Doctor Death Vs. The Secret Twelve - Volume 1

by Harold Ward

  “You must understand by this time that I bear you no love. On the other hand, I have no malice against you. But I need you. And I will either have you alive or I will use your corpse for the same purpose as the carcass of this poor devil.”

  He whirled on his heel and walked away. An instant later Holm heard the door slam behind him and knew that he was gone.

  Hot needles of terror tore through Jimmy Holm’s brain at the thought of what was before him. Slowly, yet steadily at intervals of thirty seconds, the Zombi made his trip from the shelves at the side of the room. Each time he carried a single book. Placing it upon the suspended form of the young detective, he whirled and started back on his return journey.

  As Doctor Death had said, the addition of the first half dozen books made little difference to the tortured man. The weight of his own body was enough to almost tear him apart, drawn up as he was, over a foot from the floor, his limbs stretched at an unnatural angle.

  Then came the time when every additional ounce was an added agony. He attempted to fight it off, to pit his own intelligence against that of the monster who was directing the cold, dead torturer. Once he thought that he had succeeded. For a moment the man halted in his tracks, stumbling a bit, the book falling from his hand. Then, stooping stiffly over with a sort of jackknife motion he retrieved it and placed it on the pile beside the others. Jimmy groaned, knowing that he had failed.

  The pain grew steadily worse. Every added ounce now stretched the muscles a tiny bit more. Fresh needles jammed into his flesh in a million places. His nerves shrieked aloud and he gave way to them, filling the air with his agonized moans.

  His body seemed to be tearing apart. And still the walking dead man continued his slow, methodical trips, each time with a single book in his hand which he added to the little pile.

  The door opened and Doctor Death entered again. Jimmy Holm nerved himself and, gritting his teeth, tried to keep from giving way to the excruciating pain. The sinister scientist bent over him, a benevolent smile creeping over his saturnine countenance.

  “Are you ready to give up?” he asked. “It tortures me as much as it does you, Jimmy, to see you thus suffer.”

  Then it was that Jimmy Holm gave way, filling the air with his curses. He was wild—mad—filled with an insanity such as he had never felt before. He was hysterical, knowing not what he said. Death waited until he had finished. Then, shaking his head sadly, he turned away and seating himself in the chair beside the table, selected a pipe from the bowl and, filling and lighting it, gazed at Jimmy quizzically through the smoke.

  The Zombi added another book. But Jimmy Holm did not feel its extra ounces.

  He had fainted.

  He was lying on the couch again when he opened his eyes. There were no cords upon his limbs, yet he was incapable of movement, so badly swollen were his arms and legs. Again Doctor Mandarin—or Doctor Death, as he elected to call himself—was bending over him. For an instant the old man touched a finger to his pulse, then straightened up shaking his head sagely.

  “Your stubbornness almost resulted in your death, my foolish young friend,” he said sadly.

  Turning, he walked slowly to a small medicine cabinet sitting on a nearby table. From it he extracted a small hypodermic needle which he sterilized in alcohol and filled with a golden yellow liquid.

  “This will ease the pain,” he said gently as he rolled back Holm’s sleeve, pierced the flesh of the forearm and drove the plunger home.

  A feeling of dizziness swept over Holm. His head swam in endless circles that grew larger and larger until he seemed to lose consciousness. Yet he was not unconscious, for he had a distinct knowledge of all that was happening around him. Like a man in a dream, he saw Doctor Death press the button again and saw several of the Zombi troop in. To each of them Death gave a small box of ointment which he selected from the cabinet.

  THEY removed Jimmy’s outer garments. Then, setting to work on all sides, they rubbed him thoroughly with the salve, their hard, dead, cold hands grating against his tortured flesh and creating a sort of warmth by the friction. Finally, at a word from their master, they raised the young man to his feet, replacing his outer garments with a bathrobe.

  The moment he stood erect, the feeling of dizziness swept from Holm’s head. The pain, too, seemed to vanish from his body and down through his legs and toes until he was able to hobble about without assistance.

