The Fearsome Touch of Death

When Falred agrees to sit up with the body of the reclusive Adam Farrel, he expects a long, grim night—not a descent into terror. Alone in the darkening house with the corpse, he reads by fading light, but the silence, the encroaching night, and a sudden stirring of the sheet over the dead man's face awaken a primal fear of death. As the hours pass, Falred's unease becomes obsession. His imagination turns the body into something conscious and threatening, and even his attempts to dismiss his dread as superstition fail against the claustrophobic darkness. After a nightmare in which the dead man rises, he wakes convinced the corpse is moving. Panic takes over, and in blind terror he gropes backward until his hand meets something cold and clammy. His scream and fall prove fatal. By morning, both men are dead, and the chilling irony is revealed: the "touch of death" came not from the corpse, but from Dr. Stein's rubber gloves left in the room. This eerie psychological horror tale explores the mind's instinctive fear of the dead and the deadly power of imagination. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.