Page:Weird Tales Volume 3 Number 2 (1923-02).djvu/21

20 created shapes, But they were purely vegetative, they existed and no more, the vital spark which we call life was lacking. Close as they had come they had not penetrated Nature's greatest secret—Life.

"One of these shapes in particular attracted my attention. It was the most horrible parody on brute creation that it was possible to conceive. It was like no living creature on earth or in the waters under the earth.

"The body was that of a large and powerful dog, probably a mastiff, as it was covered with a coat of coarse, tawny hair, The abdomen, however, was white and scaly like the belly of a reptile. The legs were those of a big monkey—a baboon I would say. The arms were disproportionately long and their knotted muscles were covered with thick, reddish hair. The hands were sinewy, black and ape-like. Both arms and hands were evidently those of a young orang. The face resembled nothing so much as a hideous gargoyle, the nightmare dream of some mad mediaeval artist. The head of a leopard had been used, and by the plastic skill of the surgeon the features had been transformed into a revolting, feline cariature of a human face. The ensemble of horror was completed by a hairless, tapering, reptilian tail.

"While I gazed on this devilish insult to man and beast and their Creator a strange thing happened. Strange, in that it set in motion the train of thought that enabled me to supply the unknown quantity of the problem that I had attempted to solve. I had the motive, the location: it gave me the identity of the murderer. In its outward seeming it was most commonplace, but Fate, or, rather, Fate's Master, not infrequently acts so and we call it chance. A fly—a big, bluebottle fly, one of the survivors of last year's myriads, alighted on the eyelid of the thing. Instantly its eye opened, it winked and and a black and hairy hand was raised to brush away the irritation. By that I knew it lived. It was not a mere vegetative automaton endowed only with the basic, reflexes of breathing and the action of the heart, it possessed instinct and reasoning, else it would not have brushed away the fly. Whence came its life?

"There are those who believe that there are other spirits or intelligences who do: not inhabit the bodies of men. I am one of those who hold this ancient doctrine. These discarnate intelligences have never been clothed in flesh, yet to be so is ever their desire. Into this house of flesh without a tenant, this thing that should not be, an evil spirit crept. That which was lifeless thus became alive. Urged by the instinct of its carnivore brain, it was not satisfied by a diet of serum or citrated blood injected into the great vein of the neck every few days, Blood, blood fresh and warm only, could give strength and vigor; so it slew to get it."

 

