By Randolph Craig - Vintage Library · 2018. 3. 29. · And then he steeled himself to the ultimate...

Originally published in the Feb-Mar. 1939 issue of The OctopusTM

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Copyright 1939 by Popular Publications Inc.Copyright renewed © 1967 and assigned to Agrosy Communications, Inc.

All rights reserved. Licensed to Vintage New MediaThe Octopus is a trademark of Argosy Communications, Inc.

By Randolph Craig

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The OctopusTM THE CITY CONDEMNED TO HELL Feb.-March 1939_______________________________________________________________________________________________

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A production of Vintage New Media™www.vintagelibrary.com

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In the dead of night while the city slept, out from their subterraneansanctuaries they came, crawling and staggering—those accursedcreatures which once had been men and women... while a terror-madhorde searched for Dr. Skull, condemned of bringing eight million peopleto destruction!

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CHAPTER ONEWhen the Beast Hungers

THE young nurse nodded downward at themummy-like thing on the cot in Ward Seven."She's been trying to move, Doctor," she said."Are you sure you need the stimulants?"

Dr. Skull nodded absently. His keen browneyes, the liveliest thing in his gentle old face, wereappraising the swathed figure of Mrs. Purvins, andthere was an ancient satisfaction in them, ancientas medicine itself. He remembered the day,almost a month ago, when a frightened womanstripped herself in his office, and whispered, "Is itcancer, Doctor. Will I die soon?"

She had been ghastly, that woman, with thehard black growth ridging her body like thetentacles of a deep sea monster. Ghastly even tothe case-hardened eye of the surgeon.

There had been something about the growththat suggested more than medical abnormality,something uniform and patterned, as though adeliberate perverted will had planned it so.

"Only the skin," Skull had told her. "It'soperable. There's a good chance. You're young—you have a young woman's heart, a youngwoman's capacity for recovery...."

She had been brave, that frightened littleMrs. Purvins. And so she had taken the chance,a greater chance than her surgeon cared to tellher, and for weeks she had lain in a ward cot atthe Mid-City Hospital, too sick to speak, swathedlike a mummy, but blessedly, beautifully alive!Alive, and with the malignant growth ripped outroot and branch. Yet her greatest battle was justbeginning.

With justifiable triumph Dr. Skull began tosnip at the white bandages and behind curtainsveiling the procedure from other occupants ofWard Seven, his surgeon's handiwork came tolight. To no one but a doctor or a nurse, used tothe ravages of suffering, would Mrs. Purvins haveseemed anything but a horribly scarred andsuppurating grotesque imposed upon a humanform. But to the two who watched her, she wasneither unbeautiful nor disheartening.

"It's a marvelous job, Doctor," the nurse saidfervently. "Such a clean incision.... I don't thinkthere's another surgeon in the world who couldhave accomplished anything with her. And a manwith your skill, giving all his time to charitycases.... Sometimes I just don't understand it."

It was more than either skill or charity thatthe case of Mrs. Purvins had called for, but the

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nurse didn't know that. And even now, Dr. Skull,his brown eyes fixed almost unbelievingly on Mrs.Purvins, wondered if he had succeeded. For shehad been more than a charity patient with cancer.

Her poor scarred body had been thebattleground between Dr. Skull and whatever itwas that had been foisted on her—those marksthat were like nothing so much as the puckeredsouvenirs of some cruelly hungry orifice, suckingat her skin!

A battleground for salvation against a fatemedically uncharted—Dr. Skull stared into hispatient's eyes, and her own eyes stared backunblinkingly. Suddenly he realized that those largegrey eyes, which had gazed on Ward Seventhrough slits in the bandages for days, had notblinked before, either.... No, he could notremember seeing her eyelids move! His browsdrew together thoughtfully. No, not since theoperation!

THE raw sutures would heal in time, heknew. The body would be smooth again, and skin-grafting could take care of the scars that might beleft on her face. But—those markings! And thoseeyes!

He made a hurried examination, and aghastly suspicion crossed his mind. "Nurse," hesaid brusquely, "please leave me alone with thepatient for a few moments."

Alone with Mrs. Purvins, Dr. Skull repeatedhis examination more carefully—but his hands stillshook as though with ague, and his lined old facewas drawn and pale.

The sick woman seemed barely aware of thehands which felt for her pulse, strove to locateher heartbeat—she did not even try to talk, andher fixed, staring grey eyes had somehow aneerie, glistening witlessness.

Dr. Skull took a blood sample, called thenurse back in, and went to the laboratories on thethird floor.

It was incredible, this thing that hadapparently happened to Mrs. Purvins; yes,utterly, fantastically unbelievable.... But still itmade his palms wet and his heart race!

Under the white light of the laboratory lamphe tested the blood sample. The thin fluid did notclot, didn't even smell like blood....

And then he steeled himself to the ultimatechemical analysis. He felt his pulse pound in his

veins as once more he repeated the test, to makesure. There could be no mistake! The blood wasof the temperature and approximate consistencyof sea-water!

A telephone sounded in the laboratoryanteroom. Someone murmured, "For you, Dr.Skull."

It was the nurse from Ward Seven. "Dr.Skull," she said tensely, "your patient, Doctor—Istarted to take her pulse, and—and she hasn'tany...."

Softly, Dr. Skull put the phone back on itsreceiver. No pulse...? He had found worse thanthat. Mrs. Purvins hadn't a heartbeat, either. Andyet, when he had taken the bandages off, she hadgiven every outward indication that the operationhad been a success.

Sea-water! He opened a drawer markedwith his own name, rummaged in it for thenewspaper clipping which had first interested himin Mrs. Purvins: "Delirious Woman Picked UpNear East River," the headline read....

They had found her, battered and half-crazed, the victim of an inexplicable assault thatleft her almost drained of blood. And she hadmoaned, repeatedly something about anoctopus....

Dr. Skull frowned. There are no octopi in theEast River—nor anywhere in that part of theAtlantic coastal waters, for that matter. And fromhis later conversations with Mrs. Purvins, afterthe first scars of that attack had healed, leaving intheir wake a still more inexplicable cancerousgrowth, he was sure that her attacker had beenno monster of the deep, but rather some equallymonstrous human being.

Yet the sea was the cradle of all life, forbefore living organisms had made their slowprogress onto land, eons ago, unicellularcreatures had taken their nourishment and vitalityfrom the water of primordial oceans. And all lifestill—even man himself—must carry the chemicalcomposition of ocean water within itself. All livingprotoplasm cells on land are bathed in blood,which has the same elements as sea-water. Thelower forms of life are still bound to ocean.

But blood and sea-water, as media of life,are separated by a million years of evolution—andit was those millions of years that had slippedfrom the heritage of Mrs. Purvins!

Either the phenomenon was inherent in thosestrange puckered markings which had been unlike

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ordinary cancer—or else, he—Dr. Skull—hadcreated an atavism!

Dr. Skull rushed back to Ward Seven.Surgery couldn't—but it must have been hisown surgery, his clean simple excision of acancerous growth. Yet what strange, eerie quirkof the laws of chance had upset in this woman abalance older than the oldest mountain ranges?

He brushed past the curtains which stillveiled Mrs. Purvins from the rest of Ward Seven.And then he paused, some deep-seated instinctmuffled the cry in his throat....

Mrs. Purvins' mouth was fastened like asuction pump on the nurse's bosom, and in thestaring grey eyes there was stark, maddenedhunger!

DR. SKULL seized his patient's shoulders,his muscular fingers pulled against that sucking,intractable force even as he gasped at thehideous strength of those hungry lips.... Then,with a soft whoosh, he pulled her clear.

The nurse dropped like a dead weight, with athree-inch circle of raw muscle bleeding over herheart, and even more terrifying in its implications,he saw the shredded, torn remnants of part of heruniform on the floor!

The Thing that had been his patient turnedits shining unhuman eyes on the doctor.Suddenly it reared—not on its legs, but with aswift upward surge that seemed to involve everymolecule of matter in its body. He felt the whitesurgeon's jacket torn from him as though it werecheesecloth, and suddenly he understood whythe nurse had been unable to give alarm whenshe had been attacked.

The Thing's clammy hand slapped againsthis mouth, jammed into his throat, nearlysuffocating him, while, with the swiftness of astriking snake, that terrible mouth fastened on hisshoulder, its suction rending his skin, tearingwith intolerable pain at the muscular fleshbeneath.

He lunged desperately with arms and legs—-felt himself free, and gasped for air. He cried outthen, trying to call for help as his staring eyessaw his erstwhile patient rear up at the window,and with a peculiarly undulating movement slipoutside. He staggered after it, his fingers clutchingthe sill as the Thing descended the fire-escapewith unbelievable rapidity.... And then he saw

something else that momentarily caused him toforget his pain, and his horror.

As the Thing passed the third floor, a shakilyprehensile arm whirled a net from the window,trapped the creature that had been Mrs. Purvins,and pulled her back inside the hospital.

And that, he knew, was one of the windowsopening from the maternity ward!

He heard himself shouting orders to theinternes who were streaming into the curtainedenclosure. The room was swaying crazily abouthim, but someone had to look after the youngnurse who was lying unconscious on the floor.And someone had to capture the monster that ashort while ago had been his patient, Mrs.Purvins; someone had to capture and kill themonstrous thing that had trapped her.

One of the internes was applying a hastydressing to his shoulder wound when Dr. Borden,head of the hospital, was suddenly and excitedlyamong them.

Borden cried, "What's this about?"Dr. Skull didn't answer, but he felt Borden's

restraining hand on his arm as he lunged forward."Come along, Doctor!" he gasped, "We've

got to get—to the—maternity ward!"He leaned dizzily against Borden in the

corridor, struggling to retain consciousness in thedescending elevator. The car came to a stop atthe third floor.

Skull started out, but a human formslammed into him with stunning impact. He felthis knees folding, felt darkness sweeping overhim, and Dr. Borden's grip relaxing on his arm.

Desperately he twisted his body, even as hebegan to fall—through the humming, drummingdarkness that was closing over him he sawBorden struggling—not in the grip of a monster,but of some human adversary. A knife glinted inthe hand of Borden's attacker.

His own hand stabbed downward, almostreflexively, and his fingers grasped the smallautomatic which he carried with him on night callsabout the slum districts of the city. He hardlyknew he had pressed the trigger, but there was adeafening explosion in the clean white corridor,and the man who had been grappling with Bordenslumped to the floor.

Incredulously, Skull stared at the man he hadshot, as Borden shouted: "Do you know this man,

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Doctor?" Nor did Skull miss the vitriolic accusationin the hospital chief's voice.

At last, Skull nodded. "The—the husband ofmy patient—Henry Purvins. He tried to kill you,didn't he?"

"Does it occur to you that he might have hada grievance?" Borden asked coldly. "After whatyou did to his wife—Look!"

Skull's eyes followed Borden's pointingfinger, and he saw internes wheeling a stretcherout of the maternity ward—a stretcher on whichsomething formless and gelid struggled franticallyagainst sheets that tied it down—sheets coveredwith the pale pink compound that had passed forblood in the veins of Mrs. Purvins.

Borden, with almost venomous deliberation,went on, "You did that to her.... And now, you tryto silence a husband's reasonable indignation bymurder! Doctor, is it your duty to createmalformations, and to kill?"

CHAPTER TWOThe SkulI Killer

SKULL'S eyes traveled from Borden's face tothose of the three internes who held him; to thenurses who stood about, almost hystericallytense, and the white-jacketed orderlies who bentover that body on the floor.

In the eyes of his accusers he read acompletely unreasoning hatred—and somethingmore! Behind the irises of everyone of them, withthe exception of Borden, he saw flickering specksof color....And he recognized in that color themark of insanity! He had seen it before in humaneyes....

Again he looked at the face of the man hehad shot. Even in death, the gaping unseeingeyes had that unearthly purplish glint.... Dr. Skullremembered that even Mrs. Purvins had warnedhim of her husband's "oddness." Oddness? Mostdamnable oddness! Murderousness, rather....Howclose Skull had been to suspecting that HenryPurvins might have been his wife's attacker whenshe had been found wandering by the East River!

Then Borden stooped sanctimoniously overthe corpse, and suddenly the beginning of anincredible conviction snapped into Dr. Skull's

mind. The hospital chief's watch fob dangled fromhis waist. It was of gold, heavy and carefullywrought, and repulsive as artistry could make it.A golden octopus, with one jeweled purple eyegleaming in its head.... In her terrified delirium,Mrs. Purvins had babbled about an octopus—andnow Mrs. Purvins was hideously, unhumanlydead!

The internes holding Skull were not preparedfor the strength and fury of his attack. He bentover swiftly, and the man directly behind himdoubled up with his breath knocked out. With anease that belied his years, Skull ripped his armsfree and sent another colleague spinning with ahook to the jaw. As Borden was leaping for him,Dr. Skull side-stepped and swung. Then hejumped for the elevator.

The man at the controls tried to rush him,and Skull grasped his arm, and with a jiu-jitsuhold, threw him into the melee in the hall. Heslammed the doors, and his fingers were cold onthe control lever as he started the car downward.

His shoulder ached agonizingly, and afterthat brief desperate spurt of energy, he was againdizzy and weak...twice the car bounced jerkilyagainst its basement springs before Skullremembered to release the controls. Blindly, helevered the doors open, and staggered into thecellar's cool dusk.

Into the darkness behind the huge heatingunit he dived, leaning heavily against a dusty,jutting plank. There was a brief whir of chains, anda section of the wall gave way. Skull lurched intothe opening, and sank to his knees, completelyexhausted. Behind him, he dimly heard again thesoft whir of the chains, and then he was alone inthe cool darkness of an unsuspected hollow in thewall.

SILENT seconds passed, bringing with themsome return of strength to the old doctor's nervesand muscles. And with the strength, a fierydetermination glinted again in his eyes.

Sparing the torn shoulder as best he could,he slowly removed his white surgeon's jacket, andbegan briskly to rub his face with it. Then itseemed as if a miracle occurred, for the sunkenwrinkles disappeared completely from his jaws,cheeks and forehead.... He tore off the stripswhich secured the grey wig, revealing a head oflustrous dark hair beneath. The removal of twopadded wire hooks from his lower jaw altered the

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shape of his face considerably. It was a faryounger Dr. Skull who finally turned on his back,and lay motionless, staring upward into thedarkness with alertly thoughtful brown eyes.

A half-naked young man, his were anathletes' trained and rippling muscles.... Weary ashe was, with the bloody shoulder bandage, therewas an aura of health, strength and competenceabout him. Hospital authorities would haverecognized him as Jeffrey Fairchild, son of thelate Dr. Henry Fairchild, who had achievedmedical fame and a sizable fortune before hisdeath.

Jeffrey, as administrator of his father'sestate, had been instrumental in the erection ofthe Mid-City Hospital, and from that estate, largesums were still available to the hospital onrequest. That much he had done for humanity inhis father's name and his own. There were peoplewho said he might have done more, for Jeffrey, abrilliant student, had graduated at the head of hisclass from the best medical school in the country,and was not known ever to have started practice.

But people did not know about Dr. Skull....It was as Dr. Skull, the kindly philanthropic

little East Side surgeon, that Jeffrey Fairchild hadbeen able to fight more battles for humanity thanconfining his skill solely to the struggle againstdisease. He had been born with a love ofadventure and a genius for compassion, andinevitably he had allied himself against those whohave no compassion, and who prey upon thedefenseless and helpless. In the slums, breeding-place of crime, Dr. Skull had been the unyieldingadversary of all criminals.

No Park Avenue surgeon could have donewhat Dr. Skull had done, known what Dr. Skullknew. They came to him in the slums, the victimsof poverty and ignorance and fear, and theytrusted him to heal more than their bodies. Forbehind Dr. Skull himself, unknown even to hispatients, there was the almost phantom figure ofthe Skull Killer, known only by the corpses he leftbehind him.

It was typical of Dr. Skull that he should havetried to find a reason for that unholy glint of purplemadness in the eyes of Henry Purvins when hefirst began to treat the man's wife. Another doctorwould have either disregarded it entirely, orconsidered it a phenomenon he had not beencalled upon to delve.

He'd labored through months and years ofuntiring research, research that was alsoadventure—and then, in the half-factual, half-superstitious chronicles of forgotten medievalsavants, Dr. Skull had found the reference hesought.

He had been excited, moved—and at thesame time wondered if he were allowing hiscredulity to be conditioned by the inevitablesuperstitions of the patients with whom heworked. He remembered the article he hadactually written, intending it for the AmericanMedical Journal, and which he had then decidednot to send, as too fantastic for men of science toaccept:

During every great social catastrophe in ancienthistory, purple eyes have made their appearance aseternal harbingers of destruction. They have beeneither the cause or effect of terror among a peoplealready ravaged by war or pestilence, inducing anunaccountable mass hysteria, often leading towholesale atrocities.

This mass hysteria reduced the population insome cases as high as seventy percent in certaindistricts of Central Europe, after barbaric invasions,and ruined entire sections of civilized society. By dintof incredible and impoverishing taxes, terrorizedpeoples have sometimes bought off self-claimedleaders of the purple eyes, whom many insist to havebeen the same person, living through centuries.

Superstition? Certainly. And yet, there wasthe undeniable fact of those purple eyes inmodern, up-to-date New York. But whereas themedieval leaders of the purple-eyed ones hadbeen able to operate openly in a superstitiouscivilization separated by the thinnest of veneersfrom chaos, their modern counterpart would bedriven to operate through the weak-minded andcredulous. He would be forced to use somestartling and fear invoking disguise....

The Octopus! Mrs. Purvins, who had beenmarked for a sentence worse than death, hadbabbled its name....Again Jeffrey Fairchildremembered Borden's watch-fob of the purple-eyed octopus. Did Borden know its implications,or was he an unwitting tool in a more sinisterhand, as Henry Purvins undoubtedly had been?

Jeffrey trembled slightly, as he rested in thecoolness of his basement chamber, which wasthe terminus of an abandoned water mainreaching far under the city's streets. He came to

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his feet, steadied himself, and moved deeper intothe subterranean passage. From a wall niche, hetook a concealed gun, to replace the weapon hehad lost in the scuffle upstairs, and thus armed,re-entered the basement of the Mid-City Hospital.

Through the shadows he skulked, a palemoving figure in the darkness, toward a littlewhite-washed door. For a moment, he listenedbehind it, and then Jeffrey Fairchild slipped intothe cool sterile-smelling interior of the hospitalmorgue.

