Wethersfield High School - Elm Yearbook (Wethersfield, CT)

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Seing me speechless, his white beard lifted in a contempuous sneer. He turned, pressed a button, a door sprang open, and a full grown lion with bristling mane burst into the room. He roared! I tried to emit a shrill cry of acute terror, but my throat only swelled and strained. My vocal cords were paralyzed! Then the lights went out! After one more hungry, ferocious rqar the beast was as silent as a grave. His unblinking, baleful eyes stole round me and I, hypnotized, followed them. He leaped! I swayed and fell, but somehow I could not faint. The jungle cat's foul hot breath fanned my face but, miraculously, he did not touch me with his cruel claws or fangs. Go, Cato. Just one peremptory command and the lion slunk away. The lights went on and I rose to my feet, white and shaken after my fearful ordeal. Braver than the rest, but my theory is based on rock foundationf, was all this unbelievable creature said, but he added with a hair raising shriek, The next must not fail. Two men entered the room. I ran to them, gazing at them in mute appeal. The Terror laughed a mirthless laugh from behind the steel bars. No use, no use, he croaked. They have no tongues, their ear drums are pierced, and when I operated their minds went -and he snapped his fingers. They led me, too weak to resist, into another room. I was laid on a platform, face upwards and strapped there. Gazing dumbly to the ceiling. my mind vaguely recorded that directly above me a section of the ceiling was studded with long knives. My God, that section was moving down upon me! Ten feet above me I saw the evil, distorted face of The Terror gazing down at me through a foot square glass win- dow. He was riding down to my death on his instrument of torture! I was unable to yell for mercy or helpg even if I could have done so it would have been useless. If only I could mash that gloating face into pulp, even as it was about to witness me so mashed. I gave a violent heave! N0 avail. The face was Hve feet above me! Four feet of life now left to me! I gurgled inarticulately! Must those fatal knives pierce me? I offered up a prayer. The face of The Terror faded. The first prick of the knives! The stab of death! Oblivion- My eyes fluttered open. I immediately closed them for they were dazzled by streaming sunlight. Where had The Terror gone? Was this Heaven? I was convinced that it was. That pure sweet smell of clean- liness could issue from no other place. But no-a low, well modulated voice was speaking. You'll be all right now, old boy. You saved the young man, but the beastly truck battered you up pretty badly. Automobile accident? Then this was a hospital! And The Terror? Only a figment of my delirium! -Charles Towne, ,30. I in A

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XVho screamed in the first place? Who is this mad-man?', l'Who was the victim that he had in the doorway? These were a few of the unanswerable questions that I addressed to myself. I knew I could never escape from this room, so I reluctantly resigned myself to my fate. I thought of my friends-I had no family- and I wondered if they might think that I was just another victim of The Terror-Good Lord! This inhuman devil might be that dread thing concerning which the papers of New York and the whole country were printing amazing accounts of grewsome detail. Twenty-eight men taken from the face of the earth in the short period of six months and a half. One man every week, taken from every walk of life, from men high up in the financial and social world, down to drunkards and yeggs from the slums. The greatest criminologists and detectives were baffled. No traces of the victims had ever been found. The realization that I might possibly be in the hands of the horrible being called The Terror, goaded my mind into abnormal clearness. That elusive door was again opening! At last it swung wide and I walked towards it, slowly and sanely. Alas! I touched cold plate glass. Continued searching rewarded me in the end, and I passed from that fateful room, not knowing where I was going but determined not to die in this House of Mystery. I found myself in a long corridor, at the end of which was a door. I crept stealthily to the door and gingerly fingered the knob. This one apparently was not electrically charged. I cautiously opened the door and stepped into the room. It was dimly lighted, yet coming from the bright corridor I could see nothing. Horrors! The door was swiftly and irresistibly drawn from my retaining grasp! With a muttered exclamation I sprang to it. It was locked! I then realized that the room was in the grip of inky blackness. Terrorized, I groped my way, seeking a support of some kind. I felt something cold! It felt like a steel bar. Yes, after running my hand out in either direction I felt similar bars. I was touching a cage! Suddenly, as a lightning flash illuminates a storm swept sky, so did brilliant lamps brush away the Stygian darkness from that infernal room. Gradually, as my eyes accustomed themselves to this change, the vision of a little yellow man seated at a desk in a steel cage, crept into my senses. I-Ie was writing, writing, writing. My nerves broke! I cursed him with the most thorough language at my command. He absently raised his eyes, surveying me most dispassionately, then said: You already have heard one scream. You shall hear yourself scream many times, in terror as yet unknown to you or any other person in the outside world. My weekly victims have all died in fright and terror. Every man's self control has its end, they scream and cower. The proof is still going into these volumes. He tapped them as he spoke. He had admitted with his own lips that he was The Terror. As a reporter, I was acquainted with the magnitude of The Terror's efficiency, this must needs be the end.

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LIONIZED For some years an adventurous spirit had urged me to become an explorer of the regions little known, and the opportunity for a trip to Africa having presented itself, no time was lost on my part in making a hurried departure for that lost continent. It had been raining all day in the tropical fashion, heavy outbursts of showers subsiding to intermittent downpours, to terminate in sunshine which was only deception, and turned to rain again as soon as We left our comfortable shelters. We were out for lions. Anyhow, my native guide was particularly expectant, but whether animals would venture out in the bad weather was a question. We beat up hill and cross heavy growth brakes, but found nothing. Then we entered a specially dark section of the brush, as was our CLlSt0m. Anyhow I began to semi-circle the area, coming up on opposite sides of the marsh. Suddenly, not three yards in front of me, I heard a low growl, and looking through the tangled Creepers, I saw one of the biggest lions on which it has ever been my opportunity to gaze. What to do? The beast commenced to lash its tail, its anger mounted. With a savage snarl, and muscles tensed, slithering jaws opened and hooked talons extended so as to make the most of a golden opportun- ity, the beast sprang at me. High and handsomely it lunged, just as I, with an instinctive movement, slid face forward to the ground. Faintly, I noticed that the lion had passed high over my head, and landed in the bushes beyond. All was silent for several moments, then curiosity prompted me to crawl back in the direction in which the beast had disappeared. Quietly I approached a small clearing, and there, with a perfect expression of humility and disgust on its face was the lion-practicing low jumps! E. Malcolm Sftllllillfd, ,28. THE LOVE OF A FATHER High in the sky the sun, a mass of molten copper, Beat mercilessly down upon the desert town, Algiers. A man dressed in the uniform of the French Foreign Legion, gazed out across the burning sands. A man free after five years in the legion of the damned, free to go his way across the sea to a far off country. Birds were singing in the trees and on the broad blue bay a thousand sparkling lights reflected the glory of the sunset, but in the heart of Jerry Sloane was the blackness of despair, the terrible thirst for vengeance of an innocent man who had suffered at the hands of one whom he had trusted. Deep in Jerry's heart burned a stifling hatred for his father. A hatred born of a fiery indignation and a deep humiliation. His father had sent him to the Foreign Legion, this much he knew, and in his un- reasoning fury, he cared not nor reasoned why. There was not much for him to live for now, with his father turned against him and his brother dead. He choked and a sob broke in his throat as he thought of the brother he had adored. Handsome as a