Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain Read Online Free PDF Page A

mattress
     gave under his weight. He had weight! He looked down. He could see nothing of himself,
     but the bed cover was a smooth hollow where he had planted the seat of his pants—had
     he been wearing any such.
    In the fashion of a drowning man whose mind insists upon recalling the dominant events
     of his life, a great many thoughts rushed through Simon Page’s brain in those moments.
     In this instance, Simon was reliving the hours leading up to the events that had brought
     him to this sorry disembodied state.
    Then one thought came uppermost, burst from his unseen lips like a single bubble of
     oxygen breaking the surface of a pond.
    “Doc Savage!” he said. “Doc Savage is the man to help me!”
    He scooped up the room phone. It was a French-style phone, with the receiver and mouthpiece
     molded in one unit. He clicked the switch hook until the desk clerk picked up.
    “I wish to place a long distance call,” Page blurted breathlessly. “To New York City.”
    “What is the number in New York you wish to reach?”
    “I don’t know the number,” Simon said, ragged-voiced.
    “Then I do not think the call can be completed.”
    The long-distance operator was of the same opinion after Simon Page was put through
     to her over the clerk’s sullen objections. She spoke good English, as her job required.
    “Get me Doc Savage in New York City,” clipped Simon.
    And that stilled the long-distance operator’s objections. Such was the power of the
     famous name.
    In less than ten minutes—the time necessary to set up the connections—the hotel room
     rang and Simon Page picked it up.
    He got a distant ringing—the sound of a telephone in New York as transmitted over
     a great transatlantic cable, Simon knew.
    There came a click. And a voice, remarkable even over the thousands of miles of seafloor-laid
     cable.
    “This is the headquarters of Doc Savage,” the remarkable voice said.
    “This is Simon Page! I’m at the Cateral Inn, in Tazan. Something incredible is— ”
    Unperturbed, the remarkable voice continued speaking.
    “There is no one here at present, but this recording device is equipped to record
     your voice if you wish to leave a message.”
    It was a recording! Simon began blurting out his story when the door to his room opened.
     It creaked. It was an old door. But Simon failed to hear the creaking over the sound
     of his own voice.
    At first, it seemed as if there was no one at the door.
    Then eyes winked into being. Two pair. One very blue and the other of a sinister black
     quality.
    A voice, low and cold, intoned, “Simon Page. You have wandered into the land of the
     living in defiance of our warning. We have come to take you back—where you belong.”
    Simon turned. He shot off the bed. The phone receiver clattered to the floor. A hissing
     came from the earpiece. Evidently, whatever had depressed the switch hook had failed
     to sever the connection.
    Simon felt hairy things like paws fumble for his bare arms. There was some confusion.
     He could not see the outreaching paws, nor could the floating eyes perceive his invisible
     form.The fight that followed did not even look like a fight, except that there came
     the meaty slapping of hands, blows. And scuffling. A lamp upset, bulb shattering.
    And Simon Page cried out, “The eyes! The disembodied eyes are in my room!”
    Came a swish, a hard sound, followed by a thump. The green eyes that belonged to Simon
     Page rocketed backward and seemed to land on the floor like matched dice.
    They stared upward, glazed and unseeing. Then, together, they winked out of existence.
    Hovering over them were the floating eyes, two blue and two black, regarding with
     cold unconcern the spot where the green eyes had vanished.
    A detached voice said, “We will bear him to his rightful place.”
    And from the telephone, the curious voice of the long-distance operator asked, “Did
     you wish to be disconnected now?”

Chapter 3
Secret Sanctuary
    A BITTER