One by one, he drew the sheets from coldwhite faces, with some innate reverence in himasking forgiveness of the helpless dead for thisintrusion. One by one, among those silentspeechless people who had passed beyondearthly help or harm, he sought the man hewanted—the man he himself had killed.

Jeffrey stared with growing concentration intothe wide eyes of Henry Purvins' corpse, and hismouth went grim. Was his imagination runningriot, or did he actually see even in the darkness,those inhuman jewel-like eyes glowing purple...?No; someone had been behind that series ofconcerted and unrelated incidents which he hadjust experienced, a series too concerted not to bedirected by some purposeful malevolent agency.In life, Henry Purvins had been the tool of themost malignant personality ever spewed out ofhell, and in death, the devil would claim his own!

There was just a chance—more than achance—that the evidence he needed was here,in the form of Purvins' body, with those ghastly,purplish luminescent eyes.... Did it point to ahospital whose staff would not bear investigation,to someone unknown who must, for some evilpurpose, soon commune with this body?

He uncovered the corpse, placed it onanother stretcher. Then he took its place, andpulled the sheet over him. Quiet as the dead helay, and the only sound in that half-way station tothe tomb was his own whispered breath.

OLD ANGUS BURKE, the morgue-keeper ofthe hospital, didn't like the tone they'd used whenthey brought down the latest corpse.

"Shot?" grunted Angus. "Now that's thedamndest yet! You've brought me some funnystiffs lately, lads, but for a man to die of hot leadin a hospital... !"

"You're not being paid for your opinions," theyoung interne had answered tartly, and old Angus

didn't like that. He'd been handling stiffs beforethat whipper-snapper was born, and he knew howpeople died in a hospital, and how they didn't.

They didn't die, for instance, of diabetes andlockjaw at the same time. Not in a proper hospital,that is. Maybe in some beleaguered army wardwhere the enemy had cut off surgical supplies—but even in war, old Angus remembered, youdidn't get much blood-poisoning.

He thought uneasily of the sort of casesthey'd been bringing down there recently.Tetanus, elephantiasis, and other things hecouldn't even name, and didn't like to thinkabout—sure, they'd been bringing him mightystrange stiffs lately!

And now this one, with a bullet between theeyes.... The doctors must be crazy, he thought;like as if they didn't know their business, and thepoor folks who trust 'em might better have savedtheir money and die peaceful.

Well, he was glad to know about it, oldAngus thought, as he played double solitaireagainst himself in his cubby-hole of an office. He'dbeen thinking of asking one of the doctors forsomething for his rheumatism. He wouldn't now,no-sirree! Except he'd been sure of that nice oldDr. Skull. A real gentleman, he was, who didn'ttreat a man any different because he kept deadstiffs instead of dying ones.

But it was Dr. Skull, so they said, who'dmade the latest stiff, the oddest one of all. Shothim dead, they said. Old Angus shook his head.A mighty peculiar business, and he didn't like anyof it. Shouldn't be surprised if they all lost theirjobs of it, either....

"Can't you hear anything?"Old Angus stood up, looking at his visitors,

two of them, dressed in civilian clothes. "I ain't sodeaf that you have to yell loud enough to wakethese poor peaceful dead folks down here," hesaid with asperity. And he added, "I'm the keeperhere. I suppose you're looking for that Purvinsfellow?"

One of the men nodded. "I'm his brother.Where is he?"

A pretty strange sort of a brother, old Angusthought. Usually folks came down here with theireyes red and sniffling, not caring what you said tothem....It's the world these days, he considered,as he led the unfeeling brother and his companioninto the morgue itself.

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Old Angus hobbled up to the latest stiff, andlifted the sheet from its face....

And then the corpse yelled at him, "Duck,they'll kill you!" And a bullet sang above the oldman's head!

He hadn't really ducked, it had been morelike his knees gave way. And then, in thedarkness, the corpse and his brother startedfiring at one another....

Angus tried to whine for help, but nothingaudible was coming out of his windpipe.

Like nothing dead, the stiff was letting themhave it with the revolver....

Old Angus shut his eyes, and his brainbusied itself with a prayer.

When the shots stopped, he peered dazedlyabout. The two visitors were dead, and the corpsewas doing something to their faces.

"A-aah" managed old Angus.The corpse glanced at him briefly, and then it

darted out of the room.Minutes later, the old man looked at his

visitors. Red and plain on their foreheads, thecorpse had branded the mark of a human skull!

Later, when he told the newspapermen aboutit, old Angus realized that he had been a hero.

"So that was the Skull Killer?" he musedaloud. "Him as always leaves his mark, and nevergets caught?"

"That's right, Mr. Burke," said the reporter."You're the only man alive who's ever seen himmake a kill. It's a wonder you're here to tell thetale. If you're not afraid—and I don't think you'rethe type of man who scares easy, Mr. Burke—suppose you try to tell us what you noticed abouthim. It would be a great help to the police, and abig story for us."

Old Angus peered importantly at the reporter.No, he wasn't afraid. He leaned over close. "Theybrought him down here dead," whispered oldAngus solemnly. "One o' my regular stiffs, with abullet between the eyes. And mister, they don'tcome deader than that!"

NEWSPAPERS didn't print it quite as oldAngus gave it to them. They didn't swallow thatbullet between the eyes, although they did ask ifthe Skull Killer were vulnerable at all.

For six years, that phantom image hadpreyed on the population of New York's

underworld, sporadically and without detection.No one had ever seen him, but everyone hadseen pictures, on the front pages, of the corpseshe left in various parts of the city, with that redbrand burned into their foreheads as if by acid.

His motive? The newspapers guessed him tobe some lone fanatic, crusading against crime.Or, as one newspaper guessed, he might be ahigher-up in the Police Department, for he knewso much about criminals and where to find them.He must be a gangster, said another, for it's thegangsters who kill their own kind. A prominentpsychologist, when interviewed, explainedtechnically and at great length, that a killer wholeft his mark was an incurable exhibitionist. Hehad probably had a thwarted childhood, said theprominent psychologist, quoting effectively fromFreud and Jung.

In the end, people knew as much about theSkull Killer as they had known before, which wasnothing. There was a momentary connectionbetween the fact that a certain Dr. Skull had leftthe third floor of the Mid-City Hospital underhurried circumstances, only twenty minutes beforethe Skull Killer appeared in its basement.

But old Angus Burke, whose opinion had tobe respected, since there was no one tocontradict him, swore that the Skull Killer was ayoung man, a good thirty years younger than Dr.Skull, whom old Angus would have known if he'dmet him in hell. This seemed to tally with thefacts, for it was ridiculous to suspect an old manwho has spent his life in study and medicalpractice, of murdering the toughest gangsters inthe city single-handed, over a period of six years.

CHAPTER THREEA Surprise for Dr. Skull

CAROL ENDICOTT, standing beside an old-fashioned roll-top desk in the clean and shabbydoctor's office, stared wide-eyed at a slip of paperin her hand. For the second time she read theneatly typed words:

My Dear Dr. Skull:I have followed with the greatest interest your

efforts in behalf of the unfortunate Mrs. Purvins,whose remarkable story regarding my existence

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received so little credence on the part of theauthorities.

Fisherman's luck! I find I am to becongratulated on the size of my catch! When Iset poor Mrs. Purvins out as bait for an old EastSide medico, I had no idea that I should shortlybe playing a most extraordinary young man onthe end of my line.

By the time you receive this note, you willhave met—and found out how you may co-operate with

The Octopus.

Carol's slim fingers sought out and rested onthe bulky thing in the pocket of her neatlystarched nurse's uniform, and she frowned almostimperceptibly. The note had arrived in anunsealed and un-stamped envelope in thedoctor's morning mail, and she had neither beenable to reach the doctor—who had an importantappointment at the Mid-City Hospital inconnection with the Mrs. Purvins whom the notementioned—nor had she been able to figure outthe meaning of the missive. So she had spent thepast half hour oiling and cleaning the old revolverwhich her father had used twenty years ago inFrance.

Consequently, at this moment, there wasabout Carol Endicott, little of the immaculatenurse whom Dr. Skull's patients were accustomedto seeing. Her white uniform had greasesmudges on it, and a large smudge bridged herfreckled, pert little nose, while there was a ratherunprofessional competence about hermovements. She was again the independent andrather harassed New York slum girl, whom JeffreyFairchild had persuaded to trust the old East Sidedoctor in order that she might have a home,decency and security.

Decency had always been one of Carol'sattributes, though often, in the old days, she hadhad to fight for it. Young, tall, with a clear ivoryskin and lustrous dark hair that carried in it areddish glint, she had attracted considerableattention in the tenement district where she lived.Personal danger wasn't exactly a new thing toher. This particular type of danger, however, was.

She shivered a little, remembering Mrs.Purvins as she had looked when the doctor hadfirst interested himself in her case, shortly afterthey'd found her unconscious near the East River,mumbling incoherently about "the octopus". Sheshivered, and took a slightly firmer grip on the butt

of the old revolver. She didn't know whether shecould actualy fire it, or what would happen if shetried, but its comfort was good.

The ringing of the telephone almost madeher jump. Then, wiping her hands on her skirt,thereby adding a few more spots to it, she pickedup the phone.

"Dr. Skull's office," she said."Board of Health calling. This is a routine call.

Is the doctor in?""I'm his nurse. I’ll take a message.""Very well. We're warning all doctors not to

hospitalize their patients unless it's absolutelynecessary, until further notice. We're checking allhospitals, doing the best we can. Thank you."

"What!" she exclaimed. "Say, what's been—"Then she realized that she was talking into a deadphone, and hung up.

This was serious, Carol thought. She couldn'ttie things together, but this was the secondextraordinary telephone call she had received thatmorning, after discovering the crank letter.

Dr. Steele had called, asking if Skull couldn'tjoin him at once in a consultation... and Steelehad been most unprofessionally vague aboutdetails. Then a little Italian boy, one of the doctor'sformer patients, had run in a short while ago, tosay his father was looking for the doctor, and thedoctor had better watch out.

She'd tried calling the Mid-City Hospital then,but the hospital authorities had been mostuncooperative about disturbing the doctor, andshe hadn't even been able to put her messagethrough.

And now this warning about hospitals. Dr.Skull had another patient at the Mid-City, besidesMrs. Purvins—one Robert Fairchild. RobertFairchild, the crippled eighteen-year-old, whoidolized the old doctor so that he had become aresident patient.

Robert had been taken to the Mid-City a fewweeks ago for another of a series of operationsthrough which the doctor eventually hoped to curethe boy, and lift him from the wheelchair, to whichhe now seemed condemned for life.

Carol decided to try the Mid-City again, andsee if she could talk to Robert.... Not that anythingbad would happen to Robert—about whom toomany people worried already. There was Dr.Skull, for one, who treated him like a son. Andthere was Jeffrey Fairchild, Robert's brother, with

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10

whom, oddly enough, Robert couldn't get along atall....

Carol smiled a little grimly when she thoughtof the relationship between the two brothers.

It was Jeffrey, whom she privatelyconsidered worth a half-a-dozen Roberts, whomade all the overtures, and it was Robert whorejected them—the spoiled, ungrateful brat!

SHE dialed Mid-City Hospital again, and gotthe switchboard girl.

"Private Pavilion," she said, and tried to lighta cigarette during the ensuing pause. She had tolaugh at herself, she was so nervous. Threematches, and none of them took!

"Mr. Robert Fairchild," she demanded, whenthey gave her the floor phone.

"Who's calling, please?""I'm his nurse. This is Dr. Skull's office.""Oh—is the doctor there?" the voice inquired."No," said Carol. "He should be at the hospital.

If you could find him for me, it's impor—"But a definite click at the other end of the

wire told her that the connection had been killed.And the operator informed her, "Your party hungup, miss."

Carol's cheeks flushed, and then went whiteagain. She was as angry as she had ever been inher life almost angry enough to forget what shehad tried so very hard to remember lately,namely, that she was a lady.

It was Jeffrey Fairchild who had firstimpressed that idea upon her, when he hadgotten Dr. Skull to give her her present job, and itwas for the sake of Jeffrey that she nearly forgot itnow. If anything were to happen to RobertFairchild, it would break Jeffrey's heart...andJeffrey, at one point in her life, had been her veryreal saviour.

The tough look that came over Carol'spiquantly lovely features had nothing lady-likeabout it. Rather, it reflected a portion of her lifeshe had nearly forgotten—her upbringing in arough-and-ready slum neighborhood, and thebattle she had waged continually not only forrespectability among the worst elements ofhumanity, but for her very survival.

She lifted the phone receiver again, anddialed Jeffrey Fairchild's Park Avenue apartment.While she waited, her fingers again sought the

reassuring bulge of the ancient revolver in herpocket.

There was no answer.Slowly Carol Endicott replaced the receiver.

A stony determination spread over her face asshe turned toward the closet for her coat. If thehospital authorities chose to be snooty aboutgiving her information about Robert Fairchild,she'd find a means of getting it out of them!

It was at this point that the door opened, anda perfectly strange voice told her to stand rightwhere she was.

HER unexpected visitor's command to Carolcarried farther than Dr. Skull's office. In a smallchamber hidden behind a basement wall in thesame building, a tall young man was in the act ofchanging from a blood-stained surgeon's uniforminto a custom-made tweed suit. He put his ear toa wall amplifier as the stranger's commandsnapped out to Carol Endicott.

Jeffrey Fairchild, after his battle in themorgue of the Mid-City Hospital, had again takenhis secret exit from the hospital basement. Fromthere, he had proceeded through a maze ofabandoned gas and water mains which pepperedthe earth under New York's streets. Relics ofanother era, these passages had been forgottenby citizens and authorities alike. Jeffrey hadcome upon them accidentally as a young boy, andlater they had suggested to him the feasibility ofhis double life.

The terminals of that underground maze hadbeen Jeffrey's chief reason for the location of Dr.Skull's office, of his own apartment, and even ofthe site he had chosen for the Mid-City Hospital.

The chamber where he was now dressinghad been furnished with a cot, a chair, and abureau. Its wall amplifier enabled him to keepposted on events in the office above, and itslocation made it a convenient dressing-room forexchanges of personality between Dr. Skull andJeffrey Fairchild.

"What do you want?" he heard Caroldemand.

There was a sinister purring note in the reply."We're waiting for the doctor—got a little presentfor him. O.K., boys, bring in the crate."

Shuffling sounds, the scrape of wood acrossthe floor—and then staccato little footsteps.

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11

"You stay right here, sister!" snapped theintruder's voice. "You're not going anywhere tillthe doctor comes—this is a surprise party!"

As Jeffrey finished dressing, into the silenceabove broke the screech of metal, the scream ofthe girl. Carol, the innocent gambit in a desperatebattle whose stakes Jeffrey could only guess,was alone up there with the spawn of hell....

Swiftly Jeffrey moved through the coal-bindoor, took the cellar staircase three steps at atime, and emerged through the rear door to Dr.Skull's office, his gun drawn.

A startled oath broke from a man's lips, andthe girl cried out defiantly. Jeffrey saw the flare ofexplosive brilliance before he heard the shot...and then Carol, entrenched behind the roll-topdesk, swayed dizzily. Her bloody handunclenched and dropped, and the shatteredremnants of the revolver she had been holding fellto the floor.

Somehow that gun had exploded in hergrasp at her first attempt to use it!

Jeffrey's bullet snarled just as one manreached the unconscious girl. The startled intruderspun to his knees, and as Jeffrey leaped into theroom, he realized that he had drawn fire from twohostile guns.

He lunged forward as lead whined past hischeek, and let them have it again. Two men weresprawled on the floor, and the third was retreating.Agonizingly, Jeffrey shifted his bandaged shoulderto avoid a shot and fired half-blindly in the samegesture.

The third man had fled.And then they crawled out of the open

wooden crate which Jeffrey had barely noticed onDr. Skull's floor. With a sick sense of fatality,Jeffrey realized that he could not fire upon thoseobscenely crawling, even if they killed him. Hisphysician's instinct, outraged and muted by theghastly sight, still was strong enough to make himlower the smoking weapon in his hand.

ONCE they had been a man and a woman.Jeffrey recognized their grayish flannel bathrobesas the regulation equipment in the city's largestcharity ward. But the bodies under thosebathrobes, spindly as matches in the bonystructure, hideously swollen and protruding atevery joint, were like no patients Jeffrey had seenin that hospital or any other.

The man's shoulder-joints were bulbous ashuge gourds on the frail vine-like torso, and thewoman's pelvic girdle was flattened wide till sheseemed to be sitting on a portable chair even asshe moved painfully toward him.

And their faces! The wide eyes stared,hideous with hatred and pain, from their shrunkenmummy sockets. The lower jaws were huge,contrasting inhumanly with the shrunkencraniums, like platters supporting a pointedpudding.

So this was the surprise party!Slowly, deliberately, the creatures were

advancing on him.... These ghastly abortions,obviously abducted from hospital wards, wouldhave been further damning evidence against Dr.Skull—if there had been anything left of Dr. Skullwhen his enemies were through with him.

"What do you want of me?" Jeffrey askedsoftly. His nerves were stinging with pain andshock, but he stood erect and untrembling. "Can Ihelp you?"

The man-thing's monstrous lower jaw movedgigantically, and a hoarse, unearthly laugh with nojoy in it ripped from the match-stick chest.

"There—is no—help," he stated in harsh,deliberate gutturals, as though speech hadbecome difficult. "If you're—a doctor, I want to—kill you."

The woman-thing started to laugh in high,tinny laughter. Maybe the damned laugh that wayin hell, Jeffrey thought feverishly. But this wasn'thell! This was New York, civilization....

"I am a doctor, of sorts," he admitted to themonstrous creatures. "And I don't want to hurtyou. As you see, I have a gun. I can defendmyself, but hope that won't be necessary. I wantyou to trust me!"

He didn't finish, for at that moment, the twofoul distortions of human shape leaped upon him.Their huge hams of hands covered his throat, hisface, pinned his arms to his sides... unutterablerepulsion rose in him, as he smelled the faint butundeniable tinge of putrescence in that sickflesh....

He twisted his body at the waist, used hisupper torso as a club, and then he was free. Aguttural howl thudded against his ear-drums, andthen a powerful lower jaw sank into his arm. Withboth hands, Jeffrey seized the man-thing's throat,squeezed till the eyes popped and the jawloosened.

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12

The woman-thing fell to her knees beside thesprawled figure of her mate, and from her roundbulbous eyes a few tears squeezed out.

"He's not dead," Jeffrey gasped. "He—won'tdie. You two... I've got to—help you."

