WEIRD TALES
THE UNIQUE MAGAZINE
Edited by Edwin Baird
NUMBER ONE
$3.50 IN CANADA
For Scalp-prickling Thrills and
Stark Terror, Read
The
DEAD MAN'S TALE
By Willard E. Hawkins
The curious narrative that follows was found among the papers of the late Dr. John Pedric, phychical investigator and author of occult works. It bears evidence of having been received through automatic writing, as were several of his publications. Unfortunately, there are no records to confirm this assumption, and none of the mediums or assistants employed by him in his research work admits knowledge of it. Possibly—for the Doctor was reputed to possess some psychic powers—it may have been received by him. At any rate, the lack of data renders the recital useless as a document for the Society for Psychical Research. It is published for whatever intrinsic interest or significance it may possess. With reference to the names mentioned, it may be added that they are not confirmed by the records of the War Department. It could be maintained, however, that purposely fictitious names were substituted, either by the Doctor or the communicating entity.
They called me—when I walked the earth in a body of dense matter—Richard Devaney. Though my story has little to do with the war, I was killed in the second battle of the Marne, on July 24, 1918.
Many times, as men were wont to do who felt the daily, hourly imminence of death in the trenches, I had pictured that event in my mind and wondered what it would be like. Mainly I had inclined toward a belief in total extinction. That, when the vigorous, full-blooded body I possessed should be bereft of its faculties, I, as a creature apart from it, should go on, was beyond cre-