  Doctor Death, sitting at the table smoking, nodded his head in satisfaction.

  “I have prepared a little drama that I want you to witness, my young friend,” he said. “Do you consider yourself in shape to see it? I warn you that time grows short for one you love. You alone can save her—but you must move fast, else it will be a tragedy. Are you ready?”

  Holm nodded dully. He started after the scientist, his feet dragging heavily, almost like those of the Zombi. Once he stumbled and nearly fell. He tried to stretch forth a hand to catch himself only to find that his arms were dead. He looked at Death questioningly.

  The old man chuckled sinisterly.

  “I am not foolish enough to match my withered old body against your sturdy young frame in a hand-to-hand encounter,” he chuckled. “Therefore, as usual, I used my brain. While you were under the anesthesia, I hypnotized you. Your arms are dead until I will them to be otherwise.”

  Again he chuckled and led the way out of the room.

  Once more Jimmy Holm heard a woman shriek. This time there was no mistaking the voice. It was that of Nina Fererra. It revived him, adding new strength to his laggard muscles.

  Death hurried down a long passageway apparently cut out of the solid rock. As they progressed, a peculiar, rancid, serpent-like stench assailed Holm’s nostrils. It grew stronger and stronger as they hastened along, the air growing warmer until it was almost unbearable.

  Arriving at a small door, Death placed his fingers on the knob and, turning it, stepped aside for Jimmy to enter.

  Jimmy Holm shrieked with horror.

  He was standing at the edge of what appeared to be a sort of barless zoo—a gigantic pit enclosed by a wide stream of dark, murky, sluggish water. The pit was filled with snakes, writhing, twisting, filling the air with their hissing.

  There were thousands of them—snakes of every known variety. Cruel, poisonous, vicious, their little, beady eyes glittering, their forked tongues darting in and out. Rattlesnakes hung from fissures in the rocks, or sounded their ominous warnings from the writhing mass in the great pit.

  Fer-de-lances reared their spear-like heads or twisted amongst the ungodly pile. Cobras, their necks puffed with anger, moccasins—a hundred other varieties, vicious, venomous—the pit was a squirming heap of scaly, glistening horror. The odor was hellish—overpowering.

  From the top of the pit an escalator led to the very bottom. It was moving slowly—backwards—toward the bottom of the pit instead of the top.

  Upon it, forced to run in order to keep from being swept down into the poisonous hell hole below, was Nina Fererra!

  She was almost naked. The sweat stood out in great beads upon her beautiful body; it trickled down in little streams over her rounded legs. She was panting—almost at the point of exhaustion. Once she stumbled. Jimmy Holm gave a cry of alarm as she slipped down half a dozen steps. A great cobra struck at her, missing her by inches. She regained her balance just in times forcing herself to greater effort in order to regain the distance that she had lost.

  “For God’s sake, stop it, you monster!” Holm cried.

  Doctor Death shook his head sadly.

  “I need you, Jimmy—need both of you,” he said quietly. “But I must have you voluntarily—not as captives. Give me your word of honor that you will come in with me and I have but to stretch forth my hand to the button which will restore Nina to your arms again. Refuse and—”

  Nina Fererra slipped and fell. She struggled to catch herself as she sprawled, face downward upon the floor that was carrying her downward. A fer-de-lance struck at, her
, its tongue darting out like forked lightning. Then another and another. They missed her by inches. Another foot and she would be lost.

  “I give in!” Jimmy Holm shrieked.

  A great snake raised its evil head and struck. The girl moved involuntarily. The serpent’s own weight carried it past her.

  Chapter XI

  Pledge to Death

  DOCTOR DEATH’S hand darted forth and touched a button. The escalator reversed itself, spinning upward with a speed that jerked the imperiled girl out of danger and deposited her on the edge of the pit at their feet, face downward. For a moment she lay there breathing heavily from her exertions. Then, raising herself on her elbow, she saw Holm for the first time.

  “Jimmy!” she said in a hoarse whisper. “You... didn’t...?”

