Killer's Town

The
Story
of THE PHANTOM

Co-published by Avon Books and King Features Syndicate

AVON

PUBLISHERS OF BARD, CAMELOT, DISCUS, EQUINOX AND FLARE BOOKS

PROLOGUE

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Over four hundred years ago, a large British merchantman was attacked by Singg pirates off the remote shores of Bangalla. The captain of the trading vessel was a famous seafarer who, in his youth, had served as cabin boy to Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to discover the New World. With the captain was his son, Kit, a strong young man who idolized his father and hoped to follow him as a seafarer. But the pirate attack was disastrous. In a furious battle, the entire crew of the merchantman was killed and the ship sank in flames. The sole survivor was young Kit who, as he fell off the burning ship, saw his father killed by a pirate. Kit was washed ashore, half-dead. Friendly pygmies found him and nursed him to health.

One day, walking on the beach, he found a dead pirate dressed in his father's clothes. He realized this was the pirate who had killed his father. Grief-stricken, he waited until vultures had stripped the body clean. Then on the skull of his father's murderer, he swore an oath by firelight as the. friendly pygmies watched. "I swear to devote my life to the destruction of piracy, greed, cruelty, and injustice, and my sons and their sons shall follow me."

This was the Oath of the Skull that Kit and his descent dants would live by. In time, the pygmies led him to their home in the Deep Woods in the center of the jungle, where he found a large cave with many rocky chambers. The mouth of the cave, a natural formation carved by the water and wind of centuries, was curiously like a skull. This became his home, the Skull Cave. He soon adopted a mask and a strange costume. He found that the mystery and fear this inspired helped him in his endless battle against worldwide piracy. For he and his sons who followed became known as the nemesis of pirates everywhere, a mysterious man whose face no one ever saw, whose name no one knew, who worked alone.

As the years passed, he fought injustice wherever he found it. The first Phantom and the sons who followed found their wives in many places. One married a reigning queen, one a princess, one a beautiful red-haired barmaid.

But whether queen or commoner, all followed their men back to the Deep Woods to live the strange but happy life of the wife of the Phantom. And of all the world, only she, wife of the Phantom, and their children could see his face.

Generation after generation was born, grew to manhood, and assumed the tasks of the father before him. Each wore the mask and costume. Folk of the jungle and the city and sea began to whisper that there was a man who could not die, a Phantom, a Ghost Who Walks. For they thought the Phantom was always the same man. A boy who saw the Phantom would see him again fifty years after, and he seemed the same. And he would tell his son and his grandson, and his son and grandson would see the Phantom fifty years after that. And he would seem the same. So the legend grew. The Man Who Cannot Die. The Ghost Who Walks. The Phantom.

The Phantom did not discourage this belief in his immortality. Always working alone against tremendous—sometimes almost impossible—odds, he found that the awe and fear the legend inspired was a great help in his endless battle against evil. Only his friends, the pygmies, knew the truth. To compensate for their stature, these tiny people mixed deadly poisons for use on their weapons in hunting or defense. But it was rare that they were forced to defend themselves. Their deadly poisons were known through the jungle, and they and their home, the Deep Woods, were dreaded and avoided. There was another reason to stay away from the Deep Woods—it soon became known that this
was
a home of the Phantom, and none wished to trespass.

Through the ages, the Phantoms created several more homes or hideouts in various parts of the world. Near the Deep Woods was the Isle of Eden, where the Phantom taught all animals to live in peace. In the southwest desert of the New World, the Phantoms created an aerie on a high steep mesa that
was
thought by the Indians to be haunted by evil spirits and became known as Walker's Table—for The Ghost Who Walks. In Europe, deep in the crumbling cellers of the ancient ruins of a castle, the Phantom had another hideout from which to strike against evildoers.

But the Skull Cave in the quiet of the Deep Woods remained the true home of the Phantom. Here, in a rocky chamber, he kept his chronicles, written records of all his adventures. Phantom after Phantom faithfully wrote his experiences in the large folio volumes. Another chamber contained the costumes of all the generations of Phantoms«

Other chambers contained the vast treasures of the Phantom, acquired over centuries, used only in the endless battle against evil.

Thus, twenty generations of Phantoms lived, fought, and died, usually violently, as they followed their oath. Jungle folk, sea folk, and city folk believed him the same man, the Man Who Cannot Die. Only the pygmies knew that, always, a day would come when their great friend would lie dying. Then, alone, a strong young son would carry his lather to the burial crypt of his ancestors where all Phantoms rested. As the pygmies waited outside, the young man would emerge from the cave wearing the mask, the costume, and the Skull Ring of the Phantom; his carefree happy days as the Phantom's son were over. And the pygmies would chant their age-old chant, "The Phantom is dead. Long Live the Phantom."

