Martian Vampires

Martian Vampires

BY Drakinan

Drakinan's EDITION | COPYRIGHT 2017 Drakinan

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Visit my Smashwords author page at:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/Drakinan

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Zarouk

Chapter 2: The Villa of Les Lentisques

Chapter 3: A Lucullus Meal

Chapter 4: The Invisible

Chapter 5: The Catastrophe

Chapter 6: A Strange Meteorite

Chapter 7: An Energetic Medication

Chapter 8: The Story of Robert Darvel

Chapter 9: After the Victory

Chapter 10: The Aerophytes

Chapter 11: The Glass Tower

Chapter 12: Arsenals and Catacombs

Chapter 13: The Opal Helmet

Chapter 14: The Island of Death

Chapter 15: The Way Back

Chapter 16: Night Phantasms

Chapter 17: The Pursuit

Chapter 18: Explanations

About the Author

Connect with Me

First Part: The Invisible

Chapter 1: Zarouk

You can not believe, Monsieur Georges Darvel, said the naturalist Ralph Pitcher, how much your arrival will please my friends, Captain Wad and Engineer Bolenski! They are waiting for you with the utmost impatience. If you knew how difficult it was for us to discover you.

I'm still wondering how you got there.

It is a letter from you, already ancient, found in your brother's papers, after the catastrophe of Chelambrun, which has put us on the road.

It was the last I had written to him, murmured the young man sadly. Since then I have had no news.

Do not be so desolate; Nothing is yet final; All that human science and the power of gold can do to save it, if there is still time, I swear to you!

But let us return to our letter, replied Ralph Pitcher, trying to conceal the profound emotion with which he was agitated; It was dated from Paris, but it had no address; you spoke of it in your studies; it was rather vague, and you will agree; But Miss Alberte absolutely wanted to know you, and you know that our young billionaire is of an Anglo-Saxon obstinacy."

His agents explored all the colleges and high schools, multiplied the ads in the newspapers...

Without a truly providential chance, all this would have been useless.

I had my last exams, I was looking for a job as an engineer abroad and, thanks to my diploma from the Ecole Centrale...

Job is all found! But I have to let you know. You still know only the stories of the newspapers about the extraordinary adventure of your brother.

I read the translation of the interastral messages. I also know that Miss Alberte retired into a profound solitude.

Unfortunately, when it was discovered that the lights were definitely interrupted, Miss Alberte sent for me, Captain Wad and the engineer Bolenski.

My friends, she said, I am desperate, but not discouraged. Since Robert Darvel has found a way to reach the planet Mars, we must find it too, and we will find it, even if I sacrifice my fortune...

I counted on you to help me.

And she added, replied the naturalist, modestly, that she would not find in the whole world three scholars of a more original mind, of a more creative faculty.

Ralph Pitcher blushed like a schoolboy, and became confused in these glowing phrases that he was obliged to address himself.

At last, he concluded, you understand that we have accepted enthusiastically. It was a unique opportunity.

Miss Alberte has given us an unlimited credit; She recommended us never to look at the expense, whenever it is an interesting thing; There are few scholars so favored, and now you are one of us!

Georges Darvel, red with pleasure, stammered a thank-you to which Pitcher cut short by an energetic shake hand.

It's enough, he murmured.

By associating yourself with our labors, we acquire a sacred debt to the memory of our friend, the glorious scholar whom we shall find one day, I am certain.

Both remained as overwhelmed by the weight of their thoughts, and continued to walk in silence under the giant shadows of the cork oaks, carob and pines of Aleppo, which make up the great forest of Kroumine.

They were now following one of the forest roads that run through the wilderness between Ain Draham and Chehahia. To make his new friend admire this picturesque country, Pitcher had proposed to make the way on foot; A pack-mule loaded with luggage, followed at about twenty paces. This green corner of arid Tunisia is perhaps one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. The forest road, with its large red sandstone stones covered with a velvety moss, winded through a country cut off from valleys and hills which, at every turn, offered the surprise of a new perspective. Sometimes it was a wadi lined with cactus and high oleanders, which had to be crossed by ford, the bed strewn with large shining stones. Sometimes moors-a maquis of wild myrtles, arbutus, and heather as high as a man-exhaled, under the devouring ardor of the sun, a mist of perfume.

