* * * *
When I set the big ship down at San Diego, the cops were waiting. They took D’Issay and the remaining four members of his Black Thirteen off to the calaboose. And when they had gone, I turned to Yolande Carteret.
I smiled at her. I said, “Now you know why I pretended to double-cross you, don’t you, my dear?”
She looked into my eyes. “Y-yes,” she whispered faintly. The torn neck of her frock gaped open. I saw a hint of swelling white breasts. I touched them, tentatively, with my hands; explored their creamy-white, velvety surface… She melted against me.
I said, “Do you know you drive me nuts, Yolande? Do you know I’m screwy about you?”
She smiled at me, tremulously. “What—what are you going to do about it, Steve?” she whispered.
I grabbed her, kissed her parted lips. “Plenty!” I told her.
THE ISLE OF MONSTERS, by Jane Thomas
Originally published in Spicy Adventure Stories, August 1935.
The “thing” in the row-boat lolled lifelessly over the sides, one oar clutched in its raw hands! Great seared places where the ears had been severed from the skull glowed angrily red, and the lips swollen and tortured showed upon close examination that the tongue had been removed!
Juan Anthony, once Chief Officer of U S. Foreign Investigations, was “unofficially” still plying his trade in Montaba. Being half Indian himself and understanding the people, their language and their customs made him invaluable to his Department.
He pushed his way through the awe stricken mob on the beach and approached the body in the boat. He felt his stomach roll as he bent to examine it. The flesh had been literally peeled away from the chest and the heart cavity was empty! A loin cloth fashioned from peculiar hand-woven Indian wool was fastened around its middle.
Juan slipped his hand under the cloth and extracted a little black book. He flicked it open. “It’s Morris all right,” he addressed his companion, and his eyes flamed as they rested speculatively on a distant blur in the water. La Isle del Monstruos! I wonder… the words hissed through his teeth. “I’m going to find out what makes them monsters, if it’s the last thing I ever do!”
“If Morris is any example, it probably will be.” His companion turned his eyes away from the boat. “How’d he ever get away…like that?” He still didn’t look at the thing in the boat.
“God knows!” Juan dropped his coat over the body.
He continued talking as he glanced through the little book. “Morris was looking for information about the High Priestess Vishnaw, who one time headed an ancient Indian cult. The cult’s been extinct for years—or so they say! He heard that he could find out something on the Isle del Monstruos. The natives won’t come within two hours rowing distance of the place.”
“Why?” Hack asked.
“They say it’s ‘taboo’. Scared stiff if you even mention its name.”
“So’m I,” Hack Larson, another soldier-of-fortune and Juan’s companion in many strange adventures, returned laconically. “What’s in the book?” He glanced over Juan’s shoulder.
Juan read from the notations, “Participated in the ‘Dance of Fertilization’…horrible…
“Look here.” Hack pointed to the opposite page as he read. “Description of the White God Vishnaw…tall…Caucasian…flaming red hair… Hack looked appreciatively at Juan, “Fits you perfectly, old man. Must’ve been an ancestor of yours.”
Juan closed the book, looked grim. “Come on. Let’s get a boat and get going.”
Hack sighed. “I’m just a plain damned fool for going with you! I ought to wait here and if your body doesn’t show up in a week, send the Marine Corps out there! It’ll take us hours to row to that lousy island!”
“Are you coming?”
“Yes. Damn it! I am…”
* * * *
Three hours later Hack shaded his eyes against the afternoon sun. “Well, we’re nearly there.” He shifted his weight to the other side of the boat.
“Be careful, there, son,” Juan warned him. “There’s enough stuff in that bag to blow the whole Pacific dry!” He pushed the little black box gently toward the end of the boat.
“My God!” Hack pointed excitedly ahead. “What are those things? White porpoise?”
“Never heard of ’em,” replied Juan and they both stared as gleaming white rolling forms that had a mother-of-pearl look rose over one wave and ducked under another. Glints of gold showed through the water as the creatures came to the top, then were lost from view as they dived deep.
