"The emaciated sodden legs beat a ceaseless march on the unresisting veil, like those of a gallows victim marking time in air. The battered, half-eaten arms clawed blindly at nothing. The eyes were gone, and within their ragged-edged hollows was manifest the coiling purposeful movement of reptilian life."—'Animate in Death'.

Squadron Leader Leslie Allin Lewis (1899-1961) was a veteran of both world wars, flying Sopwith Camels over France in 1918 and Hurricanes over England in 1940. He was also one of the best writers in the macabre and supernatural genre between wars.