Read Ebook: The Boston Terrier and All About It A Practical Scientific and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog by Axtell Edward

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 389 lines and 39975 words, and 8 pages

Editor: Edwin Baird

Most recently updated: March 14, 2023

Transcriber's Note: All advertisements have been moved to the back. Stories that were split over this issue have been recombined.

THE UNIQUE MAGAZINE

Printed in U.S.A.

March, 1923 25 Cents

"OOZE"

An Extraordinary Novelette

The Tale of A Thousand Thrills

WEIRD TALES

THE UNIQUE MAGAZINE

EDWIN BAIRD, Editor

Published monthly by the RURAL PUBLISHING CORPORATION, 934 North Clark Street, Chicago, Ill. Application made for entry at the postoffice at Chicago, Ill., as second class matter. Single copies, 25 cents: subscription, a year in the United States, .50 in Canada. The publishers are not responsible for the loss of unsolicited manuscripts in transit, by fire, or otherwise, although every precaution is taken with such material. All manuscripts should be typewritten and must be accompanied by stamped and self-addressed envelopes. The contents of this magazine are fully protected by copyright, and publishers are cautioned against using the same, either wholly or in part.

VOLUME 1 25 Cents NUMBER 1

Contents for March, 1923

TWENTY-TWO REMARKABLE SHORT STORIES

THREE UNUSUAL NOVELETTES

A STRANGE NOVEL IN TWO PARTS

THE EYRIE THE EDITOR 180

Also a number of odd facts and queer fancies, crowded in for good measure

For Advertising Rates in WEIRD TALES apply to YOUNG & WARD, Advertising Managers, 168 North Michigan Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois

Tales of horror--or "gooseflesh" stories--are commonly shunned by magazine editors. Few, if any, will consider such a story, no matter how interesting it may be. They believe that the public doesn't want this sort of fiction. We, however, believe otherwise. We believe there are tens of thousands--perhaps hundreds of thousands--of intelligent renders who really enjoy "gooseflesh" stories. Hence--

The Unique MAGAZINE

WEIRD TALES offers such fiction as you can find in no other magazine--fantastic stories, extraordinary stories, grotesque stories, stories of strange and bizarre adventure--the sort of stories, in brief, that will startle and amaze you. Every story in this issue of WEIRD TALES is an odd and remarkable flight of man's imagination. Some are "creepy," some deal in masterly fashion with "forbidden" subjects, like insanity, some are concerned with the supernatural and others with material things of horror--all are out of the ordinary, surprisingly new and unusual. A sensational departure from the beaten track--that is the reason for

WEIRD TALES

THE UNIQUE MAGAZINE

Edited by Edwin Baird

VOLUME ONE 25c A COPY MARCH, 1923 SUBSCRIPTION .00 A YEAR NUMBER ONE .50 IN CANADA

DEAD MAN'S TALE

They called me--when I walked the earth in a body of dense matter--Richard Devaney. Though my story has little to do with the war, I was killed in the second battle of the Marne, on July 24, 1918.

Many times, as men were wont to do who felt the daily, hourly imminence of death in the trenches, I had pictured that event in my mind and wondered what it would be like. Mainly I had inclined toward a belief in total extinction. That, when the vigorous, full-blooded body I possessed should lie bereft of its faculties, I, as a creature apart from it, should go on, was beyond credence. The play of life through the human machine, I reasoned, was like the flow of gasoline into the motor of an automobile. Shut off that flow, and the motor became inert, dead, while the fluid which had given it power was in itself nothing.

And so, I confess, it was a surprise to discover that I was dead and yet not dead.

I did not make the discovery at once. There had been a blinding concussion, a moment of darkness, a sensation of falling--falling--into a deep abyss. An indefinite time afterward, I found myself standing dazedly on the hillside, toward the crest of which we had been pressing against the enemy. The thought came that I must have momentarily lost consciousness. Yet now I felt strangely free from physical discomfort.

Like a flash, recollection burst upon me, and, with it, a blaze of hatred--not toward the Boche gunners, ensconced in the woods above us, but toward the private enemy I had been about to kill.

It had been the opportunity for which I had waited interminable days and nights. In the open formation, he kept a few paces ahead of me. As we alternately ran forward, then dropped on our bellies and fired, I had watched my chance. No one would suspect, with the dozens who were falling every moment under the merciless fire from the trees beyond, that the bullet which ended Louis Winston's career came from a comrade's rifle.

Twice I had taken aim, but withheld my fire--not from indecision, but lest, in my vengeful heat, I might fail to reach a vital spot. When I raised my rifle the third time, he offered a fair target.

God! how I hated him. With fingers itching to speed the steel toward his heart, I forced myself to remain calm--to hold fire for that fragment of a second that would insure careful aim.

Then, as the pressure of my finger tightened against the trigger, came the blinding flash--the moment of blackness.

I had evidently remained unconscious longer than I realized.

Save for a few figures that lay motionless or squirming in agony on the field, the regiment had passed on, to be lost in the trees at the crest of the hill. With a pang of disappointment, I realized that Louis would be among them.

Involuntarily I started onward, driven still by that impulse of burning hatred, when I heard my name called.

Turning in surprise, I saw a helmeted figure crouching beside something huddled in the tall grass. No second glance was needed to tell me that the huddled something was the body of a soldier. I had eyes only for the man who was bending over him. Fate had been kind to me. It was Louis.

Apparently, in his preoccupation, he had not noticed me. Coolly I raised my rifle and fired.

The result was startling. Louis neither dropped headlong nor looked up at the report. Vaguely I questioned whether there had been a report.

Thwarted, I felt the lust to kill mounting in me with redoubled fury. With rifle upraised, I ran toward him. A terrific swing, and I crashed the stock against his head.

It passed clear through! Louis remained unmoved.

Uncomprehending, snarling, I flung the useless weapon away and fell upon him with bare hands--with fingers that strained to rend and tear and strangle.

Instead of encountering solid flesh and bone, they too passed through him.

Was it a mirage? A dream? Had I gone crazy? Sobered--for a moment forgetful of my fury--I drew back and tried to reduce the thing to reason. Was Louis but a figment of the imagination--a phantom?

My glance fell upon the figure beside which he was sobbing incoherent words of entreaty.

I gave a start, then looked more closely.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet