I saw _farms_ filled with strange pink animals, and as I watched
in horror I saw the inhabitants of the great city devour them
with a sickening greediness. It was not the animals’ flesh which
they devoured. _With their minds, they feasted on the creatures’
multitudinous emotions, drawing them into their own coldly inhuman
minds, and digesting them with relish._
The last telepathic picture: A ship that traveled through space with a
speed incalculable. I saw it flash through dark, empty dimensions and
land on Earth. A woman left the strange ship....
“You see,” Almira whispered, “on my native planet, I _am_ a princess.
I came here to _hunt_.” She cried out ecstatically and raised her
arms. “Your planet is a jungle and your race are beasts in the jungle.
I hunt them and I trap them. And I eat their emotions as I consumed
yours.” She pressed slender fingers against her temples. “And I do it
because it gives me a rapturous satisfaction which you could not even
comprehend.”
Her arms dropped and she stared at me pleadingly through tear-filled
eyes. “Do you understand?”
I nodded. I felt exactly like a dying rabbit staring up in hopeless
torment at a victorious hunter.
She opened the door and left. The room was empty--and so was I.
I wanted to be afraid and could not.
I wanted to cry and couldn’t.
I couldn’t even be angry.
I opened the door. She was standing beside the highway, waiting.
I wanted to run and scream a warning to everyone but my legs refused to
move and my mouth wouldn’t shout. She had done something to my mind.
As long as I lived, I would _never_ be able to tell anyone about the
strange huntress from another world.
My lips were forever sealed.
She signalled a bus to stop.
I watched her as she boarded the bus, and wondered how many disguises
she would use, and had used in the past. How many men would she meet in
bars, and hotels, on roads and beaches--_everywhere?_
_How long had she been on Earth?_
The bus hurtled down the busy highway.
Transcriber’s note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, May 1955 (Vol. 3, No.
4.). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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