“Must be dozens of ’em!” Hack exclaimed. “They’re coming this way!”
They let their oars idle as they watched curiously.
Suddenly, their boat rocked violently and from all sides exquisite naked form shot up through the emerald green water! Wet hair, long and spun like fire gold, drifted out fan-wise in the water.
“Women! By Golly!” Hack’s eyes sparkled. Juan ran a nervous hand through his thatch of red hair as he stared at them.
They seemed oblivious of the men as they disported themselves on their backs. Their long slender white arms played gently in the ocean as they kept afloat. Firmly moulded breasts thrust their erect tips through the foam, and their exquisitely curved thighs melted into the iridescence of the water.
“Boy, is this a surprise! I’m going in, too!” And Hack began to peel off his shirt.
The leader of the group suddenly gazed directly into Juan’s troubled eyes, and a slight smile trembled on her face before she turned on her stomach, arched her naked, glistening back and with a sensuous flick of her streaming hips dove beneath the waves.
One after another, each strange creature followed her and in what seemed a twinkling of an eye the sea was barren.
Hack blinked. “Where the hell?” and losing his footing pitched forward on his face as the boat began to move rapidly toward the island. It raced madly as if propelled by an unseen hand, toward a deep fissure in the rock—and suddenly stopped!
Both men peered eagerly into the water and gazed behind them and to all sides. There was no sign of the shining-bodies!
“Well—can you tie that?” Hack looked uneasily at Juan.
The latter shrugged. “Don’t look at me. All I know is that they disappeared and the boat is here instead of out there! Draw your own conclusions!”
Hack gazed at the gloomy pile of rock. “I don’t like the looks of this place. Let’s turn back and find the girls.”
“We’re going to get on this island and this seems a likely place to start.” Juan was decisive. “Come on and grab your oar. We’ll paddle quietly up this tunnel and see where it ends.”
Within a short time they had negotiated the rocky passage. It appeared to be some sort of subterranean tunnel into the bowels of the island and was enveloped in a Stygian darkness. The beam from their flash played on slimy walls and was lost in the eerie darkness beyond. A water reptile slithered down the wall nearest them and dropped with a soft splash into the water.
“Pleasant little villa,” said Hack.
Suddenly their hair stood on end. A groan rose in the condensed air of the tunnel. It became a shriek of agony before it ended in a low sobbing sound, and then ceased—as if the voice had been strangled in the throat.
“My God! What was that?” Hack’s voice caught in his throat.
“Keep on rowing,” Juan replied. “I’ll keep the flash on the tunnel so we won’t hit any snags. It came from ahead of us somewhere.” He played the light on the walls carefully. “Hey, wait a minute. Stick your hand out. Hack, and you’ll find an iron ring in the wall… Got it?”
“Yep.”
“Okay slip the rope through it, and leave about six feet leeway. There’s some sort of crude stairway worn out of the rocks below the ring.”
They hopped out, and hid the boat in a dark rece
ss behind the stairs. “Leave the box in the boat.” Juan whispered as he led the way cautiously up the stairs.
The steps, slick and smelly from generations of water and no sunlight curved slightly to the right. Juan snapped off the flash and felt his way, with his pistol in his right hand. They gripped the walls as they ascended, and their hands came away sticky with a slimy green matter. They wiped them hastily on their pants.
As they turned again to the right, they stopped in surprise. A heavy iron door stood slightly ajar and a beam of light came through the crack.
“Looks like we’re expected,” Hack was plainly nervous.
“S-s-sh… Juan’s whisper was scarcely audible because of a horrible gurgling sound…a mixture of idiotic hysteria and human misery…that gradually filled the evil-smelling crypt.
They slipped forward stealthily until they were within a foot of the door. Juan gave it a gentle push and it swung silently back. Simultaneously a blood-curdling shriek rent the air! Then another—and another—and the faces of the two men went white as they stared at each other.
