Robert Ervin Howard ( 1906-1936) was an American writer of weird stories and horror fiction.
Pigeons from Hell is a classic horror story set in a deserted old planters' house in the Deep South, where something unwholesome stalks the rooms. When two young men, Griswell and Branner, happen upon the old house on their vacation road trip and decide to stay there, terrible things begin to happen.
Griswell awakes from a strange and terrifying dream and hears a strange and uncanny whistling. He sees Branner get up and walk out onto the landing and up the stairs, as though sleepwalking. Then there is a terrible scream...and Branner returns, carrying a hatchet dripping with blood and bits of brain.
As Griswell looks on in horror, he sees that Branner's skull has been split in two...and that he is dead. Dead...but walking down the stairs with a bloody hatchet. In sheer terror he bursts through the window and flees the house.... But this is only the first episode of the terrifying tale.... Griswell is catapulted onto a roller coater of grisly adventures, each more horrific than the last.