Spider (22 page)

He leaned forward. "That cigar store on the corner. Stop there!" he commanded sharply.

He handed an automatic to June Calvert. "Hold the car here," he said and sprang out without waiting for parley. He knew he risked death in the moments while he raced toward the store with his back toward the girl's gun. She was still not wholly convinced of his innocence. He had read that in her eyes, but she thought it wise to go with him in hope of learning more. This opportunity with a gun in her hand. . . . But the
Spider
had not acted without forethought. The very fact of his arming her and turning his back would militate against her suspicions. Wouldn't she hesitate to shoot a man who trusted her?

The drug clerk pulled up a startled head as a hunched figure in a black cape went past him toward the phone booths. He kept staring as Wentworth dropped a coin and dialed a number. The
Spider
watched him through the door which he opened just enough to extinguish the light within the booth. If he had been recognized, the police cars would soon have another errand than warning the people of the bats. . . .

Richard Wentworth, clubman and dilettante of the arts, was a personal friend of Commissioner Harrington of the Philadelphia police. The
Spider
called his home, got through to Harrington. He wasted no preliminaries.

"The
Spider
speaking," he announced, his voice flat, crisp. "You probably already know that the vampire bats are loose in the city. I think they are intended to attack the theater crowds. It would be wise to order all theaters to lock in their audiences until the bats are gone. You may save thousands of lives by that order. . . ."

So much Wentworth got out in a quick rush before Harrington interrupted. The
Spider
smashed through his words with sharp tones of command.

"Keep quiet, fool! Seconds are precious!" he snapped. "Send out loudspeaker cars to shout warning along the streets. Get a plane with a loudspeaker if you can. Don't forget that most of your people have not had a chance yet to learn about the bats."

Harrington was spluttering with his anger now. Wentworth's lips thinned to a smile. He could imagine the expression on Harrington's heavy face. It had been many a day, Wentworth thought, since anyone had dared to take that tone with the man. But it had served its purpose, had kept him silent while the message of the
Spider
was poured into his ears.

"For God's sake, act quickly," Wentworth urged, then he hung up softly and sped back out to the car. The cigar clerk stared at him, then staggered back a step against the wall. His eyes stretched wide and he pointed a trembling finger.

"The
Spider
!" he gabbled. "The
Spider
!"

He turned and ran toward a narrow door that opened in the back wall of the room, his voice going incoherent, turning into an hysterical scream. Before he had reached the doorway, the
Spider
was beside the car. He sprang into the rear, past June Calvert.

"Twelfth and Market!" he ordered again. "Split the road wide open."

He took the automatic from June's hand. Her dark eyes were frowning on him.

"What did you do?" she almost whispered.

Wentworth told her with clipped sentences while his eyes searched the way ahead.

He would do more when he reached the scene of activity, but what he wanted more than anything else was a chance to strike at the man behind these atrocities.

What was the reason behind this new threat against humanity? There could be no question that greed for money lay somewhere in the background. Money was responsible for all organized crime and, heaven knew, there was organization here—incredibly acute organization. . . .

The Daimler was gliding through the business section of the city now, all dark save where the sparkling of theater lights threw a multicolored glare against the heavens. A police radio-roadster, curtains tightly drawn, raced by with siren screaming and, at a word, Ram Singh followed. The radio still howled its incredibly mounting toll of deaths. Nearly a hundred human beings had been slain and the police undoubtedly could not discover more than half the victims so soon after the tragedy had begun. It was seemingly impossible that so purposeless a slaughter . . .

The Daimler swung a corner and a woman's screams rang out. Wentworth could see her, a dark, dodging form, as she ran frantically toward him along the street. She held a child in her arms and was bent far over it, protecting it with arms and head and bowed body. Wentworth could not see the cause of her terror, but he had no need. About her head, one of those poisonous vampires of the Bat Man must be flitting, seeking an inch of bare flesh in which to sink its deadly teeth.

