THE OCTOPUS-BAT OF ARRET(1931)

SOURCES: "The Devil Crystals of Arret" by Hal K. Wells (Astounding Stories, September 1931 )

DESCRIPTION: “Again the great wings above him threshed the air in tremendous power, as the unseen monster started away with its prey. Then the tentacles from which he was dangling shifted their grip slightly, turning Powell’s body in the air so that he could look up and get his first glimpse of the thing that had captured him. He shuddered at what he saw. The creature was a hideous combination of octopus and giant bat. Naked wings of membrane spanned twenty feet from tip to tip. There was a pursy sac-like body, ending in a head with staring, lidless eyes and a great black beak that looked strong enough to shear sheet steel. From the body descended half a dozen long writhing tentacles.” ("The Devil Crystals of Arret" by Hal K. Wells)

NOTES: The Octopus-bat is a flying predator in the contra-matter world of Arret (Terra backwards). Arret is accessed by a strange machine invented by Ben Marlowe. This weird co-existant reality has a fiery red sun and a weird red sky. In the forest of globy trees Larry Powell is captured by the flying creature. His automatic pistols kill it. It releases him before plunging to the ground, dead.

HISTORY: The similarity to Cthulhu is interesting. Wells would have likely read "The Call of Cthulhu" (Weird Tales, February 1928). Wells also wrote for that periodical between 1929-1935.