Uncollected Stories 2003 (3 page)

The California countryside blurred by as I tried for the maximum speed.
The tires sang on the curve and, as I came out of it, several things
happened in rapid succession. I saw a panel truck crazily parked right on
the broken white line, a girl of about eighteen running right toward my
car, an older man running after her. I slammed on the brakes and they
exploded like bombs. I jockeyed the wheel and the California sky was
suddenly under me. Then everything was right-side up and I realized
that I had flipped right over and up. For a moment I was dazed, then a
scream, shrill and high, piercing, slit my head. I opened the door and
sprinted toward the road. The man had the girl and was yanking her
toward the panel truck. He was stronger than her and winning, but she
was taking an inch of skin for every foot he made.

He saw me.
"You stay out of this, buddy. I'm her legal guardian."
I halted and shook the cobwebs out of my brain. It was exactly what

he had been waiting for. He let go with a haymaker that got me on the
corner of the chin and knocked me sprawling. He grabbed the girl and
practically threw her into the cab. By the time that I was on my feet he
was around to the driver's side and peeling out. I took a flying leap and
made the roof just as he took off. I was almost thrown off, but I clawed
through about five layers of paint to stay on. Then I reached through the
open window and got him by the neck. He cursed and grabbed my hand.
He yanked, the truck spun crazily off the ledge of a steep embankment.
The last thing I remember is the nose of the truck pointing straight
down. Then my enemy saved my life by viciously yanking my arm. I
tumbled off just as the truck plunged over the cliff. I landed hard, but
the rock I landed on was harder. Everything slid away.

Something cool touched my brow as I came to. The first thing I saw
was the flashing red light on top of the official looking car parked by the
embankment. I sat bolt upright and soft hands pushed me down. Nice
hands, the hands of the girl who had landed me into this mess. Then
there was a Highway Patrolman over me and an official voice said, "The
ambulance is coming. How do you feel?"

"Bruised," I said and sat up again. "But tell the ambulance to go away.
I'm all right."
I tried to sound flippant. The last thing I needed after last night’s ‘job’
was the police.
"How about telling me about it?" the policeman said, producing a
notebook. Before I answered, I walked over to the embankment.
My stomach flipped over backwards. The panel truck was nose- deep
in California dirt and my sparring partner was turning that good
California soil into a reddish mud with his own blood. He lay
grotesquely sprawled half in, half out of the cab. The photographers
were getting their pictures. He was dead. I turned back. The patrolman
looked at me as if he expected me to throw up, but, after my new job,
my stomach was admirably strong.
"I was driving out of the Belwood district, "I said, "I came around that
curve..."
I told the rest of the story with the girl's help. Just as I finished the
ambulance came to a halt. Despite my protestations and those of my
still-unnamed girl friend, we were hustled into the back. Two hours later
we had a clean bill of health from the patrolman and the doctors and we
were requested to be witnesses at the inquest set for the next week.
I saw my car at the curb. It was a little worse for wear, but the flats
had been replaced. There was a witnessed bill on the dash for a wrecker,
tires, and clean-up squad! It came to about $250.00 half of the last
night's pay-check.
"You look preoccupied," the girl said.
I turned to her. "Um, yeah. Well, we almost got killed together this
morning, how about telling me your name and having lunch together?"
"Okay," she said. "The name's Vicki Pickford. Yours?"
"Danny," I said unemotionally as we pulled away from the curb. I
switched the subject rapidly. "What was going on this morning? Did I
hear that guy say that he was your legal guardian?"
"Yes" she replied.
I laughed. "The name is Danny Gerad. You'll get that out of the
afternoon papers."
She smiled gravely. "All right. He was my guardian. He was also a
drunkard and an all-around crumb." Her cheeks flamed red. The smile
was gone. "I hated him and I'm glad he's dead."
She gave me a sharp glance and for a moment I saw fear shine wetly
in her eyes; then she recovered her self-control. We parked and ate
lunch. Forty minutes later I paid the check out of my newly acquired
cash and walked back out to the car.
"Where to?" I asked.
"Bonaventure Motel," she said. "That's where I'm staying."
She saw curiosity jump into my eyes and sighed, "All right, I was
running away. My Uncle David caught up with me and tried to drag me
back to the house. When I told him I wouldn't go, he dragged me out to
the truck. We were going around that curve when I wrenched the wheel
out of his hands. Then you came along."
She closed up like a clam and I didn't try to get any more out of her.
There was something wrong about her story. I didn't press her. I drove
her into the parking lot and killed the engine.
"When can I see you again?" I asked. "A movie tomorrow?"
"Sure," she replied.
"I'll pick you up at 7.30," I said and drove out, thoughtfully pondering
the events that had befallen me in the last twenty-four hours.