THE man's body was clumsy, but no heavierthan any other body. As Jeffrey dragged ithaltingly down into his cellar, the womanfollowed. He noticed that she stopped forsomething which had been in the crate, wonderedif it were some kind of weapon.

It was only when he had stretched the man-thing on his cot in the underground chamberbehind the coal-bin that the woman stretched outher hand. In that vast swollen palm, there was anordinary glazed electric bulb.

"Light," said the woman. "Give us light, or—we die."

Jeffrey frowned at the pleading, half-beatenquality in that harsh painful voice. He removed hisown bulb from the wall socket, and inserted thebulb she gave him.

Instantly, the subterranean room was floodedwith a pale but glaring indigo radiance that hurtJeffrey's eyes. Ultraviolet! Why, what...?

"Go!" commanded the monstrous woman. "Itwill hurt you; we need it. We need it becausedoctors have... done this to us...."

The glare was dizzying. It hurt his skin,tickled a vibrant heat into his bones. On the cot,the man-thing began to stir.

"There's a box of package groceries on theshelf," Jeffrey said, "and water in the tap there.Here—" he made some adjustments in his wallamplifier, transforming it into what it had beenoriginally, a radio loud speaker, "if you turn on thatswitch, you'll have a radio. I’ll be back later, withbooks, cooked food—"

The woman nodded again. Her gnarledflattened body might have been twenty years oldor a hundred, but it seemed now as ancient ashuman tragedy itself. "Go," she said again.

The ultra-violet light was beginning to breakhis skin. Jeffrey left them there and cautiouslylocked the door from the outside.

What had they been, what ghoulish distortionof the scientific mind had made them monsters?

The question seered Jeffrey's brain, blazeda new scar of hatred across it like the hot blade of

a branding-knife. There was a passion in him forhealth and normalcy, and he had discerned theghost of those things in that ungodly pair.

Their vengeful attack was understandable.Beyond that murderous rage, their minds

seemed unimpaired. He thought again of thewoman-thing's tears when she thought her matewas dead, and of the way she had followedhim....

Would he really be able to help them, as hepassionately hoped to do? He had not helpedMrs. Purvins—so far.

Suddenly the sick certainty dawned onJeffrey that there would be more cases, and morestill, until the very name of doctors and healingmedicine were anathemas to an outragedhumanity!

CHAPTER FOURHell’s Hospital

SHORTLY, he guessed, there would bemore intruders in the office of Dr. Skull. Theywould be men with badges from the police andhealth departments, who had been informed thattwo medical monsters, additional damning proofof malpractice, were to be found in Dr. Skull'soffice.

He uttered a fervent inward prayer of thanksfor that hidden chamber where the twomonstrosities might be safe until he found outwhat had deformed them. In that discovery layhis only chance of helping them.

He stopped upstairs, dragged theunconscious Carol to a couch, and bathed herblasted hand with antiseptic. That right handwould be useless for weeks, but no other harmhad been done.

"Good little soldier!" he whispered.The homeless girl Jeffrey had befriended

when she had no one else to turn to, did not hearhim. But her strong slender body seemed torelax, as though she knew a friend was near....And Jeff guessed that this wouldn't be the lasttime he got Carol out of a tight spot, just as itwasn't the first.

He stared briefly at the two dead faces onDr. Skull's office floor, faces in which the sightless

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13

eyes glowed like purple grave-lights! That wasthe characteristic of those who had given theirsouls to a devil's keeping, but for what reward,Jeffrey did not know.

He bent down, and with a rubber stampwhose handle was a vial containing acid, heburned the Mark of the Skull on the two coldbrows. Contrary to erudite psychological opinion,that brand was no mere braggart gesture. InJeffrey's ceaseless war on evil, he had found thatthe brand gave him a definite authority over hisenemy. Sometimes indeed, it acted as adeterrent, for those marked corpses were proof tothe living that the Skull Killer was alive andactive....

His hands moved swiftly after that, exploringthe clothing of the two, in an effort to find somemark of identification. In the breast pocket of onehe found a sealed envelope—and its contents, ashe eagerly scanned them, caused him to forgeteverything but his immediate mission.

Now, with the ghastly knowledge which abrief glimpse at the dead man's papers had givenhim, he wondered if he would be in time. Onething was sure—he had to leave Carol, andsurmised that the next intruders in his officewouldn't harm her. As a police siren soundedoutside, he raced into the street and hailed a taxi.

IT WAS night, a cold starry November night,with Orion making a clear pale pattern aboveManhattan, as it had done for the past fivethousand Novembers. Dark stone buildingssquatted or soared in contemplative peace abovethe small streets. But the Mid-City Hospital—thatmodern medical colossus—seemed no part of thepattern, seemed to be breaking out of thebackground in an ominous haze of color.

Dim but unmistakable in the darkness, thehospital walls glowed like a new earthbound star.Nor were they the color of stars—they werepurple!

He had seen that color in human eyes.... Hehad seen it half an hour ago in the incredible ultra-violet life-ray of two who were heirs to hell. It wasthe color of damnation—and ironically now thecolor of the building dedicated to the relief ofhuman suffering!

Robert was in that building—Robert, whowas the point and meaning of his brother Jeff'sexistence....

As the cab slowed to a snail's pace thenstopped amid a blare of horns and carts ofdoormen in the Monday night theatre traffic,Jeffrey handed his driver a dollar bill, andproceeded on foot.

If he could make it in time! But in time forwhat?

He didn't know, couldn't know yet, in justwhat fashion hell would break loose in the Mid-City Hospital—whether it would take seconds orhours before horror burst like shrapnel upon thethousand helpless inmates. Whether, in somevile secret part of that magnificent edifice, it hadnot already happened....

A nurse nodded to him pleasantly at thedesk, and be brushed past hurriedly into anelevator, and was soon in the eighth floor pavilionwhere Robert had a private suite.

The boy was sitting in his wheel-chair,reading a book of sonnets. One lamp cast itsglow on the chiseled beauty of the boy's darkhead... there was something almost unearthly inthe boy's sculptured profile, Jeffrey thought with asharp pang of solicitude.

He himself was rough-hewn, fit for the hardeventualities of life, but Robert wasn't. A fiercetenderness welled in the big man for the crippledboy, a tenderness that played through his firsthalf-humorous phrase.

"It's moving-day, Robert. I've come to takeyou home."

"Are you crazy?" the boy asked petulantly.It was his whole greeting. "If you think I'm justplaying sick, I might tell you that Dr. Skull said—"

"I don't give a damn!" Jeffrey told him, andthen he lifted the boy bodily from his wheel chair.Robert gasped, shut his eyes, and then relaxed inhis brother's arms. The book fell from his grasp,and Jeffrey noted its title hastily, planning in somecorner of his mind to replace it later.

He ran into the corridor, and with that livingburden clutched against his chest, began a rapidround of the rooms.

"If you can walk or crawl or move in any wayat all," he shouted to one startled patient afteranother, "get out of this place! It's no spot for thesick or the well!"

Screams echoed behind him, as patients andnurses alike recognized in this enraged youngman the chief patron of the hospital. The corridorswere becoming a chaos with those who tried to

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14

flee, and others who tried to hold them back. Anda few times, Jeffrey intervened to help somefrantic refugee get clear passage to freedom....

"Jeffrey Fairchild, are you insane?" Therewas excitement and anger on the dignifiedprofessional face before him, as the man in whitewho had appeared in the corridor excitedly wavinghis arms. "I've always liked you, but you've gonetoo far this time...."

Jeffrey swept Dr. Borden, staff director of thehospital, aside with one gesture of his left arm,and continued down the corridor, yellingcommands for exodus.

"Stop that maniac!" he heard Borden shriekbehind him, and then three husky orderlies weretrying to wrest Robert from him....

It was then that the queer crackling began toecho ominously through every part of thebuilding's structure. For a second Jeffrey's heartwent acrobatic....and then the smell came!

It made him gasp. It was a little like acid, butstronger, a little like smoke, but more throttling,and as yet invisible. The crackling sound grew likethe laugh of a giant devil.

An orderly shrieked, as he ran headlong fromthe man he was supposed to detain. "The X-rayfilms! My God, the X-ray room's on fire. Thatmeans poison gas!"

Jeffrey didn't remember the details later, buthe would hold all through his life the hecticimpressions of that roaring chaos.... How hecarried Robert to willing helpers in the air outside,and then plunged back into the building.

How heavy the old woman was, when shefainted on her bed, and he had to drag her tosafety because everyone else had forgotten her.How the young man went berserk, using theplaster cast on his arm for a club, and had to beknocked out before Jeff could save him. Andalways the dreadful, suffocating smell grewheavier, and the enormous crackling laugh of theburning walls more taunting and hateful. Throughit all, his brain screamed in pain and desperationfor vengeance on the conscious agent who hadcaused all this....

Everywhere, now, firemen were dragging,wheeling and carrying, the shrieking patients tosafety. The lower floors had to be vacated first,for that was where the deadly fumes wereheaviest.

Jeffrey had nowhere seen Mrs. Purvins, whowas reported under observation at the hospital.

He choked his way up a staircase at last, passingwhite figures of the thickening, swirling, deadlymist. Had she already been taken from thehospital? Suddenly he found himself in a corridorwhere the trend was downward, downward, with afrantic stream of refugees making their torturedway toward the exit and into the blessed air ofnight.

He lurched against the door of thepsychopathic ward where he guessed therescuers would arrive last. Here, most likely, theyhad sent Mrs. Purvins.

And then he broke into inferno....All who were left were strapped to their cots,

or confined in straitjackets. The others must havefled. A howling like the howling of purgatoryclangored with the wall-crackling. Crazed, twistedshapes wormed across the hot floor, humping intorture toward escape, bound as they were....

There was fury in Jeff's heart as he freedthem, working over those bonds with asuperhuman reserve of strength, allowing themaddened human things to scamper for theirlives.

He found one cold and shapeless form on afar cot, knew it for Mrs. Purvins. Was she dead,then? He didn't know, couldn't tell, for there wasno heart-beat to guide him. He slung the sloshingmass of flesh over his shoulder, and foughtthrough the smoke to freedom.

Fury rose hotly in his heart, and deathseemed to clot his lungs....He was blind, drowningin a sea of white acrid smoke, but he clungtenaciously to that burden in his arms.

Then life was coming back to his torturedbody, and somewhere above him the stars wereglowing serenely. He felt the burden lifted from hisarms, heard men's voices. Someone was holdingcool water to his mouth.

He saw—when he could be sure of what hewas seeing—that he was on the veranda outsidethe hospital, and that the men about him woreblack and red helmets of the fire department.Suddenly, from the bowels of the doomedbuilding, Jeffrey heard a woman scream in mortalterror.

Maybe the others heard it—maybe theycould persuade themselves of the futility ofrescue. Jeffrey didn't stop to argue. But beforeany one could stop him, he burst back into thehot white hell of fire and radium fumes that hadbeen the Mid-City Hospital....

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15

WHEN Carol opened her eyes, the officewas dark. She touched a hand to her foreheadand felt the cloth.

Her hand—someone had bandaged herhand! She remembered now, how her father'sgun had exploded in her palm. Poor old Pop!He'd come back from over there with an army gunand a lot of faith in nothing at all. Other men gavetheir lives, and Pop had given his soul.... Shemight have known he'd never leave her anythinguseful!

Those men who had been waiting for Dr.Skull—had they gone? She stumbled toward thewall switch, still puzzled by that big salt-smellingbandage, thinking that possibly Dr. Skull hadcome after all....

Carol cried aloud, a little cry of fear that diedin her throat. Two men—she recognized them asthe intruders—were sprawled on the floor.Gingerly, she looked at them more closely, afraidto wake them to further activity. But there was nocause for such fear. They were completely dead.

And on the foreheads of each, was the Markof the Skull. The Skull Killer! That half-legendaryfigure whom Carol, and many other New Yorkers,had half-believed a fabrication of thenewspapers.... He had been here, he had killedher attackers. And it must have been he who hadbandaged her hand!

She leaned against the wall, trying to puzzleout what had just happened to her. There werethings in herself that were new to her. There wasthis desperate, uneasy foreboding, that wassomehow worse than actual fear.... And then sheremembered Robert!

That was where she should have gone,hours ago. She had been on her way to thehospital when those men....

Carol struggled into her coat, ran out into thestreet. A policeman looked at her idly, and shehad the fleeting thought that this was no momentto report a double killing. She hadn't the time.Later, perhaps....

The streets were crowded with people,coming home from work, going to the movies,laughing and talking and getting last-minutepurchases for dinner, but Carol's nerves wereraw and angry with that queer unease. Shewanted to warn all the people, tell them it was nogood going to the movies or taking life calmly,while the forces of some cryptic hurricane

gathered over them, ready to bring its tragicdestruction to blight their lives.

What would she find in the hospital, whatwould it mean to her and to all the cheerfully noisypeople about her? She couldn't, no matter howhard she tried, assure herself that it would be allright, that the hospital would tower at it hadalways done over central Manhattan, with everypolite interne ready to explain that visiting hourswere almost over, but if she really wanted to dropin.... No, it wasn't going to be like that!

She knew it three blocks away, knew it fromthe sudden change in tempo of the crowd abouther, from the loud wail of hook-and-ladder sirens.

The hospital was on fire!

UNIFORMED men were beginning to throw acordon about the flaming pile of stone as shefought her way through the thick crowd. Sheheard shouts, screams.... And through it all ranthe half-meaningless phrase, "It's the X-ray films!They haven't a chance!"

Fires don't smell like this she thought, withthat queer, cold tension in her tightening to acertainty. Something unearthly, some thingdevastating as an earthquake, had happened toRobert, and to all the other people in there!

It came to her, then, like a bolt from hell.Suppose that Jeffrey were in there with Robert!The thought sent her whirling lithely through thepress of people right to the half-formed cordon offire-fighters. Her coat was ripped off and lost inthe crowd as she pressed closer. The hot flamesmade a blazing summer out of that Novembernight, poisoning the pure air with soaring smoke.

Behind that screen of smoke, she managedto slip into the doomed building.

Heat and gas rolled like ocean wavesthrough her body... She could hardly bear it, shewould die here, and no one would know what hadhappened to her!

Figures brushed past her in the mist, and shecould not identify them. She merely guessed thatthey were refugee and human.... She would neverfind Jeffrey or Robert!

Out.... She must get out, into the clean air...Carol stumbled forward through the roaring

smoke, arms outstretched before her. She wasnearly there, she could see the vague outline ofan exit ahead of her.

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16

Someone caught her waist and shemurmured faintly, "Take me—out of here...." Thenshe relaxed simply into strong masculine arms,her swaying body grateful for that support.

The smoke was getting worse, she thoughtdully; it must be all over the city by now. And thenshe realized with sharp fright that she was beingcarried away from the exit—back into the burningheart of the building!

"It's the wrong way!" she screamed at theman who held her. "We'll die if you don't—"

A strangely hollow laugh cut short herprotest. She looked at the man who carried her,and even in that heat, she felt a quick, hideouschill. For it wasn't a human face at all! It was a—a—gargoyle... And now there were othergargoyles, scampering toward them, returning tosport in the hell they had created.

She had not thought herself capable of themighty effort which pulled her loose from the thingthat held her.... but she was on her own legsagain, running like a hunted thing for freedom....

They circled off her escape, all of them,devil-faced creatures of poisoned smoke, andthen they were carrying her back with them, intounimaginable torment.

THEY were not gargoyles, Carol realized;they were men in gas masks. She saw that assoon as they passed the door marked, "X-RayRoom. Keep Out."

Here the smoke had cleared, but the heatwas unbearable, and that ghastly smell wasstronger than it had been outside.

"Everything here's burned itself out," one ofthe masked men remarked tersely. "That wasquick."

Carol looked about wildly at the blackenedinterior. Strips of charred wood clung to thetwisted steel frame-work. She could only guessat the immense heat which had twisted that steel.Her strength, she felt was growing less. Andmeanwhile, the men's voices echoed in her ears,like voices heard in a dream.

"The girl's going to die soon," she heard oneof her captors say. "This air must be terrific. Arewe leaving her?" As he spoke, Carol felt the holdon her relaxed. She sagged to the floor, shriekedas her skin blistered at the contact.

One of the figures picked her up, held her atarm's length—and then hot air seared her lungsas she gasped it in and began to scream—butregularly, repeatedly. An evil staring maskwavered before her eyes, seemed to grow largerand more hideous, just as the body beneath itseemed to swell. A million tearing pains shotthrough her tortured flesh, seeming to rend itasunder, and she knew that not one but four armsencircled her, arms that held her not by a grip,but by powerful suction.

The Octopus! It seemed to her as though asudden silence had fallen in the room, a silencethrough which a meaning clearer than wordsfloated into her consciousness.

"The Skull's nurse," it seemed to say,"She'll be a good object lesson by the time hefinds her!"

Into the dim haze of her consciousness camethe memory of the morning, and of the arrival ofthe threatening missive. This monster washuman, then; and the thought revived some ofher ebbing courage. She tried feebly to struggle.

But there was no strength in Carol anywhere,save in her voice, and even her shrieks weregrowing fainter....

SHE had not quite lost consciousness—sheinsisted later—but she could not remember howshe came to be upright and on her feet again, withthe blood streaming dizzily through her veins, andthe various suction cups on her skin releasingtheir hold. She was leaning against the wall, alsoagainst someone, and the fiery little room wasloud with shouts.

Fearfully, she turned her head. JeffreyFairchild had found her. How, or when—that didn't

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17

matter. She realized that all the laughinggargoyles had lost their masks excepting one whohad last held her. There was a smoking gun inJeff's hand. He was raising the gun and takingpoint-blank aim at the remaining devil—theOctopus.

Simultaneously with Jeff's pulling the trigger,she saw one of those long green arms snake outand fasten around his wrist, and she thought shecould hear the audible click as the gun-hammerhit on a spent cartridge. Jeff seemed suddenlytorn from her side, but then she realized that hehad hit the monster with a flying tackle thatcarried them both across the room.

They squirmed and rolled in a tangle of flyinglimbs, with those long green arms encircling Jeff.Jeff had switched his grin into his left hand whichwas still free, and with it he kept beading themonster back, hitting it in the face, while he hadmanaged to get his right hand near his side inspite of the gripping scaly tentacle.

She saw his fingers flick briefly into the sidepocket of his jacket, and come out holdingsomething that glistened in the dim light of thesmoke-filled room. He swung his fist, holding theshining object toward the side of the monster'shead, but the other eluded him by throwinghimself backward and releasing Jeff altogether.