The story of
Killer's Town
is an adventure of the Phantom of our time—the twenty-first generation of his line. He has inherited the traditions and responsibilities created by four centuries of Phantom ancestors. One ancestor created the Jungle Patrol. Thus, today, our Phantom is the mysterious and unknown commander of this elite corps. In the jungle, he is known and loved as The Keeper of the Peace. On his right hand is the Skull Ring that leaves his mark— the Sign of the Skull—known and feared by evildoers everywhere. On his left hand—closer to the heart—is his "good mark" ring. Once given, the mark grants the lucky bearer protection by the Phantom, and it is equally known and respected. And to good people and criminals alike in the jungle, on the seven seas, and in the cities of the world he is the Phantom, the Ghost Who Walks, the Man Who Cannot Die.

Lee Falk

New York

1973

With the precision that comes from long practice, the governor-General of New Metropolis launched a squirt of tobacco juice that traveled the full length of his long skinny body to hit a wasp hovering near his bare, dirty big toe. The blast hit the insect broadside, dropping it onto a heap of trash and garbage just over the edge of the veranda. The Governor-General chuckled triumphantly, took a gulp of warm beer from a can, and with his free hand scratched several exposed parts of his body to relieve a chronic itch.

It was not only his big toe that was dirty. It is unlikely (hat there was a bar of soap in any of the forty-seven empty rooms of the mansion. The Governor-General, stretched out on a sagging chaise lounge, wore only ragged trousers and a torn shirt that were dirty as the skin beneath. His hair and beard were matted and scraggly. But as he reclined on the creaky chaise lounge, all the land that stretched before his bleary eyes was his.

Beyond the trash and weeds that covered what had been the front lawn of the Governor-General's mansion was a street with three blocks of stone and wood buildings. All the glass in the windows had long since been shattered. Broken doors and shutters banged and sagged on rusty hinges. Roofs and walls had collapsed. Grass and bushes grew on the street and sidewalk, uprooting the concrete slabs. There were butterflies in the grass, lizards in the weeds, spiders on webs in windows and doors, a hungry cat searching in the rubble, a bird pausing on the roof. Beyond that, no life stirred.

New Metropolis had been a ghost town for twenty-five years. Gold had been discovered nearby, creating the short-lived boom town. During its brief period of glory, New Metropolis burst with life—miners, their women, and all the rest who came to find their fortunes. But the gold vein was shallow, quickly exhausted, and despite a frantic search there was no more gold. So the town died.

While it died, one man gradually acquired all the property for less and less, buying some, winning some at cards, stealing the rest. He finally owned the entire town, having some dim notion that the boom years might return. They never did.

A ghost town is not unusual. They are found all over the world, usually with histories similar to this one. But New Metropolis was unique in one way. The area, perhaps a thousand acres overall, was not under the sovereignty of any nation. It was a no-man's land—on the border of Bangalla and the neighboring Lower Gamma. Both nations had disputed the property and at one time sent troops who glared at each other from a safe distance, then withdrew* both deciding it was not worth fighting over.

The owner of New Metropolis, elected mayor and self- appointed Governor-General, Matthew Crumb, had watched the soldiers from the second-floor ballroom window of his forty-seven-room mansion. The mansion was in better shape in those days. A few of the rooms were still furnished, and one of the fifteen bathrooms still worked. He watched with some anxiety. He knew the politicians of both countries, and he also knew that, whichever country won, he would lose. It was with vast relief that he saw them withdraw, though he was furious when he learned the reason—neither country thought his town was worth firing one bullet to get.

The twenty-five years passed. The boom never returned. Matthew Crumb and New Metropolis sank together in apathy into the jungle. Time, moths, termites, rust, and alcohol did their slow destruction.

Governor-General Matthew Crumb blinked and stared, and listened alertly. Was it possible? There were remains of an old wall and a gaping gateway at the end of the street. An automobile was entering his domain. Butterflies, lizards, spiders, birds, and the cat scurried into hiding. This was an amazing event. No strangers had come here in years.

Two men got out of the car. They were well dressed in dark clothes and hats—city men—and from the sound of them not of Bangalla. They looked at the faded glories of New Metropolis.

"This is the place," said one of them.

"Phooey," said the other. "Are you sure?

"Sure."

The two men walked to the broken fence of the mansion and slowly approached the veranda, avoiding the trash, garbage, and animal offal. Matthew Crumb, remaining on his broken chaise lounge, watched them as they came near. He sipped the beer slowly, barely interested. Whatever they wanted, directions probably, they would ask. They didn't