The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

“He’s one of them now,” said Madeline, shuddering. “A walking corpse.”
“That’s absolute rot! How can a dead man walk?”
“You saw them, didn’t you?” Madeline countered, sighing and shaking her
head.
As she leaned toward the window and gestured at the macabre figures that
toiled in the moonlight, her dark hair caressed Connell’s cheek, and he felt the
supple flex of her slender body. Madeline at least was real in the moon-haunted
glamour. His arms closed about her, and drew her to his knee. She was still trembling,
but at his touch, she snuggled up like a contented kitten.
Pillowing her head on his shoulder, she looked up and repeated, “Please leave,
before it’s too late.”
Connell laughed softly and said, “Never had a better reason for staying.”
For a moment they crossed glances in the moonlight. His arms tightened about
her, and she did not draw away. And then as though by common impulse, their
lips met, and Connell felt the ecstatic shiver that rippled down her silk clad body.
She tried to catch his wrist, brush aside the hand that caressed the gleaming
curves of her thigh.
Her inarticulate murmur of protest, breathed in Connell’s ear, further inflamed
his blood, and his possessive caresses for the moment brushed aside the hovering
presence of mystery and horror. Each seemed to feel that the other was a haven
of reality in the devil-haunted plantation.
The lacy hem of her gown was creeping clear of her knees. Connell’s kisses
were stifling her murmured protests. Madeline’s breath came in ever quickening
gasps. She was clinging to him, the pressure of her firm young breasts telling
him that she really did not want him to desist.
If Ducoin was making the rounds of his spectral plantation where black automatons
tilled the fields by moonlight, there was no hurry. Connelly’s ardent
caresses were calling to the surface all the fire and passion of Madeline’s Latin
blood. She was lonely and frightened, and his purposeful persistence thrilled and
assured her. Her final protest ended in a sigh and a murmur and a silky embrace
that became as possessive as Connell’s enfolding arms.
“We’ll soon leave, darling.” As he emerged from his chair, she still clung to
him.
“Aunt Célie is asleep.” Her whisper was an invitation. “And Uncle Pierre
won’t be back for quite a while.…”
She caught his hand.
“You’ll take me with you, won’t you?” Madeline murmured, flinging back her