The monster rolled over into a corner, one ofthe long arms reached far back and threwsomething, and suddenly the room was dark, filledwith acrid, lung-searing gas.

She coughed, struggled for breath with whichto scream, and then she felt Jeff's arms aroundher again, lifting her up, carrying her outside.

She tried to ask him about it, when at lastthey were outside; what was it that had made themonster suddenly release him and act as if hewere afraid? But Jeff wasn't listening. Hewrapped his own torn coat around her, and thenshe was in a taxi with Jeff and Robert. She wasgrowing ill, for that smell seemed to linger onevery square inch of her body....

Jeff seemed to know about the poison thatseemed to be eating into her skin. In his ownapartment, he sponged her aching body withwarm water and some kind of liniment.

"Sorry to make you play nursemaid," shesmiled faintly.

He didn't answer, merely pulled the coolsheet over her, and reached for her wounded

hand. Carefully, he began to wind a new bandageabout it.

"Where's Dr. Skull?" she asked. "There weresome men, and a letter—from that thing...."

She told him about the letter that had comein the doctor's mail, and Jeff listened, quietly.

"I think Dr. Skull will take care of himself,"Jeffrey said then. "You try to sleep. And—betterleave guns alone!"

She writhed into some kind of comfort in thecool darkness. How had Jeffrey known that herhand had been hurt by the explosion of an oldrevolver? Did it look that bad?

She fell asleep in the middle of plans forsecuring an up-to-date, non-burstable, conven-iently concealable police revolver. It was all verywell to be a lady in normal times—but whenarmed intruders entered your place of business,and when you were likely to meet an octopus—ina place several degrees hotter than hades....well,even a lady might be pardoned for packing herown protection!

CHAPTER FIVEWhile the City Sleeps

THAT Monday at midnight, a new beaconflared in the Manhattan skyline. It seemed towaver at first, like a star trying to be born, andthen one brilliant plume of violet light shot upwardand southward. A sparkling spray edgedelectrically bright from either side... and then theray thickened, rose and seemed to comb theconstellations. Feeling its way among thescattered clouds like a thing alive—huge, probingtentacle!

Then, after the momentary display whichattracted a thousand eyes, it settled into a steadypurple glow.

Having erected a new and notableskyscraper on Columbus Circle, the owner of thejust-completed Victory Building had crowned hiswork with a signal so starkly beautiful that theother steel peaks of Manhattan paled bycomparison. There was something eerie aboutthe purple light, something that suggested theisland's future as it towered closer and closer,

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dynamically victorious, towards unattainableheights of sky.

So the men in the streets thought, as theyclustered in little groups to gape at the star-searcher. So the lone pilot thought, as the wing-tipof his empty transport plane seemed to catchmomentary violet fire, two thousand feet abovethe crest of the Victory Building. But almostinstinctively, for reasons he could never explain,he sent the ship into a steep bank, to avail thatpurple glow.

Jeffrey Fairchild, watching from his northwestwindow, read another significance in the blazingbeacon. It was the same light, multiplied bymillions of watts, as the one that those pitiful lostsouls in the basement chamber required for life. Itwas the same light, concentrated and directed, ashe had seen glowing on the walls of the Mid-CityHospital an hour before its collapse!

The color of Satan victorious.... In thatbeacon, Jeffrey thought, he saw the risen flag ofevil conquest over an already doomed city. Hadthe Octopus laid his plans so well, was hisposition already so firm that he could hoist hiseerie standard boldly in plain sight of the City'smillions?

Desperately, Jeffrey assured himself thatthere might not be a connection. The purplebeacon was—must be—only a purple beacon.But after all that had happened that day, he couldhardly believe in such coincidence.

It was the end of Dr. Skull—at least for awhile. Already the city itself was ready toprosecute that mild-mannered professional manfor murder and worse. If the enemy had raisedhis standard, his next attack on the quarters of Dr.Skull would be neither insidious nor subtle.Rather, it would be the high-handed devastationof the conquering invader—there was no room inthe same city for two buildings representing suchopposing philosophies as the humble quarters ofDr. Skull, and the arrogant new temple of thetwentieth century Satan!

Some day, Dr. Skull might continue hisoffices and functions, and heart-brokenly, Jeffreyhoped that he could. In the meantime, it was forJeffrey Fairchild to discover the true nature of thatominous and brightly sinister banner.

CAROL woke with cold sweat draining fromevery pore. She had dreamed of that time in Dr.Skull's office when two fiercely garnet-colored

eyes had attempted to stare her into hideousobedience.... But now she was safe in JeffreyFairchild's house and it was only the Broadwaydawn coming through the blinds that had causedher troubled dream of that time when she hadbeen kidnapped.

The Broadway dawn—New York's nocturnalneon life—but what a strange color! She rose onher knees in bed, and drew the curtains.

A mile tall in the sky, sharp and radiant as asword, pierced the shaft of purple light. Carolgasped, and rubbed her cold arms. Was this theend for them all; had the nightmare been realerthan she thought? Her body ached withweariness. It had been a hard day, a dreadful dayand she could still feel the chafe in her ankleswhere those men....

Outraged, her mind shrank from the memory.Another woman might have been hysterical fordays. Not Carol—but she didn't want to think....

Someone else had to think for her, someonestronger than she. She could act, she couldfight, she could endure. But to anticipate andface the terrors she knew to be waiting—no, shecouldn't do that, till her nerves and muscles forgotthat too recent torture!

No one but Jeffrey was strong enough tohelp her. With Jeffrey beside her, she could kneeland be calm in the valley of sinister shadow....

She pulled the curtains against that starkimage in the sky, and lurched forward on herpillow.

In the morning, she thought drowsily, whentrue dawn cleaned the sky with serene sunlight,she would be sure that she had never wakened;she would only think that her nightmare had takensome odd and realistic twist....

JEFFREY passed softly into the dark roomwhere Robert slept. Before he went out into thenight, he wanted to look once more at hisbrother's face. That one look might perforce lasthim through eternity.

A wind rustled the half-drawn shade, and theboy sighed quietly. Was he awake? Jeffrey halfhoped so. If he could hear Robert's voice now, thenight ahead would be easier.... But Robert did notstir.

The very darkness had a purplish cast, andthat glowing arm of radiance was clearly visiblefrom the window. As his eyes grew more

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accustomed to the dimness, Jeffrey saw thatRobert was propped up in bed, his face turnedtoward the window. There was an open book inthe boy's lap. He must have been reading it whenthe glow came, and he had turned the light offthe better to watch that curious beacon.

Jeff sat beside the bed and waited for Robertto speak.

"Funny looking thing, isn't it, Jeff?""Very. What were you reading?"For seconds, Robert did not answer. Then

he said, "Jeff, did you notice, just before thehospital caught fire, that the walls were just thatcolor? Sort of—purple and alive?"

"Why, yes," said Jeffrey."It's funny," said Robert, "that you always

show up when I need you. Guess I wouldn't behere if it weren't for you... It's too bad, Jeff, thatwe can't see eye to eye on things. I sometimeswish that I could get along with you. If you'd onlydrop your sloppy way of living.... If you'd only lookat things the long way, care about the things thatmatter, the way Dr. Skull does...."

"Skull?" Jeffrey breathed. "Well, where's yourDr. Skull now?" In spite of the fact that he himselflived in the two personalities, so clear andseparate an entity had Dr. Skull become toJeffrey, that he was almost jealous of his brother'saffection for the old doctor. Especially so sincethat affection was denied to him.

Robert's voice grew lower. "I think he'shiding somewhere, Jeff. They're after him—oh, forall sorts of things he hasn't done! Murder—humanvivisection, or worse! You know, Jeff, I almostunderstand why people believe that. Once I—"the boy broke off, then spoke again. "It's hard tobelieve at first that anyone can really be as kindand unselfish as Dr. Skull is. At one time, I eventhought he was the Skull Killer—and of course,that's crazy. But he's not that way! He's good,clean through, and I wish I could find him and tellhim so!"

"I might find him for you," Jeffrey murmured."You? You wouldn't even know him. You've

always been too busy, or too lazy or just toosnobbish, to meet him when I asked you to...."

To change the subject, Jeffrey said, "You stillhaven't told me about that book you werereading."

"This book? It really belongs to Dr. Skull. Hegave it to me a long time ago, when he wanted

me to do research for him on something called thePurple Eye. He was writing a paper for theMedical Association. There's something here Ididn't tell him. Look here, Jeff—if you shouldhappen to run into him any time, if you shouldrecognize him, you tell him what it is, the way I'mgoing to tell you. Tell him about the Mid-CityHospital fire, too.

"But this book.... It's a book of legends—most of them just can't be swallowed in anyshape. And I didn't tell him what I found, becauseit didn't have anything to do with eyes. There's astory here about Rome—the night before itburned. They saw a purple light around theColiseum, and then the flames came. Only oneman told about it—Dorican Agrippa—but he isn'tgenerally considered a reliable source."

"I'll tell Dr. Skull if I see him," Jeffrey said, hiseyes narrowed and thoughtful. Purple lights in thewalls of doomed buildings! And now the very skywas threaded by that forewarning of destruction."Think I'll let you get some sleep, Robert."

"Good idea," said the boy quietly. He sighed,and fell back against his pillow.

Jeffrey turned for another look from thedoorway, but Robert no longer seemed aware ofhim. His face turned to the window, the boymotionlessly watched that arrogant purple signalin the sky.

HALF an hour or so later, Jeffrey heard afaint scratching sound as he tunneled toward theunderground chamber below Dr. Skull's office. Itgrew louder; and as he opened the door, he sawhis monstrous pair of half-human things scrapingthe wooden floor under his cot with the nails oftheir thick spatulate fingers. The violet light therehurt his eyes, and he blinked, standing there onthe threshold.

Before he could open his eyes again, a shrillcry of surprise echoed through the little chamber,and a rancid-smelling hand reached for his throat.Helplessly, he flailed at the flesh that hemmedhim in.

"It's—the other one!" he heard the womansay, and then he was free. "Wait," she continued,her form seeming to waver and seethe crazily inthat dazzling light. "We can change the lights for afew minutes, so you can stay—and talk to us."

In the charged darkness, Jeffrey scarcelyknew whether or not another attack would beforthcoming, and then the room seemed half-

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normal again with the steady blaze of his own oldhundred-watt bulb.

"We can last an hour without the other light,"grunted the man-thing. His great shrunken eyestraveled unblinkingly the length of Jeffrey'sperson. "Are you—Dr. Skull?"

Jeffrey nodded."They hate you," the woman said. "They

came for you." She paused. The pair took turnsin speaking, as though it were difficult for onealone to sustain a conversation.

"I switched your radio," said the man."Switched it both ways. Upstairs—we heard menupstairs. They talked—they were detectives. Theywanted you and us. They went away soon."

"Then the others," said the woman. "Thedoctors—the bad doctors and the one they callthe Octopus.... They came to find if Dr. Skull—had been arrested. You're not one of them. Theysaid so. They want to kill you. You—may be allright."

"Help us," the man grunted in that thick,half-dead monotone.

Jeffrey backed against the wall. If he onlycould! Those pitiful outstretched reeds of arms,flattened into hideous fronds at the joints! He hadcome here to help them, but they would have tohelp him, too. They would have to tell him whatwas the matter with them, as best they could;who had done this to them; where he could findthe man or men responsible for these atrocities.

"Who was your doctor?" he asked. "Whenthis happened to you, I mean?"

"His name was Borden," the man answered."But he—there's another, who tells him what todo. Another man—maybe another devil—the onewhom I told you about."

"Who is he?" Jeffrey almost shouted.Tragically, the woman shrilled, "We don't

know. We don't know who he is, or how he did it.But he has his people all over. They call him theOctopus, but they all have crazy eyes, exceptBorden, who's their front. They took us here fromthe hospital.... For a long time they kept us apart.They were bad, bad.... But we can't—proveanything...."

Who was the man behind the whole hellishscheme? Jeffrey tried agonizingly to think of aclue to his identity. "Why did they do it?" heasked. "What reason could anyone possibly havefor doing this to you?"

For answer, the man squatted, and pulledsomething out from under the cot. "Maybe—this isthe reason," he said.

Jeffrey couldn't answer; didn't know how toanswer. Cold little waves of revulsion traveled upand down his spine, and he choked back thespontaneous animal cry that welled in his throat.

The thing under the cot had been a manonce, before those tooth-marks had flapped theskin of its throat to loose ribbon.

There was no trace of blood at the severedjugular, no trace of blood in the entire, shrunken,half-naked frame. It was a grey, dried body,suggestively withered, with the flat layers ofmuscle and fat sagging against a limp bonystructure... even the whites of the eyes were asbloodless as the belly of a dead fish. But the iriseswere a livid, staring purple!

"You took his blood!" Jeffrey whispered,when he could speak at all.

THE bulbous misshapen head of the man-thing slowly rose and fell. "We must—have livingblood. Otherwise—we die. That may be why—they did this to us. They are men who hate manypeople. They wanted us—to drink the blood oftheir enemies."

Jeffrey remembered Mrs. Purvins... and hetensed expectantly, waiting for some furtherattack on himself. It was impossible to tell fromthose hoarse gutturals whether the monstersfeared, respected, or hungered for him. Theirtones were utterly flat and emotionless, save forthat heavy undercurrent of dread tragedy.

"He came here," the woman said. "He—looked for us. He came in—but he never told theothers he had found us. He will never tell now—about anything. We had to silence him.... Andthen we were thirsty."

So the enemy had committed oneboomerang atrocity! It was the first time, toJeffrey's knowledge, that such a thing hadhappened.

The man repeated, with a tense desperationsomehow threading the harsh, lifeless gutturalquality of his speech, "Help us. Please help us—Dr. Skull...."

Jeffrey said, "I'll need a blood sample."The man's lips moved in what might have

been a smile. He rolled his bathrobe sleeve,

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baring a yellowish gash in his arm. "He did that,"said the man. "That's—all I have for blood."

Jeffrey didn't have to analyze it. He tried tofind the pair's pulses, and couldn't. The yellowishstuff... was like that cold, primitive compoundwhich had been in the veins of Mrs. Purvins. Sea-water, in human bodies! That's why they neededthe constant renewing warmth of living blood. Butthese people, unlike Mrs. Purvins, gave evidenceof logical reasoning.

Jeffrey asked them who they had been, theirages, and how they had come under the care ofDr. Borden.

Her husband caught pneumonia, the womansaid, and then she caught it from him. Becausethere was no one to take care of them, they hadboth gone to the hospital. And that was where, inthe secrecy of a private room, its horror guardedfrom public knowledge by the almost militarydiscipline of a hospital, the transformation hadtaken place.

The man was thirty, the woman twenty-six.Their name was Halliday, Stephen and EleanorHalliday.

From the wall amplifier, came a thuddinginterruption. Someone was leaving the office ofDr. Skull... leaving in a hurry!

CHAPTER SIXThe Purple Warning!

THE man-thing threw himself on Jeffrey,keeping him from running up to investigate. "Youcan't go!" the monster gutturaled. "We know whatthey're doing—we heard them planning it!"

A deafening detonation roared through thechamber, rocked the walls. For a breathlesssecond, the fore-wall cracked and swayed, andthen the quake was over, with all walls in ajagged ungeometric pattern, but they were stillstanding.

The man-thing kept his broad fingersclutched on Jeffrey's coat. "I saved your life," herasped. "Remember that. And unless you helpus, we will claim that life, as we claimed his—"his malformed thumb gestured awkwardly towardthe drained corpse on the floor. "We will find you,wherever you are. They will help us find you, ifwe go back to them. We don't care—we're not

afraid of anything—not even of them. That's whywe were made like this—nothing worse canhappen, and there's nothing left for us to fear.That’s why they expected us to be good tools forthem. But they made a mistake—when theybrought us here."

These monsters, even with their desperatethreats, gave Jeffrey more hope than anythingelse he had encountered. They seemed to knowmore about the Octopus than anyone else waswilling to admit....

"Do you know anything about the new purplesearch-light?" he asked. "There's one overManhattan tonight, and I think it's theirs."

The monsters looked at one another, andshook their great heads. "No. And you'd—bettergo soon," said the woman, "We—must have ourown light on again."

Jeffrey turned toward the door."You can work for us in peace, Dr. Skull,"

said the man. "They think you're dead, now.When one of their men disappeared—the onewho found us—they were sure you weresomewhere—in the building. We heard them sayso. That's why they blew up the building. Theythink now that you died in the explosion.Remember us.... And we shall not forget you!"

The woman busied herself with the Iight-bulb. "I'll remember," Jeffrey promised.

He could not lock the door again, for that firstintruder had smashed the lock. But he was surethe man and woman would await him peaceablyenough, secluded both from their enemies andcruel public scrutiny if he came back within areasonable time.

He wanted to stop at the office, to see ifthere was anything he could salvage, but debrisblocked the way. He couldn't even get past thecoal-bin into the basement. Then growing louderabove him, he heard the hungry crackle and roarof flames.

Through that voracious sound of destructioncame the approaching clang and whine of the fire-trucks... But Jeffrey knew that before those ragingflames could be tamed, the whole building andeverything in it would be lost beyond redemption.

For an instant a pang of heart-ache assailedhim as he thought of the associations which thathumble edifice had for him during the past sixyears.... For Dr. Skull had made it a haven for thepoor and the ailing of this downtroddenneighborhood.

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Then, after a few minutes, he emerged outon the street, the flaming structure blocks away.He entered a drug store, stepped swiftly into aphone booth, and dialed the number of hisgarage.

EXCEPTING for the powerful Diesel motorwhich he had designed and installed himself,there was nothing to mark Jeffrey's car asdifferent from a thousand other sedans on thestreets. He nodded to the garage mechanic asthe car was brought up to the drug store, then,alone behind the wheel, he headed southward,toward the Holland tunnel to New Jersey, whilethe purple beacon sprayed its light into theheavens above Manhattan....

A hundred miles out at sea that night,sleepless navigators stared with marvelling eyesat a harbor-light no sailor had seen before. OnLong Island, and in the Westchester andConnecticut suburbs to the north of the city,residents wondered at the new splendor of NewYork's nightlife reflected in the skies.

And in Manhattan itself, people stared—asManhattanites will at each new marvel their cityproduces—and some wondered if the glaring raywould not blind aviators rather than guide them.

And if there shouldn't be a law, or anordinance....

