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    Spoor of the Bat
    Spoor of the Bat
    Spoor of the Bat
    Ebook71 pages51 minutes

    Spoor of the Bat

    By Arthur Leo Zagat and Rafat Allam

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    About this ebook

    Spoor of the Bat by Arthur Leo Zagat is a thrilling blend of mystery and horror that plunges readers into a shadowy world where fear reigns supreme. In a city gripped by terror, a series of gruesome murders points to a creature of the night—a bat-like figure that leaves no trace except for the chilling spoor of its deadly hunts. As the body count rises, a determined investigator must delve into the darkest corners of the city and his own fears to unmask this terrifying predator. But as he draws closer to the truth, he discovers that the line between hunter and prey is perilously thin. Can he catch the bat before it claims its next victim, or will he become the hunted? This spine-tingling tale will keep readers turning pages late into the night.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAl-Mashreq eBookstore
    Release dateAug 25, 2024
    ISBN9789917041856
    Spoor of the Bat

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      Book preview

      Spoor of the Bat - Arthur Leo Zagat

      Table of Contents

      Spoor of the Bat

      CHAPTER I

      CHAPTER II.

      CHAPTER III.

      CHAPTER IV.

      CHAPTER V.

      CHAPTER VI.

      CHAPTER VII.

      CHAPTER VIII.

      CHAPTER IX.

      CHAPTER X.

      Spoor of the Bat

      By: Arthur Leo Zagat

      Edited by: Rafat Allam

      Copyright © 2024 by Al-Mashreq Bookstore

      First published in Astounding Stories, July 1934

      No part of this publication may be reproduced whole or in part in any form without the prior written permission of the author

      All rights reserved.

      SpoorOfTheBat-1

      Again the ray shoots out from the black tiger-shark—and catches the Luna square. The dance of death is ended.

      CHAPTER I

      I CAN shut my eyes and see my brother Darl again as he was on that flaring, riotous night at Nick's when we celebrated his first command. I can see the wide-shouldered, thick bulk of him, a strand of yellow hair across his brow, his broad-planed face flushed with the potent greenwine of Jupiter, square jaw outthrust, and gray eyes meeting mine in level challenge. His voice was a bit thick, but so was mine.

      I'll beat you to Calinoor, old socks, or split a rocket tube trying.

      My head went back, and I roared with laughter, jeering laughter in which all the crowded, roistering room joined. Those bronzed young master rocketeers knew the absurdity of that defiance. At dawn we should blast-off for Mars, I in the Terra, he in the Luna, sister ships as like as two peas. Only superior spacemanship could give one an advantage over the other, and I had captained space ships for five years, while the ink was not yet dry on his master's ticket.

      They laughed, yet I could see grudging admiration in their eyes. The gall of him, the consummate nerve of the bantling, they were thinking, and their hearts warmed to the cockerel.

      I taunted him, baited him till his eyes slitted, and there were two white spots either side his nostrils. You weanling! I roared. You squalling infant! I'll be rolling down the Sloora before you've shut off the refrigeration tubes in the Luna's skin. You beat me!

      Darl's hand clenched, and the glass that was in it shattered, tinkling to the floor. His neck, where he had ripped open his tunic collar, corded so that he had to squeeze utterance through his anger-white lips. By Gemini! he husked. I'll make you eat that, Brad Hamlin. If the Luna is not first on Calinoor tarmac I shall never fly again. I dare you to say the same!

      That hushed the grinning listeners knotting close around us. It was life itself Darl proposed as the stake of the gamble, they knew, for to him who has known the exaltation of interstellar flight to be Earthbound is no better than to be dead. I slammed my fist down on the table. It's a bet, Darl! The one of us who checks in last at Calinoor, grounds himself for good!

      A great shout went up, and they pledged our healths in greenwine, and Martian slota, and palate-searing lanrid smuggled from Venus, crushing round us with mazed babble of hour lines, ether eddies, meteor swirls, and all the manifold jargon terms of our craft. Then suddenly they were thundering the sky song of the rocketeers:

      "Blast old Earth from under keel,

      Shape our course for Mars.

      Spurn apace Sol's burning face.

      We're off for the farthest stars.

      "The comets set our cosmic pace

      As through the void we soar.

      We've said good-by to the human race,

      For we'll never come back any more.

      We'll never come back any more!"

      A roly-poly chap in cits leaned maundering on my table. There's lots of 'em never come back, eh, captain? He chuckled. The best of 'em, too. His little round belly shook with laughter. 'Specially if the Black Bat gets on their tail.

      I stared at him, slow anger mounting. What the devil was funny in that? But before I could say anything some one yelled, Hey, Toom, come give us a song! and he was weaving off, trolling some doggerel in a not-unpleasing voice.

      "The piebald pony and the gaunt gray cat

      Sliding down to Venus on a comet's tail—"

      IT

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