Pulp author Robert E. Howard, creator of Conan the Barbarian, was only 30 years old when he committed suicide on June 11, 1936. A true wordsmith, he earned more from his writing than did anyone else in the small town of Cross Plains, Texas, where he lived most of his short life. Though he wrote for many genres, he excelled in horror as did his pen pal H.P. Lovecraft.
One of his short stories, Pigeons From Hell, appeared posthumously in 1938 in the magazine Weird Tales (issue cover above), the pulp magazine of the 1930's to which he sold much of his prodigious output. No less a horror authority than Stephen King called this story 'the finest short horror story of the 20th century'. Interest piqued yet?
Most of Howard's writing is now in the public domain, and Pigeons From Hell may be downloaded or read online here. This story also has the distinction of having been adapted for the Thriller episode that everyone seems to remember, and that is embedded below. However, it does not offer the gut-grabbing punch of the original story simply because that would have never made it past the network censors.
WARNING: Politically incorrect literature ahead. Hey, it was the 1930's.