När deras bil har fastnat i träsken går pojkarna och hittar en gammal ödeherrgård. När timmen är sen gör de en säng vid eldstaden och somnar. En av pojkarna väckes av en märklig, kuslig höghöjd whistling som kommer från toppen av trappan. När han tittar i skräck, går hans bror trampligt uppför trappan som i trance, går han tillbaka nerför trappan med en yxa som drar med sitt eget blod och kommer efter sin bror. I en del av berättelsen berättar en gammal svart man av misstag på grund av senilitet pojken och den lokala sheriffen om de ursprungliga ägarna av herrgården, och hur en för en familjen helt enkelt försvann. Han är ovillig att säga mer eftersom han hävdar att voodoo guden Damballa kommer att straffa honom för att prata.
Boris Karloffs Duvor från helvetet , en anpassning av Robert E. Howards korta historia om samma namn.
Sammanfattning av den korta historien:
The story opens as two New Englanders, John Branner and his brother Griswell, are travelling in the South and spend the night in a deserted plantation manor. Griswell awakens from a troubled sleep to see Branner walking up the stairs in a trance. He is horrified when Branner returns, no longer alive but an animated corpse gripping the bloody axe that had split his skull. Griswell flees the house in a blind panic and runs aimlessly into the woods.
In his headlong flight he meets the county's sheriff, Buckner, who investigates the house and finds Branner cold and motionless on the floor. Griswell is implicated in his friend's murder, but the sheriff gives him the benefit of the doubt and doggedly attempts to clear him. Buckner is inclined to give some credence to Griswell's bizarre tale due to the ominous reputation of the manor. It was once the residence of a family from the West Indies, the Blassenvilles, who were known for their cruelty. One night in 1890 the last of the Blassenvilles, Elizabeth, fled from the house and never returned. The manor has lain deserted ever since and is shunned by the local black folk. The pigeons of the story's title are ghostly birds that sometimes flock mysteriously about the decaying manor. Legend has it that they are the souls of the Blassenvilles let out of Hell.
The following evening Buckner and Griswell go to the hut of an ancient voodoo man, Jacob, seeking information about the house and the Blassenvilles. Jacob tells of the extinct family and of Celia Blassenville, who mistreated her mulatto maid Joan. He then begins to ramble incoherently about voodoo, the god Damballah, and about zombies and their female counterparts, zuvembies. Finally he tells how "she" participated in voodoo rites. While reaching for firewood, Jacob is bitten by a poisonous snake, meeting the very fate he feared would overtake him for revealing the secrets of Damballah. Buckner and Griswell conclude that Joan transformed herself into a zuvembie to exact vengeance on Celia Blassenville and her nieces. They resolve to spend the night in Blassenville Manor to learn the truth.
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