Elsewhere, a Roman ruin hung its crumbling vault on the side of a hill and old olive trees, contemporaries of Apuleius and Augustine, gripped their roots between the blocks and shook their haily foliage like hair above the pediment Of a temple. Farther on, an enormous fig-tree, with its trunk bent by the winds, formed by itself a whole grove swarming with birds, chameleons, and lizards; And sometimes, at the top of the old tree, the softly sloping branches of which formed convenient trails, appeared the horns and the goatee of a kid busy eating figs.

Then, the forest reappeared, with deep breaks, the flight of which was lost in an azure mist, steep ravines, which seemed like abysses of foliage. The pines and oaks of light gray foliage had light and vaporous silhouettes, in the midst of which suddenly burst the sharpest note of a red beech or a poplar of Italy with eternally shivering white silk leaves. But the magic capital was the vines that had been turned back for centuries into the wild and throwing from the damp bottom of the ravines to the top of the tallest trees a fireworks of vines and prodigious vines wealth. It was a debauch of luxuriant foliage, to make believe that the whole earth would one day be invaded by this impetuous push of sap. The shoots threw at a prodigious height, elegant bridges, festooned hammocks, where thousands of blue ramblers and white and pink doves were thrown, suddenly put to flight in a rustle of wings and squalls. The brown shadow of a vulture, tracing large circles in the blue air.

In the swampy places, flocks of small wild boars fled between the high lances of the reeds, and the cry of the hyena, which resembles an ironical laugh, and which moves away as one moves closer and closer, resounding at long intervals.

But we should say the grace of this pristine nature, the elastic and proud robustness of these never-pruned trees, the clearings of flowers and tall grasses, and that obsessive perfume of myrtle and oleander, which is like the embalmed breath of the magic forest.

Look at those vines! Cried Ralph Pitcher, with admiration. These vines are perhaps fifteen or eighteen hundred years old; In the autumn they are still loaded with excellent grapes; We would no doubt find, by pressing them, the lost wines of which the Romans of the decadence were drunk, the wines that were served at Trimalcion mixed with snow in golden craters.

Georges Darvel did not reply at first; His preoccupations were far from those classical reminiscences in which the scholar Ralph Pitcher delighted.

How, then asked the young man suddenly, do you find yourself in Tunisia? I should rather have had the idea of seeking you in India or in England.

It is precisely in order to discover the curiosities and also because of the beauty of the climate and the site that Miss Alberte have chosen this unknown country, rarely visited by tourists.

Here we are sure that no one will come, under futile pretexts, to disturb us in our work: we are safe from reporters, photographers, people of the world, all those whom I call energetically thieves of time.

It is the profound peace of an alchemist's laboratory, in some medieval abbey, but an abbey equipped with the most complete, the most powerful scientific equipment ever learned.

In the past, during a cruise on her yacht, the Conqueror, Miss Alberte had had the opportunity of visiting the Kroumirie, and she had a wonderful memory of it.

A few months ago, through her Maltese correspondent, she bought, in the middle of the forest, the villa of the Lentisques, a marvelous Arabian palace, a madness, a Sicilian banker, imprisoned since then as recuperator of the Maffia , have had the fancy to build in this desert.

Besides, you'll be able to judge for yourself.

We are almost there. Look a little on your left; This great white mass is the villa of the Lentisques...

I shall see Miss Alberte! Cried Georges Darvel. I can express my gratitude to her for his heroic efforts in favor of my brother!

You will see it, no doubt, but not today or tomorrow; You have not even allowed me the time to tell you that she will only be in the course of the week. She has left us for about a fortnight, and the interests of her mining imperiously demanded her presence in London.

So bad, murmured the young man, a little taken aback.