As the shrieks died away the sound of female voices, shrill and buoyed up with passion sifted through the opening.
“Come on!” Juan’s face was as tense as his voice.
They eased cautiously through the door. There was a heavy drape to one side and they hastily concealed themselves behind its folds. They peered through slits in the centuries old material and their eyes focused on an exquisitely carved wooden image of a tall God with a flaming head of copper.
At his feet was a raised stone dais, and on it lay the twisted remains of a man. Great strips of flesh still red with human blood had been laid on the lap of the God! The scalp and ears had been removed with neat precision so recently that gory matter ran in rivulets down the sides of the face. The eyes were popped as if in strangulation.
The white men closed their eyes while waves of nausea swept over them.
A Junoesque woman stood with her back to them. Golden hair rippled down her nude back. Her seductively firm white hips were encircled in a jeweled metal cloth and her small ankles were circled by golden bracelets. She was carving, with deft movements of a slim red blade, on the body lying twisted on the dais.
With a fierce cry of triumph she suddenly ceased her manipulations and held aloft a bloody hand. It clutched the still beating heart of the wretch on the dais. Her slender white arm slowly turned red as the blood oozed down its smooth surface.
Juan’s horrified gaze shifty to the figures seated on the floor. Some twenty or thirty women, all blond and slender and practically naked were gazing fanatically at the women with the knife and her victim. Their breasts, rounded like delicate porcelain bowls, heaved with suppressed excitement, and their naked hips and legs writhed in unison on the floor.
As the tall woman held her grisly prize aloft, a slow rumble began in their throats and burst into the air like a yell of savage victory. Their bodies, still swaying as one, slowly undulated upward, and with rhythmic tread and sensuously moving hips, they closed in a circle around the dais.
Their stomachs, flat and smooth with pink indentations in the centers, rose and fell in a labored breathing as they danced, and their breasts, pastel-creamy and fragrant as lotus petals, swayed out from the folds of golden hair.
One and all they dropped to their knees in obeisance to the carved image of the God as the High Priestess chanted, “I offer this heart, through the Monsters, as a sacrifice to the White God Vishnaw, to propitiate his hunger!” Her voice fell like honey on the air, and as she stopped speaking she dropped the heart into an open recess at her feet.
The women listened with expectant, exalted expressions on their faces, as faint sounds—fussing noises—growls—snarls—floated up from the dark hole in the floor.
Presently all was quiet, and the tension broke.
The Priestess raised her hand and spoke. “Vishnaw’s hunger is not appeased! Bring more hearts!”
With queenly tread she glided away and disappeared through a drapery at the opposite end of the room.
“Why didn’t you shoot her, you fool?” Hack’s voice was low and strained.
“What for? The man was as good as dead when we heard his screams down below. We’ll shoot when we know what’s to be known.”
They held their breath and watched as the last of the women left this ghostly temple. Then they crept from behind the tapestry and with averted eyes stepped gingerly past the horror on the dais.
“Pss-st!” Juan gazing down the aperture in the floor where the High Priestess had dropped the heart. The hole was a three foot square.
Hack bent over the opening also. “Turn the flash on. Maybe we can see something.”
Juan played the flash down the shaft. The stone sides were discolored with splashes of blood and dried shreds of human flesh. A sickening stench assailed their nostrils. The beam of light shot downward and was lost in the inkiness of the hole. A weird growl rose from the bottom of the shaft, but they were unable to see what made it.
Hack said, “There’s something alive down there.”
Juan whirled in time to see one of the huge floor-stones lifted sky-ward and two long hairy arms snatch Hack’s straggling figure out of sight.
Juan grabbed the stone, braced his feet against the bottom and tugged with all his might, but the stone fell silently into place, and he jerked his hands away in time to keep them from being caught beneath the heavy block. He swore, and the sweat poured down his face.