When I entered the apartment the phone was ringing. I picked it up and
Vicki, the accident and the bright workaday world of suburban
California faded into the half-world of phantom-people shadows. The
voice that whispered coldly out of the receiver was Weinbaum's.

"Troubles?" He spoke softly, but there was an ominous tone in his
voice.
"I had an accident," I replied.
"I read about it in the paper..." Weinbaum's voice trailed off.
Silence hung between us for a moment and then I said, "Does this
mean you're canning me?"
I hoped that he would say yes; I didn't have the guts to resign.
"No," he said softly, "I just wanted to make sure that you didn't reveal
anything about the work you're doing for me."
"Well, I didn't," I told him curtly.
"The night after this," he reminded me, "At eight."
There was a click and then the dial tone. I shivered and hung up the
receiver. I had the oddest feeling that I had just broken a connection
with the grave.
The next morning at 7.30 sharp, I picked up Vicki at the Bonaventure
Motel. She was all decked out in an outfit that made her look stunning. I
made a low whistle; she flushed prettily. We didn't talk about the
accident. The movie was good and we held hands part of the time, ate
popcorn part of the time and kissed once or twice. All in all, a pleasant
evening. The second feature was just drawing to the climax when an
usher came down the aisle. He was stopping at every row and looked
peeved. Finally, he stopped at ours. He swept the flashlight down the
row and asked "Mr. Gerad? Daniel Gerad?"
"Yes?" I asked, feeling guilt and fear run through me.
"There's a gentleman on the phone, sir. He says it's a matter of life or
death."
Vicki gave me a startled look and I followed the usher hurriedly. That
let out the police. I mentally took stock of my only remaining relatives.
Aunt Polly, Grandma Phibbs and my great-uncle Charlie. They were all
healthy as far as I knew. You could have knocked me over with a
feather when I picked up the telephone and heard Rankin's voice.
He spoke rapidly and a raw note of fear was in his voice. "Get out
here, right now! We need – "
There were sounds of a scuffle, a muffled scream, then a click and the
empty dial tone.
I hung, up and hurried back for Vicki. "Come on," I said.
She followed without questioning me. At first I wanted to drive her
back to the motel but the muffled scream made me decide that this was
an emergency. I didn't like either Rankin or Weinbaum, but I knew I
would have to help them.
We took off.
"What is it?" Vicki asked anxiously as I stamped on the go-pedal and
let the car unwind.
"Look," I said, "something tells me that you've got your secrets about
your guardian. I've got some of my own. Please, don't ask."
She didn't say another word.
I took possession of the passing lane. The speedometer climbed from
seventy-five to eighty-five, kept rising and trembled on the verge of
ninety. I pulled into the turnoff on two wheels and the car bounced,
clung and exploded up the road. Grim and gaunt against the overcast
sky, I could see the house. I pulled the car to a stop and was out in a
second.
"Wait here," I cried over my shoulder to Vicki. There was a light on in
the laboratory and I flung the door open. It was empty but ransacked.
The place was a mess of broken test tubes, smashed apparatus, and, yes,
bloodstains that trailed through the half-open door that led to the
darkened garage. Then I noticed the green liquid that was flowing over
the floor in sticky rivulets. For the first time I noticed that one of the
several sheeted tanks had been broken. I walked over to the other three.
The lights inside them were off and the sheets that draped them let by
no hint of what might have been under them – or, for that matter, what
was still under them. I had no time to see. I didn't like the looks of
blood, still fresh and uncoagulated, that led out of the front door into the
garage. I swung open the door and entered the garage. It was dark and I
didn't know where the light switch was. I cursed myself for not bringing
the flashlight that was in the glove compartment. I advanced a few steps
and realized that there was a cold draft blowing against my face. I
advanced toward it. The light from the lab threw a golden shaft of light
along the garage floor, but it was next to nothing in the Stygian
blackness of the garage. All my childish fears of the dark returned. Once
again I entered the realms of terror that only a child can know. I realized
that the shadow that leered at me from out of the dark might not be
dispelled by bright light.
Suddenly, my right foot went down. I realized that the draft was
coming from a stairway I had almost fallen down. For a moment I
debated, then turned and hurried back through the lab and out to the car.