  Holm nodded.

  “We are in his power, sweetheart,” he said. “For the time being I am paralyzed. Not that I care for myself. It was for you. Those snakes! God!”

  He shuddered like a man with the ague.

  “I know,” she whispered. “Yet death would be better than—life with him.”

  Doctor Death smiled. Coolly, he stooped over and kicked out of the way a snake that, caught on the escalator, had been whirled to the edge of the pit. This done, he pressed the button again and started the moving platform in the opposite direction. Then, calmly, he turned to the door and motioned to someone outside. Several female Zombi entered. One of them threw a robe over the recumbent girl. Stooping mechanically, they picked her up and carried her from the room.

  “I imagine that you are weary,” Doctor Death said as he led the detective back through the passageway. “Yet, because of the fact that you encountered my developed elementals when you entered this place, I am anxious to exhibit to you the prize of my collection. There is much that must be shown you, Jimmy, since you are elected to become my assistant again. Part of it will wait. But I have the natural pride of an originator.”

  They negotiated a part of the distance down the passage, then stopped before a narrow door where Death pressed a switch. Stepping aside, he made way for Holm.

  It was a huge cave in which the detective found himself—a cave dimly lighted at the entranc,e the rear as black and gloomy as the pit of hades.

  Gleaming at them from this chunk of darkness were two great eyes. They glared out at them unwinkingly, malevolently, like the twin fires of hell.

  “Elementals, as you are well aware,” Death went on in the tone of a teacher lecturing his class, “are antagonistic to iron. It is the only known element that will hold them. This cave, which is almost directly behind the old house on the hillside, is an abandoned iron mine. The walls are lined with ore. I had, therefore, only to construct bars across the front in order to have a perfect breeding place for this, the prize of my collection.”

  He touched a button. A thousand lights sprang into life. The whole interior of the great tunnel was filled with their radiance.

  Holm gasped and involuntarily shrank back a bit closer to his guide. Cold, stark terror was in his soul—a terror that seemed to engulf him in its sucking grip.

  And then, recovering himself, he stared, wide-eyed, at the horrible apparition that loomed before him.

  It was tall—twice as high as the average man and less than half as wide—a gaunt, corpse-white thing with a balloon-like head from which glared eyes filled with venomous hatred. Its mouth was a horrible slit drawn back over bestial fangs from which slavered spittle. Its arms were long and dangling, sinuous and snake-like, ending with enormous, boneless hands, the fingers of which writhed and twisted, opening and closing as if itching to get at the throats of the men who gazed at it. Legs it had none; its twisted, serpentine body appeared to rest on a sort of blunted point. It moved across the floor by dragging itself with its hands.

  JIMMY HOLM shuddered anew. The thing was a monstrosity—a grisly, ghastly ghost of a devil. It was an evil dream. Such a macabre thing belonged neither to heaven nor to earth. It could be nothing else than what it was—the result of the wild imaginings of a half crazed scientist.

  Involuntarily, he took a step backward. The thing charged. As its gelatinous body touched the iron bars, it shrank back with a frightened squeal, its fangs grating venomously, the gangrenous spittle drooling from its horrible mouth.

  Jimmy Holm turned away with a shudder. Doctor Death was still talking.

  “Given time, what could I have not done with an army such as that?” he demanded. “Bullets, as you found last night when you attempted to tackle some of the smaller of the species, have no effect on them. Their bodies are too gelatinous—too rubbery and spongy. As I remarked, only one thing has any effect on them—iron. And who, with you and Nina on my side, would think of that?

  “But, now that I have found this—this other way—there will be no necessity for continuing my experiments with these creatures from the other world,” he went on. “Yet they are interesting to me. This one, especially. It has been but a short time since it was merely a thought germ, as it were. I am curious to see how large it will grow.”

  He led the way out of the cavern. The horror behind the bars dashed toward them. Death whirled and glared at it. It shrank back into the corner, shuddering as if from cold.

  “I control them with my mind, since they are largely the creatures of my imagination,” the aged scientist explained, pressing the light switch and leading the way out into the passage again.

