The wonder stick

by Stanton A. Coblentz

Tracing the footprints toward what appeared to be their source, he forgot for the moment his own possible peril. Curiosity still led him on blindly—with every step he was finding fresh evidence of unaccountable things. He was appalled at sight of a great blur of clotted blood at the edge of a fallen tree, and at sight of numerous sinister-looking reddish spots and patches. In a secluded little pocket of the glade, he observed that the herbs and grass had been beaten down as though in some terrific struggle, and here too were the same ghastly blots of red; and finally, when an uncanny creeping sensation was running down his spine and his better judgment was counseling him to flee, he beheld that which stabbed his mind with such sudden and overwhelming horror that the memory was not to leave him until his dying day.

Huddled in a cluster of shrubbery at one end of the glade, was a gruesome apparition that seemed half man and half beast—more beast than man, for surely this great motionless hairy bulk could not be human. It lay slumped among the bushes as though it had crept there to breathe its last; an intermittent trail of blood led from it to the open spaces; its huge apelike head drooped almost to the ground, with enormous jaws agape, thick lips slimy with coagulated foam, and glazed little black eyes sightlessly staring. On its broad shaggy chest the crimson gore was matted, while its battered right temple was little more than a clot of red.

With a low cry of alarm, Ru drew back. He did not take time for a second glimpse; in a panic, he raced away, raced straight across the open and toward the farther woods—scarcely knowing where he was going, filled only with a mad desire to escape that bloody terror in the bushes.

But, in his impetuosity, he was to dash directly upon a still more alarming scene.

From the place of the strange footprints and blood-marks, he fled into an adjoining and larger glade. Almost in the center of this grass-covered opening, he stopped short in fresh terror; and his startled eyes surveyed the ground at first without full realization, but with gradually growing comprehension—comprehension of the most fearful deed that even those savage days could boast. The appalling fact was not that the ashes of a camp-fire lay before him, a few of the embers still dully smoldering—this he had half expected to find; it was not that the relics of a feast lay scattered among the weeds and grass, which reeked of the entrails of animals, discarded bits of hide and fat, and crushed and shattered bones. That which made Ru shudder and quail was that the feast had evidently not been confined to animal fare. From a recess between two rocks, a gaunt blood-stained skull leered at him, bits of flesh still clinging to the brow, the brain-cast battered as by a heavy blow.

With a gasp of revulsion, Ru recognized that it was the skull of a man! And on the ground beside it he detected scraps of reddened human skin and hair, split and charred human thigh-bones emptied of marrow, and severed human fingers and toes!

Slowly, like one half stunned by a blow, Ru started to retreat. His horror-stricken eyes searched the borders of the glade for sight of the dread feasters; his limbs began to tremble uncontrollably beneath him. Fortunately, there was no sign of anything menacing; neither beast nor human challenged him before he had gained the bushes and vanished.

But as he stole away into the underbrush, he heard that which seemed to confirm his worst fears. From across the open space a renewed tumult startled him—a tumult as of voices calling. They were heavy and raucous, like the voices of his tribesmen, yet the accentuation was not that of his people—and they had in them a bestial note like that of prowling wild creatures.

But who they might be Ru did not seek to discover. At as rapid a pace as he could maintain without making a telltale noise, he picked his way among the thickets in the direction of the lake. Thorns pricked his hands, sharp stones cut his feet, bloodsucking insects alighted upon his unprotected skin—but he did not notice; in his mind was a ravening dread that drove him on like a goad of fire. Had the terrible unknowns discovered his presence? Hearing him, had they returned? and, observing his footprints, were they even now following on his trail? Were they—though built in his own form—hunting him as man hunts beast? And was there danger that they would overtake him, strike him down, and—

But here Ru's imagination reached a barrier that it would not cross. He recalled the scraps of human skin and flesh scattered about the burnt-out camp-fire—and at this abhorrent memory he shuddered, thought of old tales of men that ate men, and strained to quicken his gait.