not
fastened, but just inside the entrance crouched a gigantic insect on
guard.

Penrun was tense and ready. He kicked the door so viciously that its
elastic, silken frame sagged inward under the impact of his foot.
Against the glow of the green light inside the cavern he saw a
nightmarish monster rising to its feet. Both pistols stabbed viciously
as the monster thrust forward a thick, bristly leg to shut the door
again.

* * * * *

A ray bit off the leg at the second joint. The other ray ripped open
the soft, tumid abdomen. Penrun had barely time to throw himself aside
as the convulsed, dying monster hurled itself tigerishly forward
through the doorway out into the driving storm in a final frenzied
effort to seize and rend his frail human enemy.

Penrun slipped into the cavern. The deathly cold outside would finish
the horrible insect. As he kicked the big door shut he was crouched
and tense, for the ancient gray attendant monster whose poisoned bite
had paralyzed thousands for this living hell was moving forward
curiously.

Both pistols flamed to life. The fearsome head of the monster with its
poisoned mandible shriveled to nothing under the searing rays. Penrun
sprang backward and jerked open the door. Then he closed it again. The
old spider was moving feebly. Instead of the galvanic death of the
guard, the huge gray insect's legs buckled under it and it slumped
down to the floor of the cave where it quivered a few seconds, then
relaxed in death.

As Penrun stepped forward around the carcass the cave filled with
hysterical screams and hoarse insane shouting of joy and terror. He
looked up at the high vaulted roof where the strange diamond-shaped
crystal diffused its green light along the shimmering silken web, then
turned his gaze downward to the rock floor beneath his feet. At last
he gritted his teeth and forced himself to look at the walls.

Again he saw tier upon tier of hammocks, each holding a naked human
being, helpless and paralyzed from the poisoned bite of the attendant
monster spider. Some could weep, some could smile, some could talk,
yet none could move either hand or foot. A few were mercifully
unconscious, but the rest were not. Many were insane. Yet they all lay
alike year after year, century after century, if need be, kept alive
by the rays of the strange green light in the roof. This was the
cavern of the Living Dead!

* * * *