Incredible that vampires should behave in this way—bats that were rarely seen, but came silently in the darkness of the night to flutter down on sleeping men and animals and take their toll of blood. But these bats were attacking as if they were hydrophobic—or as if they were starved! Yes, that must be it. Vampire bats starved until they would attack any living thing, against any odds, to obtain food!

The thought was a flash of light in Wentworth's brain. He had needed to shout no order to Ram Singh. The Daimler already was sprinting toward where the woman stumbled in a heavy, hopeless run, her screams despairing as she shielded her child against the attack of the flying beasts. Wentworth whipped open the door, felt the wind snatch it from his hand and slam it back against the body of the car.

"This way!" he shouted. "This way! I'll save you!" The woman cried out in joy and ran with increased speed toward the braking Daimler. Once let her get inside . . . Wentworth's automatics were in his hands. If he could only spot the bat that menaced her. Ah, a glimpse of a fluttering black form. The
Spider's
automatic blasted, hammered a bat into extinction. The woman was running toward him eagerly. She lifted her face, held the child out from her body in an effort to get it first into the protection of the car.

It happened in a heartbeat of time. Before the woman's face, a black shadow flitted. Leathery wings covered the baby's head. Wentworth could not shoot. He sprang forward and another of the loathsome black things flicked out of the darkness. The woman's scream rose high, higher, shrilling terribly. She stopped and stood rigidly, arms lifting the baby high. Its cries had ceased now and abruptly her own scream strangled into nothingness. She crumpled to the pavement while the
Spider
was still ten feet away.

As if it echoed her dying scream, another cry broke out. It was shrill, wailing and it ached downward from the heavens. It rose, wavering, to crescendo that made the cold flesh creep along Wentworth's spine, then died into a minor note that was like a death sob. The
Spider
shouted a curse. He knew that sound. It had heralded the death of those score of men in Latham's mansion. Hearing it, Latham had cried, "Oh, God, the Bat Man."

The Bat Man! Wentworth's eyes quested upward toward the muggy skies that threw back glare of street lights. Instinctively, he flinched. A bat dodged at his face and Wentworth's gun blasted upward deafeningly. The beast was hurled upward by the impact of lead, thudded softly to the pavement. The air was suddenly full of them, dodging, diving, sweeping on the
Spider.
His guns spoke deliberately, with a fearful accuracy. Through the night once more rang the wailing, blood-chilling cry of the Bat Man.

"Master!" Ram Singh shouted. "Master, quickly come to cover. A cloud of bats!"

Wentworth darted toward the Daimler, while his eyes still searched the heavens. Nothing moved there for the space of a half-dozen seconds, then far up there where the lights just touched him, the
Spider
saw again the incredible image of the huge bat-like thing he had spotted against the moon when Latham had died—Good God, was it only a few hours ago?—Wentworth's twin guns spat a deadly hail upward toward that gliding figure. But he knew it was futile, knew even as he continued to smash lead upward until his guns were empty.

"Master!" Ram Singh screamed the warning this time.

Wentworth sprang toward the car. He felt a gentle touch on his shoulder and brushed frantically with a gloved hand, knocked off a vampire bat. Then he was inside and the door thudded shut behind him. He was not a moment too soon. A cloud of bats blotted out for an instant the street outside, fluttering past the closed window.

A shudder swept over the
Spider's
body. He was no coward. No man in the world would ever call him that. But the sight of those hundred deadly little beasts with their soft flight and their teeth whose kiss meant death shook him as no gunman's lead had ever done. The black cloud lifted and he saw that the body of the woman and the child was a moving, black mass of leather-winged creatures. . . .

Beside him, June Calvert was sobbing, her face buried in her hands. Ram Singh was muttering harsh Hindustani curses under his breath. Up there where this dark side street intersected the brightness of Market, there was a sudden, dark rush of screaming people. Over their heads danced a myriad black, deadly forms. Wentworth's lips were motionless, thin against his teeth as he stuffed fresh clips of bullets into his automatics. He would do what he could, but in heaven's name, what could he accomplish with the slaughter of a few bats? Something like a groan of despair pushed its way out between his clenched teeth.

Up there in the heavens, that winged monster watched the work of his kindred fiends, the bats. And . . .