He raced frantically around the room trying to find something to pry it open with—then he cupped his mouth with his hands and yelled, “Hack—Hack!—damn it, man, can you hear me?”
The sound of his own voice echoed—and re-echoed in the vastness of the ceremonial hall, and he realized with a sinking at the pit of his stomach that he had made a mistake. He had advertised his presence in the Sacred Temple!
He ran quickly towards the door through which they had entered. It still stood slightly ajar. He swung it back and glanced over his shoulder as he passed through. He was unaware of the naked white figure that flung two long, slim arms around his shoulders and tightened tenacious fingers on his throat as he struggled.
He kicked blindly out and flailed his arms wildly.
The pressure increased and he slid inertly to the floor…
* * * *
When consciousness returned he wondered blankly where he was. His clothes had been removed except for a gold loin cloth, and he was lying on a divan that was covered with a jeweled woolen throw. The dull sunset glow coming through the apertures in the fortress-like walls made a colored prism of the divan.
He raised himself to a sitting posture and was acutely conscious of murmurs and soft giggles. He blinked his eyes and looked in amazement around the room.
On great soft cushions scattered over the floor reclined the glorious-looking blond women whom he felt sure had towed the boat to the island. Their hair still gleamed dully wet in the light, and their bodies glowed pearly through the strands. Their eyes rested in savage delight on his muscular body.
He wished for his clothes.
The High Priestess entered the room, followed by fifteen or twenty maidens, their bodies undulating with the grace of tigresses as they walked. He had seen them before in the sacrificial chamber!
The High Priestess approached him and stood by his side. Her eyes glowed was a strange fire as they gazed into his, then she dropped to her knees and made queer gestures of obeisance to him. She arose, took his hand in her and faced the assembly of women.
“You, the Vestal Virgins, have done your work well! As I prophesied to you the Great White God Vishnaw has returned to his Temple!”
Juan felt his scalp tingle as her voice, rich and deep and passionate flowed on in Spanish jargon. He realized with a jolt of astonishment that her words were a peculiar blending of the Spanish
tongue and that of a supposed extinct tribe of “white Indians with blue eyes and blond hair” who had lived in the interior of Montaba centuries ago, and who had worshiped the Great White God Vishnaw!
Morris had written a book on this habits and religion!
The Vestal Virgins began their weird chant, their gleaming bodies seductively writhing and twisting as they danced in a close circle around Juan and the High Priestess.
The High Priestess spoke, “Make ready the Sacrifice! Prepare for the dance of Fertilization and the union of the High Priestess Vishnaw with the Great White God!”
Juan could feel the uncontrolled trembling of her fragrant body as it pressed closer to his. He felt a hot rush of blood in his veins, as his eyes turned involuntarily to the enticing softness of her bosom. His own hands trembled as they rested against the warmth of her body.
A sullen, dissatisfied murmur that swelled into a roar poured from the lovely throats of the Virgins, and they closed possessively around Juan. He could feel their quivering breasts as they brushed against his arms and chest!
The eyes of the High Priestess flashed dangerously, and she snatched a silver whip from the girdle around her smooth loins and flicked it over their bare shoulders.
With moaning little whimpers they drew out of range of the thongs, and, their white figures glistening like pink pearls in the last rays of the sun, reluctantly left the chamber.
The High Priestess turned the fire of her eyes on Juan, and he felt his blood quicken again as he gazed on the perfection of her body. The firm globules of her breasts rose and fell convulsively with her breathing. The lean flatness of her stomach swelled slightly as it rounded into her slim thighs. She swayed sensuously toward him, and as if in a hypnotic spell, he caught her perfumed body close to his own. Its fragrance made his head swim.
Her lips, luscious, red and inviting parted under his and her tongue seared his mouth with a wet flame. His hands slid possessively down the ivory expanse of her back, and he felt her quiver and shake under his touch. He dropped his mouth hungrily to the pulse in her throat, and with a quivering sigh her body relaxed against his own.
The Spicy-Adventure Page 21