In this respect, you know that the gold field discovered by your brother has not ceased to furnish the most prodigious yield.

It is the pactole itself which pours itself into the coffers of Miss Alberte! The expenses of our laboratory are but a drop of water drawn from this torrent of overflowing wealth.

A muffled cry interrupted Ralph Pitcher abruptly, and at the same time a flock of frightened birds left the branches and flew away tumultuously.

It was Zaruk, my bearer, who was afraid, murmured the naturalist, I am going to see. It must be said that he is often afraid of little things."

Right in the middle of the path, Zaruk remained motionless, as if petrified by fear; His face had passed from deep black to a livid gray, his features revulsed, his torso uplifted reflected an immense horror.

Georges then noticed that the man was blind, his protruding eyes were covered with a white veil; But this infirmity did not give anything hideous or repulsive to his face; His forehead was high and round, his face regular, his nose thin and straight, and finally his lips did not offer that thickness which imparts to the face a bestial expression.

However, Ralph had approached.

What is the matter, my poor Zaruk? He asked affectionately. I did not think you were so fearful! Would there be a panther in the neighborhood?

Zarouk shook his head as a sign of negation, too shocked to answer; Under the burnous of white wool with which he was enveloped, his limbs were agitated with a tremor, and he clenched with a convulsive hand the bridle of the mule, which, strange to say, seemed to share the fear of the man; He was regressing and was agitated by a violent shudder.

That is extraordinary, said Georges, in his friend's ear.

And that sudden flight of birds, a moment ago?

I don't know what to think, replied the naturalist, looking around with anxiety. Zarouk evidently guessed a peril; But which one?

Apart from a few scorpions carpet under the ground, some wild cats, the forest of Ain-Draham contains no pests.

But the hyenas?

They are the most cowardly and fearful beasts; They never attack a man. Zarouk is not capable of frightening himself for so little.

Have you spoken of panthers just now?

They are extremely rare in Tunisia, even in the South; It sometimes happens five or six years without one being captured.

Besides, Zarouk, who was born in Sudan, from whence the caravans Chambaa brought him as a child to Gabes, would not be more afraid of panthers than hyenas. There has to be something else.

We shall know; Zarouk begins to recover.

Well, said Pitcher, turning to the black, will you speak now? You know that at our side you have nothing to fear. Really, I thought you were braver.

Master, replied the man, in a strangled voice, Zarouk is brave, but you don't know. Zaruk is not afraid of the beasts of the Earth and the birds of the sky; But he is afraid of evil spirits!

What do you mean?

Master, I swear to you, in the name of the living and merciful God, by the venerable beard of Mohammed, prophet of the prophets, just now I have been touched by the wing of one of the Jinns, being of Iblis himself!

All my blood has flowed back to my heart... I have only had time to utter three times the sacred name of Allah who put to flight the jinns, the ghouls and the Afrites... A second, a terrible face Drawn, as in fire-strokes, in the midst of the eternal darkness that enveloped me, and fled quickly, carried away on its wings... Yes, master, I attest to you, for a second, I saw!

How could you see? Interrupted Ralph, in a tone full of incredulity. We have seen nothing. You have been the object of some hallucination, like those who are drunk with dawamesk or opium.

Here, drink a sip of bouka to restore you and forget that foolish fright.

The man took with evident joy the gourd that Ralph Pitcher offered to him and his long-drawn features; Then, after a moment of silence:

I am sure I have not dreamed, he said slowly; You and your friend the Frenchman, you saw the birds fly away, the mule remain moist and shivering as at the approach of the lion, for they too were afraid.

Isn't it possible that through the almighty will of Allah, the evil spirit became for a moment, visible to my dead eyes, to warn me of some danger?

I persist in believing that you have had a hallucination; In your fear, you have given a sudden jolt to the bridle, which has frightened the mule itself, and it is enough that at the same time a vulture has passed...

Zarouk shook his head unanswered, making it clear that Ralph Pitcher's rationalistic explanation was not in his favor and that he persisted in his belief in the Jinn.