Once more came that wailing, mocking cry. Damn it, the Bat Man was laughing,
laughing. . . .
!

Chapter Four
Bat Man vs. The Spider

RAM SINGH thrust the Daimler toward where the crowd milled and slapped the air to drive off the deadly bats. Wentworth beat his knees with clenched fists. His guns were so futile against the hundreds of flying things. There
must
be some other method of fighting against them. . . . !

As the car rolled out into Market Street, men and women grabbed at the handles and sought to force their way inside. Wentworth had locked the doors. It was necessary if he were to accomplish anything at all. He might save a half-dozen persons inside the car, but that would keep him from work which might save hundreds. . . . He saw a fire-alarm box on a corner and shouted sharply to Ram Singh to halt.

He sprang from the car, fought his way through the crowds. The bats hovered just overhead. Now and again, one would dart downward and a man or woman would scream and die. Wentworth wore gloves, as always when he was in the
Spider's
disguise, and now he dragged his long, black cape up over his head, tearing a hole through which he might look. Twice, he felt the feathery touch of a bat lighting upon the cape and the hint of their poisonous death tightened his lips grimly. He reached the alarm box, jerked open the door and yanked the lever. If the firemen could smash through, there might be a chance. . . .

Across the street, a theater was gay with many-colored lights. Police stood behind the closed, glass doors, he saw. Despite his anger, Harrington had taken the
Spider's
advice. Perhaps a few hundred who might otherwise die terribly would be saved as a result of that.

Wentworth dared not uncover his head, lest the bats strike at him and without better vision, he could not shoot. Still, he did not dare return to the car lest he not be able to give the firemen the only suggestion that he thought might help. If they put on smoke helmets and covered their hands, they would be virtually immune to the attack. . . .

A crashing blast across the street pulled his startled gaze to the theater. He heard the crash again and saw one of the inner doors crash outward, saw an axe glitter coldly. Even as the police whirled with their nightsticks ready, other doors crashed outward and the entire audience of the theater came streaming out into the street.

"Bats!" a man screamed. "The theater is full of bats!"

Wentworth saw a woman attempting to cover her bare shoulders with a cape, saw a bat settle like a loathsome, black flower upon her bosom. The woman fell. He started across the street, but a new rush of terrified men and women drove him back. The hoarse sirens of the fire engines cut through the medley of terror and pain. The trucks were literally ploughing their way through the crowds. Wentworth saw that the men already had donned their smoke helmets. He nodded approval. If he could find the man who had ordered that, he wouldn't have any trouble putting over his idea. . . .

A battalion-chief's car jangled its way through solid ranks of screaming, dying people and the chief sprang out. He dodged as a bat flitted at him, ducked back inside the car and put on a smoke helmet. Wentworth rushed to his side, spat out his idea in swift words.

"Get hoses going," he shouted. "Knock people down and keep the streams going above them. Bats can't get through."

The battalion-chief was a gray-haired man. Wentworth saw his shrewd, smoke-narrowed eyes through the goggle eyes of the helmet. The driver of the car was rigid with fear, fear of the bats, fear of the man whose face he glimpsed when Wentworth lifted the hood of his cape. The chief nodded. He took off the smoke helmet long enough to shout orders. Wentworth dashed back to his car, ducked inside and began shooting.

"Get in front," he ordered June Calvert. "In front, but leave the glass slide open."

The girl hesitated, then clambered over the back of the seat. There were two panes of glass that slid in grooves between front and rear of the car. She left one open. Wentworth took off his hat, then flung open one door of the car. For long, dreadful seconds nothing happened, then a bat flicked into the interior, dropped toward Wentworth's face. He swept his hat swiftly up and knocked the bat to the seat. It would be helpless there. Bats have no way of taking off from a horizontal surface. They cannot take off from a porch which is less than several feet from the floor, for a bat takes off by dropping free, spreading its wings, then gliding. With its wings already spread, it might take off from a lower object, but the seat would not permit that. Wentworth waited, his hat poised, his split-second muscles set for the perilous task of capturing bats whose merest bite would be fatal.