Mistress of the Undead | Page 2

to keep them warm. It was bitter cold.
At the edge of the marsh it was quieter, and it felt warmer to Turner. Suddenly his feet seemed drawn toward the swamp by some mysterious power. He tried to turn back into the narrow, open roadway, but his lower limbs refused to coordinate with his thoughts.
Once in the swamp, undergrowth seemed to part in front of him as he advanced. He looked down at the soggy ground. His feet made no tracks. Sawgrass was knee-high. None of it swashed against his legs like it usually did when he was working his way toward a blind to shoot ducks.
Above him limbs of trees were so closely knitted they blotted out the sky with an inky blackness. He soon lost all sense of direction, but his feet kept carrying him forward, splitting through the middle of the marsh toward Lake Worth, without any mental effort on his part.
All at once something struck him violently on the head. He felt himself pitch forward on the mushy ground, yet he seemed to be standing still. He drew out his watch and struck a match. It was 6:30 o'clock. He had only a half-hour to get the doctor back to Nancy Blake?and she was dying at seven o'clock.
Frantically he tried to fling his body forward, but he was without power to move.
There was a roar in the distance. He listened intently. The howling wind started again, singing a mournful dirge through the tall trees in rhythm with the approaching noise.
A glaring beam moved toward him, throwing a narrow shaft of light through the opaqueness above him. On each side of the staring yellow eye he saw green and red pilot lights.
The Little City plane! Sister ship to the one crashing here a year ago, he thought. He'd let it guide him. It would pass directly over Lake Worth. He wasn't lost now. He'd follow its tail light.
He laughed at his sudden relief from fright?but a delirious sound came from his throat, and his own laughter was terrorizing to him. He turned to watch the oncoming plane.
Noise of the whirring motors grew louder and louder. The light was shimmering through the tree tops overhead. Then he wondered why the plane had a headlight. Blind flying was customary.
He stood waiting for the huge liner to pass over, so he could swing along behind it.
Level of the light dropped lower and lower on the bodies of the tall trees, as the plane came closer to him. Noise from the motors merged with the wind into one long, weird moan. Above it he heard the shrill shouting of excited voices?voices of frightened people.
Damn! The ship was dropping low. Too low to clear the swamp trees, unless the pilot nosed it up!
John Turner stood frozen in his tracks, straining like a wild animal at a leash. He couldn't move. He tried to wave a warning to the pilot. His arms hung limp by his sides. Frantically, he began shouting, but roar of the motors and screaming voices of the passengers drowned out his voice until he couldn't hear himself.
Wheels of the plane struck the treetops and shaved them off like straws. The airliner dropped lower. Tree limbs failed to retard its speed. Debris of plane and trees was falling all around Turner.
Lower and lower the ship dropped, battering itself against timber and shattering off wings. The pilot apparently made no effort to raise it. The craft headed toward Turner. All the passengers seemed crowded down front. They stared wild-eyed at him there in the path of the onrushing plane.
Between pilot and co-pilot sat a queer looking little man. They were laughing at John Turner as the wingless plane plummeted toward his head.
They were aiming the damned thing at him! He dropped to the ground and the liner shot over him, barely head high. It was a narrow escape!
THE giant liner hit tree trunks, and bounded from one to the other like a rubber ball. Arms and legs from human bodies hurtled through the air. Headless bodies splashed in swamp waters, turning them blood red.
Scream after scream rent the air, loud and terrifying. Trees finally battered the plane to earth, and all was quiet again. Moans of the dying ceased.
Turner's head ached. He felt of his hair. Blood was matted there. It was cold. The injury had occurred too long ago to have been caused by the plane. Something had struck him before it came crashing through the trees.
Part of the plane wreckage burst into flames, casting an eerie glow over the marshland, and making dancing, fantastic figures out of tree shadows.
John Turner stood up. The plane had cut a clean path through the saplings and undergrowth. Parts of human bodies were scattered along in the narrow opening. Sawgrass was splotched with blood.
He