HAROLD WARD

BRIDE OF THE APE

Mystery Novels and short stories , September 1939

I lay paralyzed as my adorable Betty, her dewy maidenhood unconcealed, was stretched on that altar of primordial desire... while that stone-age monster played a passion prelude—to the consummation of the flesh's unholy command!

IT was dark—abysmally dark. There was not even a star in the heavens to relieve the fathomless blackness that surrounded us on all sides—a blackness intensified a thousandfold by the fierce wind howling down from the mountains. It bit into the very marrow of our bones chilling the blood in our veins, benumbing us, making every step a torture.

And behind us, its stealthy movements hidden by the ebony curtain of the night, was the thing. For the past hour it had dogged us, spying on our every motion, stopping when we stopped, always keeping just outside our range of vision. Yet we could hear its soft padding; it was always in our rear regardless of what way we turned.

Once it coughed hackingly. I whirled on my heel, my gorge rising, for the sound seemed right at my elbow. My swinging fist touched only empty space. I caught a momentary gleam of its phosphorescent eyes as it leaped back into the darkness. My cigarette lighter was in my pocket; I held it in my benumbed fingers and snapped the flint. The flame was only for a second; then the raging wind extinguished it, but it brought a low, menacing snarl from the thing behind us—a bestial, half-human growl of anger.

It was our wedding journey. Married only the day before, we had started by automobile for the home of Betty's uncle in the mountains. Either the attendant at the filling station back in the little village through which we had passed had given us the wrong direction or we had misinterpreted what he had said. The coming of nightfall had found us in a narrow, tree-bordered lane apparently far from any human habitation.

Then, to make matters worse, a spring had broken, rendering the car completely useless.

We had not passed a house since turning into the side road five or ten miles back; by the law of averages, there should be one ahead. Averse to leaving Betty while I sought for help, I had allowed her to accompany me.

Since then we had wandered miles, it seemed, without sighting a sign of life. Meanwhile the weather had changed; the wind was howling down through the canyons of the foothills in a perfect hurricane, freezing us to the very bone. We had lost all idea of direction, for even our senses were becoming deadened under the strain; only the fact that the trees and underbrush had been cleared away kept us on the road.

THEN, from behind, came the soft pad of feet heralding the approach of the accursed thing that was now following us. The constant menace acted as a tonic to our jaded nerves, quickening our muscles, putting us on the qui vive.

Along the long, bleak trail, I stumbled across a rough club. Picking it up, I brandished it in my hands. The feel of it strengthened me and gave me renewed courage.

Dimly, through the swaying trees, we saw a light. Taking Betty more firmly by the arm, I quickened my footsteps. The narrow lane brought us to a fence. Skirting it, we approached the house from the side.

There was nothing eerie or particularly forbidding about the rambling old structure that loomed like an uncouth spot of blackness in the frame of the starless night a hundred yards away. The light gleamed from a single window on the lower floor, casting a sickly beam through the heavy foliage. Yet a chill of apprehension swept over me that left me colder than the mountain wind. Betty shuddered, too. Involuntarily my arm sought her waist and I drew her closer. Some subtle sixth sense told me to flee; I fought it back, for to remain outside exposed to the constantly increasing cold for the remainder of the night meant but one thing—death. Had it been the howl of a ghoul in the midst of a graveyard, I would have welcomed it on Betty's account.

It was the fence, I told myself, that was bothering me. Yet I could see but little of it by the light shining through the single window. Fully twenty feet in height, it was made of tightly meshed wire fastened to high posts from the top of which extended cross pieces overhanging the interior and also tightly wired. It reminded me of a prison enclosure I had once seen.

BETTY'S hold on my arm suddenly tightened.

"Listen!" she whispered hysterically. At the same moment my toe struck something and I sprawled forward on all fours, my hands extended to break my fall. For an instant my fingers touched dead flesh.

I leaped to my feet with an exclamation of horror, groping in my pocket for the cigarette lighter. I snapped the flint. The flame flared up for a second, flickered in the howling wind... died.

Yet in that heart-stopping flash I saw what caused me to reel backward, a shriek of terror on my lips. The naked body of a woman lay before me—a weird, misshapen creature, her form twisted and warped, her lips drawn back over her fangs in a grimace of horrible malignancy. Her throat was torn—ripped as by some wild beast in a frenzy of demoniacal anger. Even her breasts, huge, pendulous—were slashed and smeared with gore.

For a moment horror robbed me of the power to move. I heard Betty's breath come in a scream—a shriek that was cut off in the middle as a huge shape plunged out of the darkness and seized her in its powerful arms.

Again she gave voice to her terror as the diabolical thing pulled her away from me back into the darkness. I caught a momentary glimpse of a bloated, spiderish body with short, stubby legs and long muscular arms, its enormous shoulders surmounted by a shaggy head, the matted hair of which hung over glittering, bloodshot eyes.

For an instant I was paralyzed with fear— unable to stir hand or foot. It lifted Betty bodily, holding her with one arm against its barrel-like chest; with the other it tore at her clothes. She shrieked wildly. Her voice galvanized me into action and I leaped forward. The accursed thing appeared to have the power to see in the dark, for it struck me a stinging blow on the head that sent me to my knees, my faculties benumbed.

It leaped backward into the pocket of blackness, chuckling harshly. Betty screamed again and again in a frenzy of fear. I gained control of my shattered senses and charged once more. Hampered as it was by Betty's dragging weight, I caught up with it and crashed the stout hickory club down upon its shaggy head with all my strength. The beast roared with rage and flung its huge bulk forward, my loved one still fighting futilely against its nauseating embrace. I dodged its mad rush and struck again. The stick broke across the monster's skull. Wild with anger, it hurled Betty aside and leaped at me, its teeth grinding together in a paroxysm of madness. Again I managed to dodge it.

"Run... Betty!" I gasped. "The house...!" The accursed thing was upon me. I sprang away from it... but too late. Its club-like arm struck me a wild, swinging blow that sent me crashing to the ground a dozen feet away. It was upon me before I could pull myself to my feet. I felt its stubby fingers twisting themselves about my throat. Its face was close to my own, its fetid breath fanning my cheek as it snapped at me with its gnashing fangs. I threw my arm upward in a futile gesture of self-preservation. The movement was a lucky one, for the jagged end of the broken club crashed into the bestial face. The beast's own weight, rather than my puny strength, drove the sharp point to the bone.

It leaped away from me squealing with pain. Through the darkness I could see it clawing at its face as it strove to pull the weapon from its flesh. I dragged myself to my feet and, turning, raced after Betty. She was already on the tumbledown porch, her tiny fists pounding a frenzied tattoo on the wooden panels of the door.