The Life-Eater

In a cypress-shadowed Louisiana village, victims are wasting into lifeless husks without wound or disease. Occult investigator Doctor Lamontaine finds a dying friend, terrified villagers and a presence that feeds after dark—but the thing in the swamp may conceal a scheme as human as it is monstrous.

First published in Weird Tales in 1937, Harold Ward’s brisk pulp-horror adventure combines supernatural dread, folk belief and a hard-edged battle of wills.