Jeffrey headed under the Hudson, and onthe Jersey shore he hit for the Newark airport.Occasionally, he had found use for a trim littletwo-seater kept there. It had a lofty wing-spread,which gave it some of the qualities of a glider, andpowerful little motor. At the airport he was knownas a wealthy and idle young man, with a penchantfor playing with air currents and the scientific sideof flying.

The little ship took to the heavens like a bird,and in ten minutes he was circling above the heartof Manhattan, with the jewelled crest of theVictory building glowing below him. He dared notfly through the beacon itself, if its nature werewhat he feared, such an attempt might meansuicide.

He cut his motor, doused his riding lights,and silently circled in the upward air currentscaused by the canyon streets. As he neared thecolumn of purple glare, he felt an almostunbearable heat in his open cockpit.

Holding the stick between his knees, hereached into his pocket for a piece of cloth, which

he smeared thickly with a heavy, tar-likesubstance from a long, narrow flask. After waitingfor the cloth to dry, he wrapped it around hishand.

Despite the upward air current, the weight ofhis little plane carried him lower and lower. Theheat intensified momentarily as he dipped into thepurple glare, and he felt his hands and facealmost blistering—all but that part of his right handwhich had been covered with the saturated cloth.

A grim look of satisfaction on his face, hepulled back on the stick, and soared skyward. Thebeam of light trembled beneath him, then swungslightly, seeking him out. He threw the plane intoa steep bank, barely avoiding that purpleradiance, and momentarily the little craft, not builtfor such quick maneuvering, fluttered like a leaf.He steadied her in a long glide, and again nosedup...

Then he knew! The ray on the VictoryBuilding was the purple arm of death—an ultra-violet ray!

Now he was sure that the new building inmidtown Manhattan was his enemy's citadel.From the air, it was impregnable. No craft couldhope to remain aloft above that death-dealingflare.

By land.... Jeffrey frowned, guessing that thelight could be deflected downward as well as up.No army in the world could march through a streetswept by the purple beam.

Excitedly, Jeffrey tried to imagine thepurpose of the citadel, and its connection with themonsters that the Octopus had created. It wasimportant now for him to warn all aircraft in thevicinity about the light.

HIS plane was equipped with a two-waytransmitter. As he switched it on, he heard a loudspluttering that ran through all wave lengths, asthough an important political speech were beingbroadcast over every station.

As he tried to clear it, he ran into thebroadcast itself. It was the most bizarre andunholy announcement, Jeffrey realized, that hadever gone through ether:

Station WVI, on top of the Victory Building,New York City. We bring you our half-hourlyannouncement again. All other stations pleasesign off. The life of every man, woman and childin New York City is at stake.

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A short, spluttering pause. And then a deep,indefinably sinister voice that sent the nerve-endsin Jeffrey's spine into a dizzy jig.

Citizens of New York! You are in the grip of anepidemic with which your ordinary healthfacilities cannot and will not deal. Even morethan your lives are at stake.

Tonight there will walk among you thepatients of your hospitals. They have beenhospitalized for the ordinary diseases, but nowthey come from the hospitals unrecognizable ashuman beings. They are monsters.

Another pause. Jeffrey's plane stirredsouthward for seconds, poised above Radio City,and circled there during the broadcast.

Not one of you is immune to this spreadingplague. Do not trust your doctors! Do not trustyour hospitals! They are the chief agents of thisunnamable disease! In their hands; you too maybecome unfit to bear the name of man.

There is one way, and one way only, to keepthe plague from torturing yourselves and yourfamilies. We have gathered here, in the officesof the Victory Building, all those doctors who arestill worthy of the name—men of national andinternational reputation, who will co-operate withyou to stamp out this plague. They have cometogether under the name of The Citizens'Emergency Medical Committee.

Tomorrow, all citizens employed in gainfuloccupation, whether by private or governmententerprise, are requested to send one day's payto the Citizens' Emergency Medical Committee,address, the Victory Building, New York City, asthe only safe form of health insurance foryourselves and your families. Thus insured, youwill receive medical treatment by New York'sonly safe doctors in the event that diseasestrikes.

To outlying territories, we broadcast thiswarning: Do not permit trains, busses, pleasurecars, boats or aircraft to cross your borders frommetropolitan New York, lest you bring theepidemic on yourselves. Warning especially theState of New Jersey; Westchester County andthe City of Yonkers in particular. Since all ofLong Island has been stricken also, we warn theState of Connecticut to prohibit ferry trafficacross Long Island Sound to and from thecounties of Nassau and Suffolk.

Do not hesitate to comply. This is for yourown good. Do not attempt to enter the VictoryBuilding until you require the services of aphysician. Send all insurance money by mail,and you will receive your receipt-cards thefollowing day. To those cranks and fanatics whoare always ready to attack a new development,we broadcast a warning: By attacking theVictory Building, you cut New York completely offfrom medical salvation. You doom millions ofinnocent human beings! We welcome aninvestigation by proper authorities, peaceablyconducted.

We will bring you another broadcast within thehalf hour.

JEFFREY stared at the silent transmitter asthe broadcast ended, almost wishing it were alive,so that he might throttle the thing that had utteredthose words. Extortion—with the stakes not mereloss of reputation, nor even life itself, but awarping in body and mind of great sections of thepopulation!

He was almost directly above Radio City,then he switched on his own short-wavetransmitter, and spoke into it. "This is the SkullKiller, calling Radio City. Please rebroadcast overyour regular wave length. Reply when ready."

There was no answer...."Skull Killer, still calling Radio City. This is in

relation to the broadcast by the Citizen'sEmergency Medical Committee, which you havejust heard. Please reply.

For silent seconds, Jeffrey despaired ofreceiving any response. They must have takenthe first broadcast as a practical joke, as theymight be taking his own plea. And then, faintlyand uncertainly, a voice said, "Ready. Go ahead,Skull Killer...."

And so that night, the voice of the SkullKiller, whose face no man could describe, washeard through the length and breadth of athousand square miles through the City of NewYork.

"Citizens of New York!" he began fervently."This is the Skull Killer.... I wish to advise youabout this so-called Citizens' Emergency MedicalCommittee. It is not a joke. Neither is it to betaken at face value.

"I have only this to go by: The purple lightseen over the Victory Building tonight is an ultra-violet ray of hitherto unknown strength. All aircraftare warned not to venture near or through the

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light. The motives of the new medical committeeseem bent more toward destruction thanconservation of human life.

"They have invited the investigation ofauthorities; see to it that your authorities really doinvestigate. And in the meanwhile, on my ownpart, I tell you that there will be a thorough privateinvestigation. That is all."

As Jeffrey flew southward from Radio City,there was a fresh broadcast from the VictoryBuilding:

Tonight we are submitting to the authoritiesundeniable proof of the Skull Killer's identity, andof the fact that he himself, in the guise of adoctor, is responsible for several of themonstrosities which you see on the streetstonight.

What would New York's streets be like,during the remainder of the night, Jeffreywondered as he headed again toward Newark.As he had expected, no emergency measures,had as yet been adopted; no cordon of officialplanes were quaranteeing Manhattan. Mostpeople who had heard that early morningbroadcast from the Victory Building would havetaken it as a practical joke—gruesome, perhaps,but a joke still.

And that broadcast of the Skull Killer? Didn'tthe very fact that the Skull Killer had been granteda use of popular airwaves bespeak the fact thatthe Citizens' Emergency Medical Committee'sspeech had made some impression. He wonderedhow many people he had reached, and what theythought—or had they really given him awavelength at all?

They must have, for the Medical Committee'slast words had been an oblique answer to hismessage! Jeffrey Fairchild felt a thrill of elation.He was starting his greatest battle; already he hadmade some progress and must make more if hehoped to save the nation's greatest metropolisfrom ghastly destruction!

He was allowed to land at the airport withoutinterference, and to drive back to the City throughthe tunnel.

He wondered at the ability of his enemy tomake broadcasts at regular half-hour intervalswithout interference from the authorities. WVImust be a newly-licensed station—and the threatin those announcements of the Citizens' Medical

Committee had been so cunningly veiled, thatoutside their definite disquieting influence, eventhose who took them seriously might neverrecognize them for the sinister demands theywere. Unless the true nature of that purplebeacon was known, listeners would not even lookupon those announcements as threats.

That much he had accomplished, but evennow some sort of account must be had from theCity authorities regarding the Committee.... Andthat account he knew, it was his responsibility toget at once.

CHAPTER SEVENCreatures That Once Were Men

DR. ANTHONY STEELE took the positionwhich had been assigned to him, at the entranceto the Victory Building. It was an hour aftermidnight, and up the steel canyons, came a sharpHudson wind. Dr. Steele shivered—the War musthave been like this, he thought, the War in whichhis uncle had been an army doctor, from which hehad not come back.

Thus it was to serve your country, or evenyour city, against a still-unconquered enemy, anenemy even more formidable in its hidden,sinister mystery. Dr. Steele had been shivering alittle bit all day.

When they'd told him that old Dr. Skull wasresponsible for a new and ghastly form ofdisease, he'd been upset about that, and had triedto get in touch with the man. But Dr. Skull couldnot be reached....

Then, the call from Borden, at Tony Steele'scustomary comfortable bed-time, impressing himinto this Emergency Medical Committee....

Wild talk, frightening talk—that had been hisimpression of the first Committee meeting in thenew Victory Building. If it hadn't been for Borden,he wouldn't have been there; he wouldn't havetrusted any of the others. And if ever he had seenthe fires of insanity reflected in human eyes, hehad seen them in the eyes of several of thesupposed leaders of the Committee, and they allseemed to belong to a secret order of sorts; allwearing watch fobs in the shape of a purple-eyedoctopus.

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But how could you tell? Those might havebeen fever-lights, signs of this growing pestilence!The men might have been stricken with the firststages of the malady, and were working onnevertheless, sacrificing themselves for theirfellows, for nobody could tell yet how this thingreally started.

There was nothing really to go by, except thetalk, and a few apparently unrelated facts. TheMid-City Hospital had burned down, and someCommittee members had openly accused themonstrous patients, who apparently hated doctorsand hospitals. Borden and a few of his medicalfriends had accused Jeffrey Fairchild, of allpeople! Said his wealth had made him a thrill-criminal. Borden even claimed to have seen Jeffat the fire, purposely, he said, contributing to theconfusion. Jeffrey Fairchild, that amiable andintelligent young man about town who had beenso helpful when Steel first started practice, fouryears ago!

And now the monsters were coming, for aid,for treatment, and it was Steele's job to admitthem. It hadn't been hard getting them out ofhospitals, he surmised, or away from the care oftheir private physicians—it seemed part of thedisease to mistrust any known sort of medicalhelp. Tony Steele looked at them, not realizinghow he trembled....

Hundreds of headlamps, from ambulancesand private cars, played a false dawn on thepavement about the Victor Building. Escorted bypolice, by internes and nurses, by private citizenswho seemed normal in all but their distraughtperplexity, they were coming. Hundreds of them,scrambling for the lighted doors of the VictoryBuilding. As though the lame and the halt of theworld had converged at the purple point.... Asthough the lame and the halt of history had risenhalf-rotting from their graves for some weird rite ofresuscitation.

And the overpowering odor! Not even theeffluvium of stale sweat, this thing; It was morelike the humors that might arise in an overheatedmorgue....

And he was supposed to help, to cure, hewho had specialized in those diseases which area luxury.

A policeman joined him, and then the crowdbecame something between a mob and an Act ofGod. For what seemed hours, Dr. Steel stoodthere, assorting those who sought to surgeinward, allowing only the damnably sick to pass,

and in spite of the dark morning's chill, he beganto sweat. His voice grew hoarse with shoutingdirections. All about him, he sensed the press ofgrotesque and tragic humanity, hobbling towardpossible salvation from God knew what hell ofself-loathing....

He didn't know! He hardly knew what greatwork he was engaged in, what was the beginningand the end of this process which began when themonsters left their ward beds, to end their grimtrek upstairs on the forty-fourth floor of the VictoryBuilding. He somehow felt himself a sentient tool,taking orders standing at the doorway betweenmystery and mystery....

How had they sickened? How would they becured? What was he about here, and how hadthis vast and grisly chaos come so unpredictably,so violently, into his pleasant life? He wondered ifCharon had felt as he did, bound forever to theStyx, witlessly rowing souls between rememberedlife and anticipated death....

ANOTHER man tapped Tony Steele'sshoulder, and said, "I'll relieve you, doctor. You'reneeded upstairs."

Steele sighed, the breath coming hardthrough his nostrils. Upstairs, at least, was morewhere a doctor belonged. Tony Steele was notough minded man. He liked people, liked to seethem well and happy. It was for that reason, asmuch as for anything, that he had concentratedon rich patients. The rich, when they were ill,could be cheered so easily, could be sent tohandsome hospital suites, could be ordered totake Napoleon brandy as a tonic, or luxury cruiseson palatial liners....

But the poor....No, there was less you coulddo for the poor. You had to see them hungry-eyedand listless, in those airless sunless flats,worrying about money, worrying about bills,worrying about the cost of medicine.... You had tosee a fifth child born into a three-room hovel,knowing that from its birth that the child wouldhave to fight for its right to food, its right to acorner of the world, its very right to live....

But now, Tony Steele was looking on humansuffering in a stark and inexplicable shape. Whatgood was a bedside manner for these shapes thatmight have been conceived in hell?

It was more than a clinical manner theyneeded, something of the all-wise, little fatherattitude.... Tony Steele went up to the forty-fourth

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floor, where the emergency clinic had beenequipped to diagnose these patients.

Shuddering at some internal chill, Steele tookhis place in the busy clinic, and waited for themonsters to file in. He had not long to wait, for anurse escorted a hobbling thing to him, a thingthat looked at him with strange malevolence out ofits huge unblinking eyes....

"Name?" he asked, trying hard to rememberthe clinical manner.

The thing grunted its response. Steele askedthe other questions, insanely irrelevant questions,about age, address, and occupation. Those arethe things you ask a man, he thought. But thisthing isn't a man—not any more! It's a shellaround a private hades....

"You cannot help me," the thing said, after ithad answered all the questions. There was theghost of manhood in those harsh tones. "Iprefer—to die."

"Now, now, Mr. White...." Steele protested,half-heartedly. Hell, why shouldn't the thing preferto die! Who was he to interrupt that choice? "Ifyou'll just trust us, we'll do so much for you....We’llmake you well again!"

The man said, "Fool." That was all, and thenurse led him away.

Steele stared after him, trembling. He wasunaware of another patient in front of him, apatient whose mind had gone, who struggledwordlessly, and had to be held by two strongyoung men.

"Fool." What had that meant? It had beenso concise, so unemotional....Steele saw anotherdoctor at his elbow. There were a lot of themstanding around.

"Here," he shouted at his fellow-practitioner."You take the cases. I've got to see somebody."

It wasn't quite suspicion—it was more like apassionate disquietude. So much suffering, somuch madness....fool, the monster had calledhim, after saying also, I prefer to die.

That living, suffering organism who had onceknown a man named White—he'd sounded so likean educated man. A little like Steele's usual well-mannered patients. There might be something,maybe neuro-vascular tests that could relievehim. Perhaps it had been done already, but Steeleknew a million men could take the sameexperiment and only one of them read anythinglike a correct diagnosis out of it.

He'd have to check with Borden on that.Borden would have to give him that much of afree hand. It might be simple, there might be asimple magic solution that would make the worldright again, that would send Tony Steele back tohis fine offices on West End Avenue, where hecould believe again in the innate cheeriness ofthings.

Monster and nurse were vanishing down thecorridor. He knew they were going to thetreatment rooms on the floor above. Borden wasin charge of all that—Borden was there, too.

Steele went down the corridor after them, buthe took a different elevator. Somehow, he didn'twant to face White again...

BORDEN was sitting in that important-looking office, giving directions to tired andrespectful-looking doctors. Steele considered thathe hadn't been paid a cent, and so owed norespect to anyone.

"Give me a laboratory," he demanded ofBorden without prelude.

Borden's eyes assumed a surprisedexpression. No one else spoke. "Why should I?"Borden inquired.

Steele, a nerve specialist, attacked theproblem from that angle almost out of habit. "It'stheir whole systems," he explained. "I'm sure ofit. There isn't a breakdown in any one place—it'sthe whole system getting wrong stimuli, as nervestransmitting wrong stimuli to the body cells.Almost as though they were reacting to a differentenvironment—as different, say, as though they'dall been transplanted to the moon."

"Pardon me if I seem skeptical," Bordenremarked wearily, "but I've been approaching theproblem from so practical an angle myself, that Ihaven't much patience with theories. Medicine ismedicine—it's complicated, detailed, difficult....And you don't get cures by saying your patientshave been transplanted to the moon."

"I didn't say that," Steele answered hotly.Borden shrugged. "Very well. You're needed

downstairs, but if it's going to make you anyhappier, you can have your laboratory. I'dsuggest, however, that you first take a good lookinto the ward, unless it's against your theories toclutter your mind with factual details about thepeople you're supposed to cure."

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The two older doctors in Borden's officesnickered, and the three younger ones lookedsympathetically crushed. Steele felt the hot flushunder his cheeks, checked an impulse to tellBorden to go to hell. The old coot was getting sodarned officious lately....

"I'll take a look," he said, mustering somekind of calm into his tone. Borden pointed to thelarge door on his left.

"Right down that corridor," Borden directed."If you have the heart to waste time on theoriesafter you see those people, you're a harder manthan I think."

But he wasn't hard! Tony Steele only wishedhe were. He was sorry now, that he made thegesture of going into the ward. As he walkeddown the short corridor between Borden's officeand the ward, he had an overwhelming sense ofrepugnance. He knew they were sick, notghastly, only sick.... But he could smell them evenbefore he entered the ward....

As he stepped across the threshold, an eeriehowl, like the baying of a dog, sent the short hairbristling up his spine. Then the howl turned into achorus, and Steele turned, would have fled, but ashapeless and gelid force grasped him, pulled himback into the room.

The monsters—what did they want with him?As they circled about, pawing and clutching

at him, he screamed that he was a doctor, that hehad come on a routine examination.

The last thing he heard, before the bloodroaring in his ears drowned out all external sound,was the wild unearthly laughter that greeted hisprotest. He realized that he was being held as arabbit is held by a pack of dogs... that naked teethwere ripping the covering of his flesh... searchingfor veins and arteries.

Weakly, he could see his own blood dribblingrichly over their enormous chins, the stuff of hislife. He could feel the seeping of cold air into hisemptying arteries....