Her tone of voice made me look at her. In the sickly yellow glow of
the light her face was terrified.
"I'm working here," I said shortly.
''At first I didn't realize where we were," she said softly. “I was only
here once before.”
"You've been here?" I exclaimed. "When? Why?"
"One night," she said quietly "I brought Uncle David his lunch. He
forgot it."
The name rang a bell. She saw me grasping for it. "My guardian," she
said. "Perhaps I'd better tell you the whole story. Probably, you know
that people don't get appointed guardians when they drink. Well, Uncle
David didn't always do those things. When my mother and father were
killed in a train-wreck four years ago, my Uncle David was the kindest
person you could imagine. The court appointed him my guardian until I
came of age, with my complete support."
For a moment she was quiet, living in memories and the expression
that flitted rapidly through her eyes was not pretty. Then she went on.
"Two years ago the company he was working for as a night watchman
folded up and my uncle was out of a job. He was out of work for almost
half a year. We were getting desperate, with only unemployment checks
to feed us and college looming up for me. Then he got a job. It was a
good paying one and it brought in fabulous sums. I used to joke with
him about the banks he robbed. One night he looked at me and said,
'Not banks.'"
I felt fear and guilt tap me on the shoulder with cold fingers. Vicki
went on.
"He started to get mean. He started bringing home whiskey and
getting drunk. The times I asked him about his job he evaded me. One
night he told me point-blank to mind my own business.
"I watched him decay before my very eyes. Then one night he let a
name slip – Weinbaum, Steffen Weinbaum. A couple of weeks later he
forgot his midnight lunch. I looked up the name in the telephone book
and took it out to him. He flew into the most terrible rage I have ever
seen.
"In the weeks that followed he was away more and more at this
terrible house. One night, when he came home he beat me. I decided to
run away. To me, the Uncle David I knew was dead. He caught me –
and you came along." She fell silent.
I was shaken right down to my boots. I had a very good idea what
Vicki's uncle did for a living. The time Rankin had signed me up
coincided with the time Vicki's guardian would have been cracking up. I
almost drove away then, despite the wild shambles the lab was in,
despite the secret stairway, despite the blood trail on the floor. But then
a faraway, thin scream reached us. I thumbed the glove compartment
button, and reached in, fumbled around and got the flashlight.
Vicki's hand went to my arm "No, Danny. Please, don't. l know that
there's something terrible going on here. Drive away from it!"
The scream sounded again, this time fainter, and I made up my mind. I
grabbed the flashlight. Vicki saw my intention. "All right, I'm coming
with you."
"Uh-uh," I said. "You stay here. I've got a feeling that there's
something...loose out there. You stay here."
She unwillingly sat back. I shut the door and ran back to the lab. I
didn't pause, but went back into the garage. The flashlight illuminated
the dark hole where the wall had slid away to reveal the staircase. My
blood pounding thickly in my temples, I ventured down into it. I
counted the steps, shining the flashlight at the featureless walls, at the
impenetrable darkness below.
"Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three – "
At thirty, the stairway suddenly became a short passage. I started
cautiously along it, wishing that I had a revolver, or even a knife to
make me feel a little less naked and vulnerable.
Suddenly a scream, terrible and thick with fear soon sounded in the
darkness ahead of me. It was the sound of terror, the sound of a man
confronted with something out of the deepest pits of horror. I broke into
a run. As I ran I realized that the draft was blowing coldly against my
face. I reasoned that the tunnel must come out in the outdoors. I
stumbled over something. It was Rankin, lying in a pool of his own
blood, his eyes staring in glazed horror at the ceiling. The back of his
head was bashed in. Ahead of me I heard a pistol shot, a curse, and
another scream. I ran on and almost fell on my face as I stumbled over
more stairs. I climbed and saw stairs framed vaguely in an opening
screened with underbrush above me. I pushed it aside and came upon a
startling tableau: a tall figure silhouetted against the sky that could only
be Weinbaum, a revolver hanging in his hand, looking down at the
shadowed ground. Even the starlight was blotted out as the hanging
clouds that had parted briefly, closed together again. He heard me and
wheeled quickly, his eyes glazing like red lanterns in the dark.
"Oh, it’s you, Gerad."
"Rankin's dead," I told him.
"I know," he said, "you could have prevented it if you had come a
little quicker."
"Now just hold on," I said, becoming angry. "I hurried "
I was cut off by a sound that has hounded me through nightmares ever
since, a hideous mewing sound, like that of some gigantic rat in pain. I
saw calculation, fear, and finally decision flicker across Weinbaum's
face in a matter of seconds. I fell back in terror.
"What is it?" I choked.
He casually shone the light down into the pit, for all his affected
casualness, I noticed that his eyes were averted by something. The thing
mewed again and I felt another spasm of fear. I craned to see what
horror lay in that pit, the horror that made even Weinbaum scream in
abject terror. And just before I saw, a horrible wall of terror rose and fell
from the vague outline of the house. Weinbaum jerked his flashlight
from the pit and shone it in my face.
"Who was that? Whom did you bring up here?"
But I had my own flashlight trained as I ran through the passage way,
Weinbaum close behind. I had recognized the scream. I had heard it
before, when a frightened girl almost ran into my car as she fled her
maniac of a guardian.
Vicki!