Graveyard Rats
ike this thing!" He kicked the dead rat viciously. "We all hated each other. You're glad Saul's crazy! You're glad John's dead. Only me left now, and I have a heart disease. Oh, stare if you like! I'm no fool. I've seen you poring over Aaron's lines in 'Titus Andronicus':
"Oft have I digg'd up dead men from their graves, and set them upright at their dear friends' doors!"
"You're mad yourself!" Peter sprang up, livid.
"Oh, am I?" Richard had lashed himself almost into a frenzy. "What proof have we that you didn't cut off John's head? You knew Saul was a neurotic, that a shock like that might drive him mad! And you visited the graveyard yesterday!"
Peter's contorted face was a mask of fury. Then, with an effort of iron control, he relaxed and said quietly: "You are over-wrought, Richard."
"Saul and John hated you," snarled Richard. "I know why. It was because you wouldn't agree to leasing our farm on Wild River to that oil company. But for your stubbornness we might all be we
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Graveyard Rats is a remarkable tale from the golden era of pulp fiction when action was always over the top and characters were always bigger than life.
This mystery from the pen of Robert E. Howard of Conan fame has a high body count and enough gore to rival today's splatterpunk tales (but with the notable exception that Howard can actually tell a story).
Taking place in the Great Depression, a detective tries to solve a killing that appears to be nothing more than a blood feud between two rival families in what I think is the Black Hills of South Dakota. Entering the mix are headless corpses, what appears to be the vengeful ghost of an Indian chief, and rats that can strip a man to a skeleton in minutes.
Muriphobics had better pass on this story.
Pulp horror/detective short story in best Howard quality. Not a single word is misplaced.
