. Or, anyways, within > twenty-four hours. It ain't never fatled yit, mister!” I pressed him for details about Grandfather Kobolder. He prinned nauseatingly, winked, and leaned forward. “He was the Knicht. The big boss man. But he was gittin’ old—old and the cold was creepin’ into his bones. He began cotchin’ young uns when their mammies weren’t lookin’—and then cuttin’ off their haids and drinkin’ their blood. It kept him young, it did. Mebbe, if they’d let him alone, he could live for ever thataway. . . .” The lipless mouth receded from the black, gan- grenous gums. “But no—they druv him off. He and his three sons and his three daughters had to skedaddle for their lives! They come here . . . they settled down... .” The cyclops filled his mug and drained it at a gulp, his eye shining bright. “Yeah,” he rasped, “but soon the cold come again... . The ole man needed blood. He tried to git his youngest son—but the scound’el took the knife away fiom him, stabbed him daid, cut off his hatd, sculped him, and hung it at the belt. The murderin’ whelp!” - I stared, transfixed at the glaring rage suddenly contorting that evil face. It » subsided slowly. “You,” I ventured timidly, “you are all his descendants?” “Yeah. His chillen ma’ied ’mongst themselves, and ther chillen ma’ied ‘mongst themselves, | reckon. Later on mebbe there was an Injun gal or two to mix with. But not often. It’s been mostly—jest us!” My gorge rose. These amorphous creatures, a self-sustaining breed of com- pounded incests, had miraculously existed century after century through deepening shadows of insanity, through successive generations of horror and © deformity, alone, shunned by the world, isolated from civilization, fit only for death! »- A sudden weird mewing in the next room snatched up my shocked atten- tion. I stared at the opening of the chamber. My eyes slowly lowered to the Thing that appeared on the floor. I Ws wey ra ee te Ie tee ee. ee od POP Pea) 105 7 comiclsooks.com : .