And then he saw the monster called Whitestanding a little way apart, arms folded over hischest.

It seemed in a dream of drumming revulsionthat White's lips moved, repeating the word,"Fool." And now Steele knew what he had meantwhen he said, "I prefer to die."

Borden—Borden had sent him here. Bordenmust have known, and wanted him out of the way,after he proposed a cure!

If he could only make them understand,these people! Understand that he was worthmore to them alive....

The last thing he saw was White walkingtoward him, but he never knew whether Whitereached him or not....

CHAPTER EIGHTWhen Hell Locked Its Gates

AS Jeffrey Fairchild drove up out of thetunnel under the river, he looked again at the sky.Suddenly, he stiffened at the wheel. The purplebeacon atop the Victory Building went out even ashe looked at it. It was out for a full minute, whileJeffrey's roadster wormed its way through thenearly empty Manhattan streets—and then itflashed on again.

But now it was a different light. That illusionof topless height had gone; the beacon's tip lostitself visibly into darkness. The glow wassteadier, without that eerie sparkle which hadgiven it a queer light of its own.

Jeffrey could have sworn that now thebeacon was dead and cold as it had not beenbefore... Perhaps, he hazarded, there was aninvestigation going on as a result of his warningbroadcast. He stamped on the gas pedal, andraced northward.

An ambulance siren's scream warned him ofhis recklessness. As he slowed down, he heardothers—ambulances, police cars, privateautomobiles whose drivers seemed to jam onehand to their horns, as they bore down, all towardthe same point—the Victory Building in ColumbusCircle.

Jeffrey traveled with them, and it was soonunmistakable what grim cavalcade he had joined.

The monsters were answering a summonsthat had been tacit in the strange broadcast fromStation WVI. In terrifying quantities, they hadcome from their secret places, with their twisted

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and hideous bodies, with unimaginable thingsreflected in their wide unblinking eyes...

And then Jeffrey saw the windows, knew whythey came. For even behind drawn curtains, asplash of purple threaded out from various loftyangles of the Victory Building's interior—that wasthe life-light for creatures of sentient death, theultra-violet salvation of the dreadful and pitifulmalformed things that breathed and moved. Heparked his car, and pressed into the crowd.

Near the doorway, the pack thickenedoppressively. From the harried policemen whowere keeping the thing from becoming astampede, he knew the authorities were in onthis, at least to the extent of cooperating. Howmuch more did they really know.... How far didthey really trust that surprise broadcast from thenew station?

Soon Jeffrey would know... a heavy hand fellon his shoulder, and someone said, "JeffreyFairchild!" in a voice almost too weary forsurprise.

Jeff looked up into the haggard face ofCaptain Manning, a gray-haired and soldierlypolice officer, in uniform. "Hello, Captain," Jeffreysaid quietly. "You're just the man I want to see."

Captain Manning said, "Is it important, Mr.Fairchild? If it's not, I've got my hands fullenough...."

"Damned important," said Jeffrey grimly. "Iwant to search the Victory Building, and I wantyou to come with me."

"It's been done," said Manning tersely. Headded, in a lower voice, "You shouldn't be here,Mr. Fairchild. The Commissioner's in there now,talking to the head of this medical committee,whatever its name is. I think they're talking aboutyou. You'll probably never hear of it—it's socockeyed, but if you want to wait at the entranceand talk to the Commissioner when he comesout...."

Jeffrey was known throughout the force asone of the Commissioner's oldest friends, andthough he would never have used that influenceto deter the humblest rookie cop from his duties,his word carried weight with the entiredepartment.

"Suppose you tell me what it’s all about," hesuggested. "Why are they talking about me, andwho's the head of the Committee, as it callsitself?"

Manning swore, then answered, "Some ofthese does are damfools when they get awayfrom medicine. Fellow named Borden—a bigdoctor, they say—is boss in there. He's beentalking high, wide and handsome, about what thedepartment ought to do to you for the Mid-CityHospital fire."

Jeffrey gasped, and Manning continued, "Ofcourse, there's nothing for you to worry about.We'll settle that headache before it gets to you."

Jeffrey's lowered eyelids almost concealedthe hard thoughtfulness of his gaze. Borden!Borden, whom the monsters in his own basementhad accused of almost unbelievablemalpractice.... Borden, whom he himself hadelevated to a position of trust and importance inthat ruined hospital...Borden, head of thismysterious Committee... the streets were violetwith filtered light, but the lights in Jeffrey's brainwere red.

He thanked Manning, and pushed backtoward the entrance. If he could make TomWiley, the Commissioner, understand what wasgoing on...the Mid-City Hospital had beenJeffrey's, and at the core of Borden's guilty soul,there must be a desperate, snakelike urge toaccuse before he was accused himself.

Borden couldn't be dismissed as a medicalman gone haywire out of his own sphere.

There was a man behind Borden—maybe adevil, the monsters had told Jeff. And that couldonly be the Octopus himself! Everything Bordensaid or did would be calculated to dupe organizedmedicine and organized justice until it was too lateto retrench, until New York was delivered over tothe enemy....

But it wasn't yet too late. It couldn't be.There'd been no report to the public of an officialinvestigation, and Jeff could reach Tom Wileybefore one was made....

But what if Tom Wiley never came out of thatbuilding? No—the man he had to reach wasBorden! And the report that must be made wasthe revelation promised by the Skull Killer!

JEFFREY found himself in the greatentrance hall of the Victory Building. He had seenother skyscrapers when they were new, he hadseen the Queen Mary when that giant floatingpalace had first docked in New York; he wasaccustomed to the city's newest and finest hotels.

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But he had never—not in all his life—seen aninterior like that great hall.

It was lofty, nearly five stories high, withstarkly subdued indirect lighting that gave theimpression of unfathomable violet depths andheights. Each wall panel held its mural—and socleverly had the murals been designed, that thefigures represented there also gave that topless,boundless impression. Jeffrey realized that therepresentations were simple, most of them merelyhuge, realistic, portraits or impressions, ofcontemporary scenes from the city. Yet somehow,they seemed to be the work of an artist withtorture in his eyes....

Then it came to him. They were exactly likethe thing the city was fast turning into! An eerieand uncertain place, with limitless possibilities ofstark tragedy, of malformed beings with crippled,tortured souls!

Jeffrey shuddered, and made for an elevator.The crowd that had been so dense in the streetoutside had ample room in the hall.... Here, eventhose incredibly warped figures seemed dwarfedto inconspicuousness by the chamber's shadowedproportions.

"l want to see Dr. Borden," Jeffrey told theuniformed elevator man, whose hard eyesmeasured him.

A denial seemed to hover on the other's lips.Jeffrey said, "I'm Mr. Fairchild—Jeffrey

Fairchild."If Manning's warning hadn't been unfounded,

and if the things he himself suspected of Bordenwere true, that name should have an effect on ahenchman of Borden's—and it did. The hard lookin the elevator man's eyes was replaced by aqueer purposefulness. "Forty-fifth floor, sir," hemuttered.

Jeffrey entered the car. He noticed that hewas the only occupant of the elevator, whichmade no stops between the first floor and theforty-fifth.

In the gleamingly sterile corridor of the forty-fifth floor, a woman in white sat at a desk. Theplace looked exactly like a hospital, Jeffreythought. This must be the headquarters of theCitizens' Emergency Medical Committee. But aqueer sort of hospital, for no sound echoedthrough the long corridors, there were no red-checked young girls in blue-and-white uniformswheeling trays and smiling at internes. About it all

was that ominous sterility which seemed to extendfarther than germ life.

"I'd like to see Dr. Borden," Jeffrey told thewoman at the desk.

Mechanically, she inquired, "Who's calling,please?"

"Jeffrey Fairchild."The woman's eyes stared up at him."Straight down that corridor, then turn to your

left."Uneasily, Jeffrey strode down the long

hallway. No lamps were visible, but thewindowless hall was bright as the sky at earlydusk....

After narrow yards of walking, he came to across-hall, and took a left turn. He had met noone, heard no one. It was almost too easy, thisentrance of his, and he sensed some abruptreception that must have been waiting, in thesesilent offices for him.

The left hall ended after twenty yards at asort of booth where a young man in white satcleaning surgical instruments. Jeffrey asked him,"Can you tell me where to find Dr. Borden?"

A small dagger-like scalpel slipped from theyoung man's hands, but he did not look up. In astrangely monotone voice, he countered, "Whodid you say you were?"

Jeffrey again gave his name—and the youngman looked at him through eyes as opaquelysharp and radiant as the steel of his surgicalblades. "Straight ahead," he directed, pointingdown a turn in the corridor. "Fifth door on yourright. Just walk in."

The young man did not look up again asJeffrey passed....

He opened the fifth door on his right, lookedabout before he entered. The room seemedempty, but there was a curtain stretched acrossits width, and he guessed Borden might be behindthat curtain.

Jeff left the door ajar and stepped softlyinside....

Then behind him the heavy door clickedquietly.

HE WHEELED about, pulled at the insidehandle. The door was locked. Jeffrey cursedaloud, and darted behind the curtains.

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There was nothing. Not a chair, not a stickor a straw to indicate that the windowless squarechamber had ever been entered before. Thewalls were white, and gave somehow theimpression of porousness, like the sound-proofedwalls of a broadcasting studio. Jeffrey had beenlocked inside a white square box, with ten cubicfeet of air and a curtain.

He tried shouting, and the sound of his ownvoice hit back at his eardrums with hammer-forcein that sealed chamber. From a distance of a fewfeet he fired his revolver at the invisible door-lock,and the detonation nearly deafened him, while hisbullet caromed harmlessly from a steel platebeneath that porous white substance.

He felt at those walls with his hands,searching a weak spot, and suddenly felt the wallswarm under his touch. That warmth wasincreasing....

Jeffrey stepped back, and then, from underthe white porous wall-covering there shone aviolet radiance, a strange pulsing light that searedhis eye-balls and radiated heat that seemed topenetrate with rhythmic sequence beneath hisskin, into the very marrow of his bones!

Now the walls seemed alive with thatshimmering fluid glow, the light and the heat weresomehow rendered indirect by that asbestos-likesubstance that coated the walls, so that his skindid not break, but he felt the veins in his bodyswelling with excruciating pain, as though hisblood were reaching a boiling point. Then, as hefought for breath to find release through his vocalchords, that seething irradiance died, and thewalls once more became dull and white.

The insufferable heat was seeping out of hisveins, his heart, which momentarily seemed tocease beating except in harmony with that pulsingglow, slowly came back to normal. Jeffrey foundhimself crouching unnaturally in the middle of theroom, as though his flesh had shrunk, causingcontraction in all his muscles, dried and searedby the heat.

Slowly, with infinite effort, he was able toknead his limbs to normal semblance, then hestood silently—and waited.

For he knew now that the "treatment" wouldbe repeated. It would be repeated over and over,until he—Jeffrey Fairchild—had become amonster, a dried and rotting corpse, requiring forits abnormal functions the indigo glare of the

ultraviolet light—needing for sustenance the warmblood of his fellows.

The cause and the cure were the same—ultra-violet radiance differently directed firstcaused these malformations, and later enabledthe monsters to survive. Penetrating into the verymarrow of the bony structure where bloodcorpuscles were manufactured, its heat broughtabout an aberration of functions, broke down thestages of evolution, reduced blood to its simplestelementals, and at the same time effected thenecessary changes in the living cells to enablethem to survive, provided they were subjected tothat very radiance which had first caused theirdistortion.

Far back, in the very first stages of evolution,when the simplest forms of life had crawled out ofthe primordial swamps, the ultra-violet containedin sunlight must have caused parallel changes inthe structure of living things—distorted them,changed them into what their fellows must havefelt were monsters, until sunlight had become anecessity, without which their life could notcontinue.

It was a matter, in some respects, ofresistance, which culminated in the building of anew type of life. The process would not be toorapid, Jeffrey knew, as he experienced hisbreathing spell. These things having become clearto him, certain elements of the fiendish activitiesof his enemy were more understandable, also.

The Mid-City Hospital fire, and the purpleglow which had seemed to bathe the walls ofcertain parts of the building, had emanated fromwalls built as the walls of his chamber were built,from rooms in which transformations such as hewas about to undergo had been effected on otherunfortunate humans....

Borden was behind it, and Borden had beenready to resume operations elsewhere! The Mid-City Hospital had been destroyed so as toobliterate all evidence of those indigo walls....

Borden, then, Jeff figured, had found anotherbacker for his nefarious activities than thephilanthropic patron of the Mid-City Hospital, andthat backer was the builder and owner of theVictory Building. He must be the Octopushimself!

But the other hospitals—the other sick wardswhence also human malformations hademanated—what about them? Would they, toobe destroyed tonight so that there would be no

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evidence, so that the enemy would remaintriumphantly unsuspected, entrenched in the veryheart of Manhattan in the guise of a philanthropicorganization which stamped out its own corruptionand bled society in the process?

The walls were cool again, and Jeffreymoved painfully about the room. Like a trappedanimal he sought desperately for an opening inhis trap, a means of escape from this locked,white-walled hell....

CHAPTER NINEJeff Plays a Lone Hand

IT SEEMED a long while before he couldactually bring his mind to bear on any practicalplan of escape. The torture he had undergoneseemed almost to have induced amnesia in hisbrain. Then he went berserk, and, brutishly,desperately, insanely clawed at the walls of hisprison, while something he had meant toremember teased agonizingly at the back of hismind.

Too many other things intruded. There wasthe futility of his own plight, the ominous threat toall decency, all peace in this greatest of allcities—all these things seemed to batter like amillion fists at his consciousness and preventedhis concentration. He knew he was wastingprecious seconds, and was unable to do anythingabout it.

There was something he had anticipated,and desperately he tried to think of what it hadbeen. It hadn't been capture—at least, not thiskind of capture—but something else. Almostmechanically his hands explored his person.There should be something, he felt, someprecaution he had taken.... And then he found it.

It was a long flat tube of make-up grease.There, in his hands—Jeffrey's mouth quirked alittle crazily at the thought—he held nearly all ofthe identity of Dr. Skull. And Dr. Skull wascompletely unrecognizable, compressed, as itwere, in this little tube!

Feverishly, Jeffrey's hands tore into hisclothing, ripping open the inner seams. Concealedin the shoulder padding of his coat, in the upperseams of his trousers, were other tubes of make-up, but these were the things he always

carried...yet there was something else, somethingimportant....

As he threw his coat aside, with a puzzledgesture, the thing he sought rolled out of theinside breast pocket—a long, narrow flask....

His brain suddenly clear, Jeffrey lookedhastily at his watch. It had stopped, the glasshad smashed at some point in his struggles. Hetried to compute, from his knowledge of ultra-violet rays, how long it would be before theywould judge he could stand another dose, but allconcept of time had fled him and he set to work.

He undressed completely, and tore his innergarments to shreds. There he wound puttee-likeover as much of his anatomy as they would cover.Bits of handkerchief he trussed into his mouth,inside the cheeks. Then he attacked the curtainwhich had been hung in the middle of the room,presumably to lure him in, and with thread-thinstrips of this managed to cover the rest of historso.

Then he went to work, covering himself withthe substance of the various make-up tubes. Thestuff sufficed barely to give him a coating oftenuous grease, like a transparent, oily outerskin, through which his bandages showed. Overhis face spread the pale-yellow color of age—andthen Jeffrey Fairchild paused.

His fingers held the long black flask while hisears sought desperately to detect some soundbeyond the room. But there was only silence.

HE TOOK a deep breath, and uncorked theflask. From it he shook some of that thick, tarrysubstance with which he had experimented in theplane—a zinc composition. Carefully, he beganto smear himself with that, then put on his coatand trousers.

The stuff congealed into a flexible, airtightcovering over his body. He wouldn't last long withthat, even with the loose padding of porous stripsof cloth next to his skin, for it would close hissweat pores. Somberly he hoped it would dowhat he meant that it should—protect him at leastto some extent, from those penetrating rays....

He had barely time to slip on trousers andjacket, when it came again. The room began togrow warm. Jeffrey threw himself flat on the floor,and cradled his unprotected face in the shelter ofhis arms. He could feel the heat sweeping overhim, feel his body struggling futilely to exude

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moisture, and almost a wave of insanity crossedhis brain at this violence to his body processes.

It was worse than the first time, and as theheat abated Jeffrey lay limp, unable to move. Butthere wasn't that dry contraction in his musclesthat the first treatment had given him.... And thenthe door opened.

Jeffrey Fairchild could hear it, though hedidn't dare to look. Somebody was coming forhim, as he had expected they would. If they didn'tintend to kill him, they had to come in, as soon asthey thought him powerless, to prepare him forfuture treatments.

As the footsteps neared him, Jeffrey felt theenervating limpness disappear from his musclesat the approach of danger. When the newcomercame to a stop beside him, he rolled, groaning, onhis back. Then, almost in the same movement,his hands shot out to grasp the ankles whichcame to his view, and he heaved with all hisstrength.

There was a startled exclamation from theother man, as Jeffrey swarmed over him, but theyell was cut short by Jeffrey's hands closing theother's windpipe. The man sputtered, tried tosmash something he held in his hand intoJeffrey's face, but Jeffrey dodged the blow, andhis own fist sent the object spinning from theother's fingers.

Then the cold rage in him settled him grimlyto his task. His adversary's eyes grew wide andpopping, then assumed that familiar purple glow.Convulsively the other rose half-way in a lastdesperate gesture, as though the evil spiritsymbolized by that unearthly gleam in his eyeswere giving him strength to the last, and then theman fell back limply.

Jeffrey rose to his knees. Caution againstdisclosing his identity precluded his marking thecorpse with the mark of the skull—besides, theSkull Killer was stalking bigger game! But wherewas his deadly quarry?

Jeffrey, as he staggered to his feet and outof the room, into the lofty, medically cleancorridors of the Victory Building, did not know.

HE WONDERED a little at the emptiness ofthis part of the building. Peering cautiously upand down the gleaming hall, he could see noliving soul, but slightly to the left and across thehall he saw a door marked Washroom.

Lurching towards it, he made it, still unseen,and once inside, again stripped himself.Carefully, he peeled off as much of the zinccoating as he could, and then dressed once more,again emerged into the empty corridors.

From the death-like silence of this part of thebuilding, he drew one important conclusion. Itmust be near that section of the Victory buildingwhich was purposely kept secluded. Hewondered if even the police, in conducting theirbaffled and openly invited investigation, hadpenetrated here....

