
A hospital room becomes the stage for a chilling mystery when a man lies there, alive yet utterly empty‑eyed, his very presence feeling more like a husk than a patient. Reporter Bryan Terry, seasoned in chasing human drama, is called in to document the case and quickly senses that something beyond medicine is at work—a loss so profound it defies scans or tests. The attending doctor, baffled by a fleeting, reddish mark on the patient’s shoulder, admits that conventional science can’t explain the dying man’s condition.
Together, Bryan and the doctor begin to probe the unsettling idea that the victim’s soul may have been stolen, a notion dismissed by modern skeptics but impossible to ignore as the patient’s life ebbs away. Their investigation draws them into a shadowy world where ancient fears of wraithlike entities intersect with contemporary medical reality, promising a tense race against time to uncover the source of the unseen theft. The story balances eerie atmosphere with a gritty, journalistic drive, inviting listeners to wonder what truly animates a human being.
Language
en
Duration
~1 hours (85K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2021-04-07
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects
1921–1990
A prolific pulp-era science fiction writer, he helped fill the pages of classic magazines like Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures with fast-moving tales of strange worlds, monsters, and futures gone wrong. His work captures the energy and imagination of mid-century magazine SF at full speed.
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