  “They and my Zombi are the crowning achievements of my career,” he went on. His eyes were bright, his face shone with excitement, as his words rushed out.

  “I think that I explained to you once before,” he continued, “that Zombi are soulless human corpses—cadavers taken from the grave and endowed by sorcery with a mechanical semblance of life. They walk and act with a certain degree of intelligence.

  “But that intelligence, my young friend, is not God-given, but man-given—supplied by the person who raised them from the dead. Few people have the power to thus galvanize the dead into life by the power of thought. I am one who is thus endowed, as you are well aware.

  “With my Zombi and my elementals, I can conquer the world. But why go to the trouble of developing them in large numbers when the shorter way lies within my grasp?”

  He led the way into the living room again.

  “You are weary,” he said. “So, too, am I after my own fashion. But I have other work to do.”

  He pressed the button and a Zombi responded.

  “This Zombi will show you to your room and assist you in bathing and getting to bed,” he said.

  “Nina?” Holm inquired.

  “Will be quite all right by the time you wake up,” Doctor Death answered. “At which time I wish to discuss our future plans with both of you.”

  “And am I fated to go through life armless—a cripple?” Holm demanded angrily.

  Doctor Death chuckled.

  “That depends upon yourself,” he answered shortly. “Give me your word of honor that you will not attack me and that you will make no effort to escape—in other words, that you will obey my commands to the letter—”

  “That I will not agree to do,” Holm snarled. “I am not a murderer.”

  For an instant Death hesitated.

  “I am capable of doing my own killing,” he said gruffly. “I should—kill you. Yet, for some reason, I hesitate. The time is coming when I can use you. You know my methods—my ways.”

  He took a turn about the floor, his high brow furrowed in thought.

  “Go to bed,” he said abruptly. “When you wake up you will be paralyzed no longer. Promise me that, until I have made my decision, you will keep hands off from me. In return for that—I promise you Nina.”

  “Until you hear otherwise, you have my word,” Holm growled.

  Jimmy Holm, awakened from the dreamless sleep of complete exhaustion by the touch of a hand upon his shoulder, shuddered as he opened his eyes and gazed into the blank, dead face of the Zombi who had acted as his guide
. He glanced down at his wrist watch. In the tumult of the night before he had forgotten to wind it and it had run down. He wondered vaguely if it were morning or night.

  STRANGELY, his aches and pains were gone. He felt like a man as he sprang from beneath the sheets and plunged under the refreshing shower. Then came a brisk rubdown with a coarse towel. His flesh tingled as the warm blood leaped to the surface.

  He swung his arms vigorously and fairly whooped at the realization that the strange paralysis had disappeared. He wondered if Death had thought to provide a razor; he found one on the shelf just below the mirror. There was something familiar about the case as he picked it up. He gasped with astonishment when he saw the letters, “J.H.” engraved upon the gold of the cover.

  It was his own razor. Nina Fererra had given it to him on his birthday only a few weeks before. And now it was here. By what feat of legerdemain had Doctor Death, in the short time he had slept, succeeded in getting it from the bathroom of his New York apartment to this lonely house in the country?

  Nor did his astonishment end there. For, having completed his shaving, upon stepping out of the bathroom he discovered the Zombi laying out a dinner suit. It was his own. A little distance away were several suitcases, which he recognized as from his apartment. Upon the table was a note. He picked it up and read:

  Since dinner tonight is to be a sort of celebration in honor of our happy reunion, I suggest that we make it a semi-formal affair and dress for the occasion.

  Sincerely,

  Doctor Death.

  Dinner! He wrinkled his brow in amazement. It seemed but a few minutes since he had thrown himself, tired and exhausted, upon the bed. It must have been late in the morning, he soliloquized, when he retired.

  And Nina? He was to meet her again. A feeling of happiness came over him at the thought, only to give way to one of depression as he thought of what the cost had been. For he was a slave, owned body and soul by this monster who called himself Doctor Death.