Finally, Alicia died. The servant,

Finally, Alicia died. The servant, when she came in afterward to strip the now empty bed, stared for a while in puzzlement at the pillow.

"Sir" she called to Jordan in a low voice. "There are stains in the pillow that look like blood."
Jordan approached the bed quickly and bent over the pillow. There indeed on the pillowcase, on either side of the hollow left by Alicia's head, were two small dark stains.

"They look like bite-marks" the servant murmured after a moment of unmoving observation.

"Hold it up to the light" Jordan said.

The servant lifted it, but instantly dropped it and stood staring, pallid and trembling. Without knowing why, Jordan felt his hairs stand on end.

"What is it?" he murmured hoarsely.

"It's really heavy" the servant stammered, still trembling.

Jordan picked it up. It was extraordinarily heavy. They carried it out of the room and on the dining room table he slashed open the case and ticking. The outer feathers floated away and the servant shrieked with terror, her mouth agape, covering her face with balled fists: At the bottom of the pillowcase, among the feathers, slowly moving its hairy legs, was a monstrous animal, a living, viscous ball. It was so bloated one could barely make out its mouth.

Night after night, ever since Alicia had taken to bed, it had applied its mouth - one might better say its snout- to her temples, sucking her blood. The bitemark was scarcely perceptible. The daily plumping of the pillow had doubtlessly at first hindered its advance, but once the girl could no longer move, the suction became vertiginous. In five days, five nights, it had drunk Alicia dry.

These bird-born parasites, usually quite tiny in their natural environment, can grow to enormous proportions under certain conditions. Human blood seems particularly favorable to them, and they are not uncommonly found in feather pillows.