A glance at the washroom mirror had toldhim that the disguise his practiced hands hadapplied in that torture chamber a short while agowould pass muster. The facial creams he hadused to give the aged color to the skin of his face,when he had wanted to masquerade as Dr. Skull,now gave his smooth cheeks the pale, sweatylook of illness, and the strips of rolledhandkerchief in his mouth gave a swelling to hislower jaws, which was at least a good imitation ofthe facial shape of the monsters.

His speech through these impediments to themovements of his tongue, would carry theresemblance further, and the bandages criss-crossing his body produced the effect ofdeformity, which he could accentuate with adragging limp.

He passed slowly down the long corridor,and came to a door. There were sounds beyondthe door, and for a moment he listened, thenslipped through. Another long hall stretchedbefore him, a hall through which moved slowly aline of deformed monsters, not unlike himself inappearance.

He joined the procession, which was flankedoccasionally by orderlies and nurses, and whichled past a desk where a white-coated doctor sat,taking down the case histories of the patients.

As he neared the desk, Jeffrey recognizedthe doctor. It was Anthony Steele—a man whoseacquaintance Jeffrey had cultivated after the otherhad become a professional admirer and friend ofDr. Skull.

Was Steele involved in this, also? Jeffreycould hardly believe it. His turn came, and Dr.Steele's eyes, tired, and with something aghaststruggling in their depths, were lifted to his.

"Name?" muttered Steele."White," said Jeffrey, "Robert White."

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He knew suddenly that as far as Tony Steelewas concerned, the deception was unnecessary.Tony Steele looked as if he'd been through hell,and might drop any minute—but because of thatvery fatigue, he might not be able to keep asecret.

No; Jeffrey had to play a lone hand. Norwas it hard for him to become immersed in thepart he elected to play....

CHAPTER TENFresh Blood for the Octopus

THE sun poured into Carol Endicott'sbedroom, and she woke to an evil memory. "Itwas only a dream," she thought, as reassuringdaylight made a bright thing of her room. "Only abad dream...." She turned, and tried to sleepagain.

But the thing which had awakened her wouldnot be silent. Persistently, in another room, atelephone was ringing, and she knew by its tonethat it was the private wire between JeffreyFairchild's apartment and the offices of Dr. Skull.Jeff had it installed in order to keep in constanttouch with Robert, who, when he was not at thehospital, lived with the doctor.

Who, she thought through her troubleddrowsiness, would be at the doctor's office now?For she and Robert were here and the doctor wasmissing.

She lifted the receiver, and announced primlyenough, "Mr. Fairchild's residence."

No response. Only a soft click.... Alarmed,Carol tried to ring the other end. It didn't work.The line was dead.

"Jeff!" She knocked at the door of his room,for it was a puzzle that justified her awakeninghim. But Jeffrey did not answer either....

She heard the back door-bell ringing, andrecalled that it was time for the cook to come towork. It would be a relief, she thought, as shewent to the service entrance, to have someoneelse in the house to talk to—Her hand turned theknob, and a smile of welcome was on her lipswhen suddenly she stopped.

A scream eddied to her lips, a scream thatwas choked back by the huge hand that closedclammily over her mouth.

They were vast, distorted, grotesque, theman and woman on the threshold; half-human,half-nameless beasts. Carol struggled with all thepower of utter revulsion against that gagginggrasp, but the man was stronger than she.

"Don't be afraid," the man was saying in aharsh guttural whisper. "I don't mean to hurtyou.... I only want to find Dr. Skull. Don't screamwhen I let you go; I must talk to you."

The grip on her mouth relaxed, and Caroltook a deep breath. Something in the creature'stone banished her fear and oddly now—she feltonly pity.

"I'm Dr. Skull's nurse," she said. "But I don'tknow, myself, where he is. What made you comehere? Was it you who called a moment ago?"

The man nodded. "He had us—in his house,in the cellar. We found a tunnel and it came tothis building, but there were so many apartments.Then we used the phone. You told us whichapartment you were in, and we found this placeby the directory in the basement. No one hasseen us. No one—ought to."

"I'll call Mr. Fairchild," Carol said helplessly."He may help you more than I can. Just waitinside; I'll be right back."

She went back to Jeffrey's room, Knockedagain, and then opened the door. Incredulously,unhappily, she stared at four walls and a ceiling,at the bed which had not been slept in. For Jeffreywas gone.

A QUEER sort of grimace, half-leer, half-tragic, came over his ghastly features. "Theremust be lot of people—disappearing," the man-creature said in his toneless, grunting voice.

"But, Jeffrey....You don't understand," Carolmourned.

For the first time, painfully, the woman of thepair spoke. "The purple light," she said slowly."Last night—he said—there was a purple light.Maybe—that's where they all are. Do you knowanything about that?"

Carol remembered her dream—or was it adream? "No," she said slowly, "I don't know—but it's on that new building...."

"You've got to take us there," he said.Carol took a last shocked glance at her

visitors, and went for her coat. No sense wakingRobert—it wouldn't matter to him that Jeff wasgone. And he might be a nuisance about being

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left alone. So, to insure privacy, she went downthe back stairs with the grotesque pair, and haileda taxi.

She had expected, at the very least, that thecabbie would be surprised, but he only looked ather with a queer I'm-glad-I'm-not-in-your-shoeskind of sympathy and said, "Victory Building,miss?"

"I guess so," Carol answered bewilderedly.Things seemed to have proceeded vastly duringthe night, so that the city was altogether changed.She felt like a pawn in a game whose rules shedid not know, and she could not imagine at whatpoint in the future she would be again allowed totake her fate into her own hands.

Then she saw the traffic converging asthough by design, upon a single point. A wholecorps of uniformed policemen were directingtraffic either to or from one central point—andahead loomed the Victory Building, its peak barelydiscernible in the low-lying late autumn clouds.

As the cars packed closer to one another,she realized that hers was not the only ghastlycargo of deformed humanity. There wereothers—hundreds of others of the gruesome half-human Things.

A sob caught in her throat, and the woman-thing beside her said, "Not nice, is it?"

Not nice... no, decidedly not nice. It was vastand terrifying and inexplicable, like watching astray star rush toward the earth, knowing thatcollision would mean the end of history and ofmen. It was cruel and mad, and there was almostnothing to do about it but press through the crowdand wait....

The taxi drew up in front of the entrance, anda man in white helped her get her passengers out.All three walked in the slow file across thesidewalk, and at the great portals, a man with abadge asked officially, "Your name, miss?"

"Carol Endicott," she said. "I'm a nurse, andthese people are my doctor's patients. We wantto find him... it's Dr. Skull."

Even before the man-monster behind hergasped, "Don't tell him!" she knew it had been amistake.

The man with the badge stiffened; one handfell heavily on her shoulder, and the other broughta whistle to his lips.

"It's the Skull's nurse!" he shouted. "Don't lether get away... !"

The pack behind her thickened. Only ahead,into the building, was there any sort of passage toescape. Carol writhed in the official's grasp, andher eyes widened as she saw the man-thing slaminto her captor with terrific force. She felt the claspof a cold hand on her wrist, and one of herpatients whispered, "Run!"

They ran—up stairways, into elevators,down bewildering corridors, always with the hueand cry behind them, "The Skull's nurse! Don't lether get away!"

This is how a mouse feels, Carol thoughthectically, with a cat after it... for she was notchoosing her own route. Always, the pursuersseemed to circle at all but one point, as thoughthey were deliberately leaving clear passage forher, but she dared not defy the route they seemedto have chosen for her. After all, that might justbe an accident....

SUDDENLY, in a short hall between twodoors, the sound of pursuit ceased. Carol had noidea where she was—and when she lookedquestioningly at her patients, she realized thatthey were looking at her in the same manner.

Echoes of the chase sounded beyond thedoor to the right—that settled it. Carol opened theleft-hand door, and walked in.

It was very dark, but there were peoplemoving about. Something rose up in front of her,something that was sick in an ungodly way, and itsaid, "What are you doing here? Do you want tobe killed?"

Carol blinked, and then she saw the shape ofthe other occupants of the room. They weredozens of monsters, in all stages of physical andmental deterioration. Carol's monster-guidestepped in front of her as though for protection,and she heard him ask hoarsely of the creaturewhich had just accosted her, "We were chasedhere. Are there many of you? Will they hurt thisgirl?"

The creature—he was a man once, Carolrealized—shrugged his flattened shoulders."Someone else got chased here," he said. "I'llshow you what they did to him...."

He elbowed his way through the snifflingpack who stared at Carol with avid, hungry eyes,led them to a narrow cot on which lay a man. Heseemed well enough, save for the long angrygashes on his face, throat, and bared chest.

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Carol looked at him, and uttered a little gasp."Dr. Steele! What have they done to you? Doesanyone know?"

Dr. Anthony Steele lifted his head ever solittle, and tried to grin. He didn't succeed, andCarol hadn't the heart to grin back at him. "You'rethat cute little nurse—of Dr. Skull's," said Steele."I remember you—God, I'm glad to see—someone I know...."

Carol knelt beside the cot, unmindful of thestench of the sick flesh all about her. Somehow,she was glad, too, that someone he knew wouldbe on hand when merry young Dr. Steele.... No,she couldn't even think the word. But he was verylow; very low and helpless....

"You tell—your doc—it's Borden," TonySteele whispered. "He—thought I was trying to—find out too much. These people—half of 'em O.K.in the noggin; the others... plain nuts. They—didthis to me. Carol, listen: Save the sane ones.Electric heart-beat—start the heart working rightagain. Step it up. Seventy-two a minute, like itshould be. Just a hunch—but I'm sure."

CAROL stared miserably at Steele's whiteface. And at a light tap on her shoulder, sheturned.

The thing she faced was more bloated andtwisted than the others, and his skin was a vileyellowish color.... But his brown eyes had brightmemories.

"You know what he means?" the monsterwhispered. "He means that electric stimulation willcure this condition. When you get out of here, tellthat to the police!"

Something about the man's voice struck afamiliar chord.... She must have met himsomewhere, Carol thought, before this happenedto him. "The police are looking for me," she saidbitterly. "I'm Dr. Skull's nurse. That seems to be acrime."

The man said, "You are also someone'sfriend." He stepped backward, and Tony Steelewas trying to talk to her again....

"That's White," he said. "A good guy, White,and lousy trick they played him.... Carol!" He satup suddenly, and his eyes were wide with fright.Carol reached her hand into the groping clasp, feltit squeezed hard. "Carol—it can't be over for me!I—didn't want to die! Didn't even want—to be adamn hero! Don't let me go—for the love of God,don't let me go!"

Carol put an arm behind the young man'sshoulders, supporting him in a sitting position."Steady," she murmured. "It's all right....allright...."

"Sure," said Tony Steele, somehow morecalm. "That's better.... Sure, it's all right, now."

This time, he succeeded to grin. It was atransient, brave gesture, then suddenly TonySteele's body went heavy and inert againstCarol's arm. As Carol laid him back slowlyagainst the cot, she saw the blood spurt withscarlet finality from the long cruel line on the leftside of Steele's chest.... It was his heart's-bloodthey had taken.

Borden, he had said, was responsible. Theeminent Dr. Borden was a murderer.

And then Carol heard someone else say it,heard the monster named White crying at theothers, "You all know who's at the bottom ofthis—you all know now all of you whose mindshaven't been wrecked, who your real enemiesare. I’m going after Borden and his gang, and ifyou won't come with me, I'm going alone!"

A babel of shouts broke out, and Carolrealized that most of the monsters were followingWhite as he hurled himself against the door. Sheknelt beside Tony Steele's body, and wondered ifthe same thing had happened to Jeffrey....

Someone grasped her wrist roughly; Whitehad come back for her. "Some of these peopleare staying," he said. "They're killers.... You'recoming with us. You'll be safer."

There was something in the hideous man'sbrown eyes....

Carol rose, and walked by his side throughthe open door, down seemingly endless corridorsand rooms, and then one more door. White kickedit open, and they were facing a green-coloredfigure wearing a pointed mask, sitting across adesk on the other side of a glass partition.

Carol gasped, "That's the man! The one whocalls himself the Oc— " but she could not finish.

For suddenly, underneath the mask, apurple light began to glow, grow stronger andlarger, until it covered the whole of the face of themask. Two gigantic eyes seemed to focus uponher, blinding her, stopping her speech.

A tremendous wave of heat seemed toshrivel her skin, as it had done on that previousoccasion at the burning hospital. She heardguttural shouts all abut her, miraculously heard

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someone calling her name, and then she wasfalling, falling, into purple depths of oblivion. Andfrom a great distance she seemed to sense,rather than hear, the cruel thin laughter of theOctopus!

CHAPTER ELEVENBlood Bank of the Damned

THE effect of someone speaking seemed tofilter into Carol's understanding as she openedher eyes. Through the dull ache of her semi-consciousness she felt she had been aware ofthat sound moving through her dream like themurmur of evil doom.

She saw that she was in the same roomwhere the flash of purple light had rendered hermomentarily unconscious—and about her, werethe same monsters. White's arm circled her slimbody with an impersonal protectiveness—andsomehow, though he was hideously sick as therest, that contact did not repulse her.

The monotone effect of their speech lingeredwith her, seemed to pound with peculiarlysympathetic cadence against her tortured ear-drums. Perhaps it was because the very elementsof her understanding had so recently beenoutraged; perhaps, she thought, she was still onlyhalf-conscious. Then suddenly it seemed to herthat it was no human speech she was hearing.

She couldn't distinguish words in thatmonotone murmur, that felt as though it exudedfrom some sort of mechanism, yet the sound hadcarried conviction, as though by cadence ratherthan by words, and it seemed to penetratesomehow into the bases of her comprehension...And it carried a message.

She looked about her again, and saw all themonsters, including White, listening attentively.The message related to them. Carol becamesomehow aware that these monsters had rights—they had a right to live, they had a right to kill andperform atrocities, to preserve the living spark thatanimated them... just as much right to all thesethings as she had, as any normal person had!

Yet certainly these convictions of hers did notgrow out of her own reason! Her eyestranscended her immediate surroundings, and shebecame aware of a cloudy glass-like partition inthe middle of the room, behind which were twofigures. One was Borden, the other that

shapeless, bulbous mass with the long tentaclesand the oddly gleaming eyes, whose light was nolonger directed at her.... Its motionless lack offeature suggested something ageless and evilthat might have come down through centuries ofuntold suffering and darkness....

The message she was hearing must beemanating from that gelid mass.... The purpleorbs were moving, shifting. Perhaps this Thingwas speaking words, but before they camethrough the glass screen which divided the room,they must have passed through some sort ofmechanism that removed from them the elementsof speech, reduced them to an eerilycomprehensible murmur that carried with it apersuasive undertone of menace.

"You'll believe, or you die...." Somehow thatthought intruded into Carol's mind, and everyinstinct in her body shrieked its willingness tobelieve, crying for safety and self-preservation.

White's arm tightened perceptibly about her,and her bewildered awareness was nowabsorbing another part of the message: TheVictory Building, she found herself realizing, wasthe only place where the monsters could live. Itwas the only place where they could be fed thefood they required—the blood of living things....

The man who was speaking was theirsaviour; it was he who had set up Borden in thismost modern of all hospitals, specifically built towithstand the ravages of this new disease thatwas turning men into monsters with no blood intheir veins.... It was an altar dedicated to thesalvation of those unfortunates, who were whatthey were through no fault of their own....

Abruptly she heard White exclaim besideher: "How will you provide us with what werequire—how can we be sure that you won't failus.... That the authorities won't stop you, for youknow what we need. Let us take our chances onthe outside...."

The monotone murmur seemed to snap anorder. The room grew dark behind the glasspartition, and somewhere a door opened.

Carol screamed at the sight that met hereyes.

THEY were chained in a slave-file by thewrists and ankles, and their faces were the facesof the damned. Carol sobbed aloud when she sawthem led in, for the prisoners of that evil oratorwere neither sick nor mad. Except for the

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despairing horror on their faces, and the marks ofstruggle on their persons and clothing, they wereas normal as Carol herself.

There was an elderly woman who might havebeen sweet-faced two days ago, and there was aboy of thirteen who had forgotten the meaning ofcourage. Young and old, of mixed sexes andconditions... nearly forty of them, Carol reckoned,were led in chained by the purple-eyed guardswho applied whips and clubs when the filethreatened to become unruly.

The evil voice continued, and Carol knewthat the people in chains were intended food forthe monsters that had been human. Knew also,with a strangely hopeless assurance, that thesevictims had been carefully chosen for theirambiguous background, they were people withoutrelatives and without friends who might sendauthorities investigating their disappearance!

That was the Satanic orator's answer toWhite's objection! "If you were on your own, onthe outside," that toneless murmur asked, "couldyou do better. Indeed, could you do as well?"

She heard White cry out then, and as thepane lifted, angry-eyed guards rushed towardhim.

They were rushing toward him because hestill retained enough of his humanity to beunwilling to sacrifice those helpless ones for hisown survival.... And they were also intent uponwresting her from his protective arm.

How long, she wondered, had he beenprotecting her from his hungry fellow-monsters,who were now making hungry gestures in herdirection?

Startled, she heard them ask White whetherhe wanted her... and why he wanted her, and shecould read their thoughts in their shriveled eyes.Sudden fright brought her close to collapse as shetried desperately to divine White's intentions, andthe other's brown eyes remained unreadable.

She realized, through the stampede ofbodies that jolted the struggle between White andthe guards, that the monsters were rushing upontheir victims. Shrieks pierced her ear-drums,which would re-echo to those ghastly sounds aslong as she lived—if indeed she could live formore than a few minutes in this charnel house ofmisery.

God in heaven, she thought, nothing thathad been born of woman should value its own lifeso highly! Life wasn't worth the rending of yourfellow man, the bloody mouthing of raw andunkilled human flesh....

Carol heard her own shrieks joining with therest, and she knew she was not quite sane at thatpoint. But sanity had ceased to exist, sanity was ahopeless memory that had gone into limbo with allother good things....

White was playing for space, dodgingthrough the stampede, with the guards gingerlyfollowing him, as if they feared that theseFrankenstein creations might slip from control,and turn red-toothed upon those who fed them...

If it had not been for White, Carol realized,she would have gone shrieking with the rest, totear into the monsters as they tore into theirhapless victims, to be trampled underfoot or tornto shreds for her blood.... But White neverrelinquished his hold on her, he always kept ashifting arm's-length between her and the blood-crazed pack.