They resumed their march; Only the bearer had approached his two companions, as if he feared an offensive return of the terrible apparition.

Ralph Pitcher was completely reassured.

Zaruk, he explained to Georges, whose curiosity was singularly excited, is the most precious and faithful of servants. His blindness does not prevent him from rendering us great services. Like many of his fellows, he is therefore exquisitely sensitive to hearing, smell, and tact.

In our laboratory, he knows exactly the place of each object and knows how to find it quickly without ever making any mistake or awkwardness. He even happens to know certain states of the external world, of which the other men usually owe the notion only to their eyes. I have not yet been able to explain myself by the aid of what fugitive notation of sensations, of what subtle associations of ideas he succeeds.

So, he will say perfectly that a cloud has just passed over the sun and, if there are several clouds, he will be able to count them; We took him to the hunt, we put a gun in his hand and he marveled us by his address. By entering somewhere, he recognizes without any hesitation the people with whom he met only once.

All that is wonderful! said George, But it is not absolutely inexplicable; There are many examples in the same order of facts.

You will have the leisure to study it for yourself. Zaruk is certainly much more prodigious than you think.

There are moments when I am tempted to believe that behind the covering cover, its pupils are sensitive to the dark rays of the spectrum, invisible to us, to X-rays and perhaps to other weaker radiances and more tenuous.

Why, after all, such a thing would not be possible?

George thought for a moment, powerfully interested in this adventurous hypothesis.

Why, then, he asked in his turn, didn't you have the idea of having his cataracts removed?

Captain Wad had thought of it first, and Zarouk has always refused to do so...

The two friends walked some time in silence; Behind them, Zarouk had begun one of those interminable and melancholy melodies, which are the songs of the camels of the great desert; In spite of himself, Georges was impressed by this monotonous air, in which the same notes returned indefinitely, and which seemed to imitate the heart-rending complaint of the wind in the dead plains of the Sahara.

Do you know, said he, laughing to Pitcher, that what you have just told me is not reassuring; If really Zaruk - like those bats that, with their eyes gouged, fly in a straight line and know how to avoid obstacles - possesses such a surprising power of tactility, there must be something true in the apparition, invisible to us , which frightened him.

Who knows? Murmured the naturalist, who had become thoughtful. Shall we not always return to the words of our Shakespeare, that there is more in the Heaven and the Earth than our feeble imagination can conceive?

Perhaps Zaruk is one of the precursors of an evolution of the human eye which, in hundreds of centuries and perhaps before long, will perceive radiances that did not exist in the early ages of the world.

Already some subjects, in a state of hypnotism, see what is happening in the distance or on the other side of a great wall, and yet, at the moment when this sharp faculty of vision is exercised, their eyes are closed.

The day when science will come up with a solid thesis on this subject...

Ralph Pitcher did not finish his thought; There was another silence.

What are the jinns? Asked George suddenly. I must confess that I am deeply ignorant about this. The study of the sciences has caused me to considerably neglect Mahometan mythology.

I could tell you about it, but Zaruk will inform you.

He has an inexhaustible faculty on these questions. Like all the people of the desert, he has the imagination stuffed with these wonderful tales that are repeated around the fires of the encampment, in all the caravans.

Zarouk!

Master, said the bearer, advancing with an eagerness which had nothing servile, I heard your friend's question. But is it unwise to speak of these terrible beings, perhaps they are still lurking around us.

"Don't be afraid, did you not tell me yourself that the power of their wings can carry them in a few hours to hundreds of leagues?

This reflection seemed to give the man much pleasure.

No doubt, he replied, with a sigh of relief; this is true and I have not lied. Then, am I not under the protection of the invincible and merciful God?

And he continued in a nasal and singing voice:

The Jinns are the invisible spirits which inhabit the space that extends between Heaven and Earth. Their number is a thousand times greater than that of men and animals.

"There are good and bad, but they are far greater. They obey Iblis, to whom God granted complete independence until