Through the hungry cries and the shrieks ofthe dying, rose the evil voice, again and again as,

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with monotone deviltry, he was urging his guardsto capture White.

And then one of the guards reached them.Carol felt hasty hands laid irreverently on herself,and even before she cried out, White's fist camecrashing against the guard's face. There wassomething sharply shining in her champion'shand, and she heard the startled man screechwith pain as that shining thing landed between hiseyes.

For a moment, they had a breathing-space,as the guard plunged headlong before them. Hisface was turned, but not turned so much thatCarol could not see, between his staring purpleeyes, the Mark of the Skull.

White, her rescuer, was the Skull Killer!

IN AN awed voice she whispered "You'vekilled him!" though she did not know how ithappened.

White grasped her wrist, and pulled herrapidly through the crowd. Voices jelled into achorus—and the burden of the chorus was thatthe Skull Killer had come among them.

Now the guards were even more loath topress toward the deformed figure of that famousavenger, and even the blood-starved sick gavehim clearance of a sort in that awed moment ofrecognition.

It was only a moment, but by the time themadness had broken again, this time on an evenmore terrifying note of rage and murderousness,White had led Carol through the milling monsters.

She heard the rising babel of pursuit as hebolted the door behind him. If they were caughtnow, she knew, the tortures of those pitifulchained souls would be as nothing compared toher own. At the concept of pain and horror suchas that, her knees wavered under her, and herbreath came in sharp cold stabs through herlungs.

White looked at her, and something in thoseclear brown eyes gave her a reckless courage."Don't be afraid," he said. "I won't let them getyou."

Into a hidden corner of her soul she shelvedher fears until such time as the cause for themshould be over. In the meantime, unthinking as achild and glad of it, she trusted herselfunreservedly to this monstrous champion.Outside, the clangor of attack resounded

ominously against the door which was theirbarricade, and it could not hold forever!

THEY made a silent exit through anotherdoor, into the sterile white corridor, only to hearthe approaching echo of many feet. They werebeing headed off. She must not doubt, Carol toldherself, that this man could save her, for shewould go mad if she doubted.

From both directions, that sound wasgrowing in volume as White bolted up the corridor,and hurled his weight against a jammed door.

Twice he rammed into it, and their pursuerswere coming nearer. Desperately, the third time,Carol also pitted her weight against the door—andhurtled inward as it suddenly gave.

They were in another ward, she realized,with a sudden fresh access of fright, and amongother unspeakably alive things. Curiously, thelumbering creatures stared at them.

White gasped breathlessly, "They've found acure for us. If we can only get out of here!"

A humming, monotone message interruptedhim. It was the same sort of message, half-words, half-sensation, that Carol had sensed inthe divided room where they had left othermonsters to their dreadful feeding.

"The Skull Killer is loose," it seemed to say."There's a girl with him, a girl with fresh red bloodand they have disobeyed the rules of theinstitution. Be careful—he's dangerous.... "

Still, the lumbering monsters only stared, andthe monotone message droned on. It was clear tothe girl that doors were no barrier against thatincarnation of evil, and Carol's hand tightenedspasmodically about the Skull Killer's.

The monsters stared and began to close inon them, in an ominous circle. White's brown eyesmet theirs, and there was a tension that wouldbreak, if it broke at all, in murder—or worse....

But when it happened, the episode was tooswift for Carol to realize details for seconds laterShe was aware of one of the malformitiesspringing directly at her in a wavelike, hungrysurge. But even before her nerves had time tocarry a message of fear to her brain, White's armtraveled in a semi-arc; there was an earsplittingyell of pain, and the monster seemed to crumbleat her feet.

On the sloping, fish-belly brow, the Mark ofthe Skull made a smoking outline—but a fraction

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of that flashing action made her gasp her horror.For she noticed that as the Skull Killer pulled backhis arm, the small object in his hand parted fromhis victim's forehead with a distinct wrench, andshe caught a glimpse of a sharp point in themiddle of the tool that made that fearsome print—a point that in the practiced hand of White musthave smashed right through the skull-bone.

"That was self defense," she heard Whitemurmur—and then she was screaming a warning,as the door opened behind them.

LATER, she was conscious of rememberinga sickening struggle of nightmarish proportions.Through that open door had emerged two more ofthe malformations, but these looked somehowfamiliar, and afterwards she decided they musthave been the monsters who originally broughther into the Victory Building.

They delved past her and White, into themass of those others, fighting on her side.... Withpeculiar dexterity she felt herself extricated fromthe melee and drawn back through that door, andthen she and White were once more runningthrough the endless, gleaming corridors.

Something in the words White gasped to herwhile they were running should have given hersome kind of a message, she felt, though at themoment she was unable to grasp it: "They won'tkill their own kind," he said. "At least—I hopethey won't. I've got to get you away...."

What was there in the simple statement thatshe felt she should have understood—and didn't?

In the world outside, it would be late morning,a grey November morning, with no harshness init. But here in the Victory Building there wasneither night nor day, there were only miles ofsterile, luminous corridor....

"What are we looking for?" Carol asked.Partly, the Skull Killer was leading her, partly hewas dragging her. Her legs had long ago ceasedto feel as though they had life of their own....

"There's some way of getting to the part ofthe building behind that glass-paned room," hewhispered. "We'll get back the keys of the city ifwe reach that far—and I'm pretty sure we're onthe right track, because the building's full ofauthorities and investigators, and none of themseem to have gotten here." A queer grim smile

came over his yellowed face. "And if we persuadea few of these poor creatures, on our way, thatthe Skull Killer is a better gamble than theOctopus, it won't hurt our cause, either!"

And Carol shivered at the sight of his smile.As their continued escape brought her never

long-downed feeling of confidence nearer itshealthy norm, it occurred to her that she wasbeing something of a burden to this man—and herbrain busied itself with plans and schemes forgetting into the stronghold of the enemy.

The toneless voice was sending its messageout again—"The Skull Killer is loose among us. Becareful—he is dangerous.... you are urged to killhim on sight..." And then followed directions forthe chase, giving what Carol surmised was theirapproximate location in the building.

Carol said, "That must be a sort ofbroadcast—it follows us all over, right through thispart of the building. That means there's a wiringsystem, maybe with photo-electric cells. Heknows where we are because we shut theconnections.... If we could find the wires, andtrace them, well have him. I'm going to look forthem right now."

The brown eyes turned searchingly on Carolthen, warmly appreciative. "Bright girl," Whitesaid. "Though I doubt it's so simple."

Still, he made Carol feel good—so good thatshe immediately began the search for hiddenwiring, pressing her palms up and down the wall,against the floor. Then a small electric shockmade her hop back to an erect position, and withrapidly beating heart, she announced, "I've foundit!"

THE wiring appeared only as a thinnish whiteridge along the gleaming floor. It was almostimperceptible to the casual glance, but oncerecognized, it was easy to follow. MomentarilyCarol wondered that it hadn't been hidden morethoroughly, and the same idea seemed to haveoccurred to White, who murmured.

"He probably didn't want this wiring out ofreach of handy repair, if it ever went wrong,"White murmured. "That's why it's not in the wall—thank God! Look, that's the direction we've got togo, because there's a junction."

Suddenly the constant messages changed intenor, became addressed directly to Carol and hercompanion.

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"Don't be fools, you two! I know you'recoming—and what you seek to do is hopeless.The city is full of the dead and deformed whohave only incidentally displeased me—how muchmore terrible do you think my vengeance will beon you who deliberately seek to ruin me? You stillhave a chance to save yourselves. Go back,before it is too late!"

Carol shuddered, then she heard Whitewhisper exultantly, "He's scared! We must bealmost there. He's afraid his men won’t get to usin time, and he's starting to bluff!"

Carol tried hard to be sure of that, and kepther eyes downward on the guiding white ridge.Suddenly she cried out with dismay, for the ridgeended in a blank wall.

And from somewhere on the other side of thewall came a muffled series of shrieked pleas, asof a human being in prolonged death agony.

CAROL looked about the jointure of wall andfloorboard, almost as though she might find aloose seam there—and suddenly she was lessconcerned with further progress than withdefense. For people were coming toward them,and already she was conscious of the peculiaroverpowering smell heralding the approach of thatevil and parasitic life.

White knew it, too. He stepped rapidly infront of her, and his brown eyes, the onlyrecognizably human feature in his face, grewsuddenly cold with alarm.

There were two people, a man and awoman. Carol recognized them as the pair withwhom she had come to the Victory Building.They hadn't seemed evil then, only sick.... Butnow she didn't know. For, as the two camenearer, those grotesque faces were utterlywithout expression.

The omnipresent murmuring voice broke intocommand to the two approaching monsters."Capture these people, and bring them to me!They are enemies of your own kind."

Carol braced herself for swift attack, butthere was only the guttural voice of the man-thing,saying, "Give us light. Without the light, we aretoo weak."

Instantly, a dull steady indigo glare floodedthe corridor. It was not strong enough to sendCarol again into semi-consciousness, but hereyes smarted to the point of dizziness and herwhole body trembled.

She heard White's startled exclamation, andwhen her eyes could penetrate the glare sherealized that the dead-end wall had becometransparent in the glow. And beyond that wall,was the thing whose voice had followed themthrough the building.

A young girl's nearly nude body was hangingtaut, and suspended by the wrists from a rope inthe ceiling, her feet barely grazing the floor. Herbody was pitted with little black holes and it wasonly too obvious what had caused those holes.

The gruesome Thing with its weavingtentacles stood beside the girl; she could see thedark blood on the rim of the knifelike circularsuction cups of its tentacles. On the girl's otherside stood a deformed monster, drawing still moreof the life-fluid from that white body, by means ofa sharpened metal pipe which he had inserted inthe victim's side. Carol stared, weak with horror,while the shapeless living mass was finishing itsghoulish feast with passionate greed!

Carol looked behind her, almost ready now torun recklessly back the way she had come,shrieking for human aid, but the passageway wasclosed.

Over a score of the misshapen, ravenousmonster-things choked the corridor!

CHAPTER TWELVEVoice of the Skull Killer

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WHITE'S hand closed about hers firmly, asthough he knew what berserk madness washatching in her brain. "They won't kill their ownkind," White had said—but she, Carol, wasn't theirkind! The girl—the girl whose blood was beingdrained.... They'll do that to me, Carol thought,with only death as the end of agony....

But the monsters, though they circledimpassably about, made no move to attack. Theirbodies seemed to wax in the purple glow, and aneerie sheen played on the sick flesh....

The green Octopus seemed to laugh softlyas a tentacle reached out with a sinuouslycaressing movement that meant death. The nudegirl's body writhed a very little bit....

THE voice came again: "When I raise thiswall, my people will attend to the young lady. You,White—you're going to see that girl with youdrained as this girl is being drained. I know whatyou are, and it's not what you pretend to be. TheSkull Killer, monster though he appears, is notone of our patients."

Carol could almost hear the rigidity of thediseased bodies about her as they stiffened."They won't kill their own kind!" but, as she hadhalf suspected, the Skull Killer wasn't their kind atall. He was disguised, and now the Octopus hadshattered the Skull's safety.

Then she realized that it was another thoughtwhich had caused the monsters to become sotensely rigid. She could not read it in theirimmobile expressions, but that very immobilitywas eloquent. It was not the Skull Killer theirleashed fury waited to attack, for the Octopus, bystating that the Skull Killer was not one of hispatients, had undermined the very reason for themonsters' allegiance! The disease was supposedto be epidemic, and in an epidemic, no man cansay who will, and who will not be stricken.Looking upon the hideously malformed White,how could he say then, that the Skull Killer waspositively not afflicted? To all practical purposes,the monstrosity had admitted to his victims thatthere was a deliberate plan behind theirdeformity—and that the plan was his!

Carol's heart pounded almost triumphantly.She looked again at the man named White, andher terror-numbed brain struggled with thethought that she should have known him. Thosebrown eyes.... No, the identity eluded her.

Leering like a carrion thing about to strike,the Octopus rose erect, his snakelike tentaclesslowly waving, and the wall began to raise!

CAROL and White were fairly swept into thechamber by the onrush of waiting monsters. Nowthe murmuring voice was loud with hatred. Carol,strongly fascinated by the weird, sea-green thingbefore her, the cupped, weaving tentacles, thehideously malformed legs, and the small maskthrough which glowed the purple, luminous eyes,heard orders concerning herself that chilled her tothe marrow, but only for a tense moment.

After that moment, their throats raucous witha battle cry of the vengeful damned, the monstersrushed to the attack. But the object of their attackwas—the Octopus himself!

Now a new voice arose in command clearand calm. It was the voice of the Skull Killerbeside her and he seemed not at all surprised atthe turn of events. As Carol flattened herselfagainst the wall to avoid the trampling, seethingmob of monsters, she realized that White and thetwo man and woman things with whom she hadcome to the Victory Building were workingtogether as though by some carefully pre-arranged plan.

Again her mind flashed back to the timewhen those two monsters had aided her and theSkull Killer's escape from their fellows. Thoughshe had been too dazed to realize it then, thatroom where the monsters had been kept, musthave been a pre-arranged meeting place betweenWhite and his malformed helpers. They musthave made their plans at some point either whenshe had been unconscious or had her attentiondiverted.

It had been the duty of those friendlymonsters to convince their fellows that, in White'swords, "The Skull Killer was a better bet than theOctopus." They had succeeded, and thenfollowed White and herself through the longcorridors, biding their time, waiting for theopportunity to avenge their wrongs.

The sight of that vengeance now sickenedCarol. Man after sniveling man, Borden, and thewhite-jacketed orderlies, were being torn toshreds by the fury of that attack. She felt theOctopus screaming, saw the room grow darker,as those indigo eyes were extinguished. Thenmerciful darkness closed over her....

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42

Slowly she became conscious of the SkullKiller's voice again. He was speaking into amicrophone contained in a little glass cage setapart in one corner of the room, like the control-room of a radio station.

"This is station WVI, on top of the VictoryBuilding, New York City. Skull Killer speaking. Inreference to my previous broadcast, whichpromised an investigation of the Citizens'Emergency Medical Committee, that investigationhas taken place. The Committee has been purgedof various vicious and deadly elements which hadcontrol of it.

"The disease against which you have beenwarned in previous broadcasts from this samestation, is no natural disease at all—but was thework of fiendish human beings. I speak of themin the past tense, because they have ceased nowto exist."

There was a pause, then White went on,"You will be glad to learn that there is no furtherdanger of contamination to you, nor need yousend any but voluntary contributions to aid yourstricken fellow citizens. A cure has beensuggested for them by Dr. Anthony Steele, latemember of the Emergency Committee, who diedheroically, doing his duty as a doctor.

"Authorities are requested to come to thewest wing of the forty-fifth floor of this building,where they will find corroboration of what I havejust said, in a hitherto inaccessible part of theVictory Building.... That is all!"

White suddenly rushed out of the glass-enclosed booth. He paused before her, hishideously swollen, yellow face inches removedfrom her own.

HE WHISPERED, "I must go now. Whenthe authorities come, tell them what Steele said.That'll clear you—then tell them everything else.These—people," his arm gestured briefly towardsthe monsters, who had fallen silent and stoodregarding him, "will corroborate your testimony,and help clear any friends of yours fromcharges.... Do your best!"

He reached for a switch, and the roombecame dark. Carol was conscious of an almostoverwhelming physical relief as the purple glare ofthe ultra-violent light was extinguished. She hadhardly noticed its torturous presence in the recentexcitement, but now she was weak and faint.

Strong arms encircled her, supported her.She thought they were White's, but whenpresently the room was flooded again with thelight, she saw that he had disappeared. Afrightened cry escaped her lips. She wascompletely alone and surrounded by the hideous,half-human malformations, and it was a womanwho held her up.

"Don't worry," the woman said gutturally,"you'll be—all right."

And then the police, with their red andhealthy human faces, were entering that place ofdeadly violet dusk....

JEFFREY FAIRCHILD picked her up atPolice Headquarters. She had told her story, andhad only been half-believed. Still, Jeffrey'sinfluence had been sufficient to secure herrelease, and the pending investigation, thequizzing of the monsters, was all in her favor,and thus, automatically, in favor of her employer,Dr. Skull.

She wondered a little where Skull could be,and remembered the brown eyes of the monster,Robert White, the Skull Killer. She realized,shuddering, that with a little altering of the linesabout him, those eyes might have been Dr.Skull's.

Had the elderly physician given himself thosesame treatments, that turned men into monsters,simply so that he would be able to fight that dreaddisease? Then she remembered the youth andstrength of White... it was impossible that old Dr.Skull could have been as strong as that.

Seriously, however, she offered her surmisesto Jeffrey, who laughed at them.

"Silly kid," he said indulgently. "You've justrisked your life with the net effect of clearing Dr.Skull, and now it seems you've convincedeveryone but yourself! Personally, I alwaysthought those rumors about the doctor and theSkull Killer were much dream-stuff. I just saw Dr.Skull, half an hour ago, and he was no morediseased than I am."

Carol shook her head perplexedly. "I wishhe'd have let me know that earlier," she said. "Isuppose my job's still open?"

Jeffrey nodded. "Dr. Skull's going to do somespecial work at the Victory building. You'llprobably be working right there with him."

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43

Already Jeff had opened negotiations forpurchase of the skyscraper whose owners couldnot be found. For he realized that, with itsmagnificent medical equipment, the VictoryBuilding would be a logical substitute for theruined Mid-City Hospital in service to thecommunity.

But the Octopus—that incredibly evilpersonality who had been the skyscraper's firstmaster—would his presence really be goneforever from the place he had lorded? Jeffreyrecalled those old legends of the Deathless One,and he couldn't swear that the man was dead. Ithad been impossible to identify all the mangledbodies after that dreadful revenge.

He forced himself to think sensibly of thewhole matter. It was true that he could notaccount for the Octopus, nor for his purple-eyedfollowers, neither in their origin or nature.

Albinism, attended by a mental aberration—he thought of that as an explanation. But whyshould there have risen a leader for thesesuddenly-appearing purple-eyed albinos?

Jeffrey sighed. He had done his part in thefreeing of his city; he could only continue to dohis part in the interests of its welfare. If sometimein the unpredictable future that essence of evilthreatened once more to test its malignant, deadlypowers, the new owner of the Victory Buildingwould have to do his part again....

THE END

By Randolph Craig - Vintage Library · 2018. 3. 29. · And then he steeled himself to the ultimate...

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Transcript of By Randolph Craig - Vintage Library · 2018. 3. 29. · And then he steeled himself to the ultimate...