by Robert Bloch
The sheriff paused when he felt the concrete of the basement’s floor scuff under his shoes, and at that moment he heard a click behind him as Robert Bleak turned on the lights. There, a yard or two before him, Olson saw a human head sitting on the center of a sterling silver serving platter, resting just where the turkey would ordinarily go. It stared at him openmouthed and stupidly with its round blue eyes as it often had in life, but this time it didn’t see him, being dead.
“It’s Wilbur,” gasped Olson, in astonishment. “It’s my deputy, Wilbur! But that can’t be because he’s the one that called me about this on the damn car radio just a bitty while ago!”
“That wasn’t Wilbur,” whispered a voice directly behind him which sounded for all the world like Wilbur himself, only with a bad cold, just like he’d had on the radio, “That was me!”
The sheriff turned and his jaw dropped in astonishment both at the sight of the remarkably sinister, bulge-eyed expression playing on Robert Bleak’s face and at the enormous chef’s knife which he both saw and felt being driven quickly and skillfully through the flesh between his shoulder blades.
The sheriff had only fallen halfway to the ground when Mrs. Bleak, wearing an expression as surprisingly diabolic as her husband’s, drove a somewhat smaller, but no less effective, knife firmly into the side of his thick neck as she gave a cachinnating laugh.
The sheriff had barely thumped onto the concrete when he felt simultaneous sharp pains on either side of his torso as his fading vision dimly made out both the Bleak children eagerly and adroitly inserting even smaller knives between his ribs, and just before sight and all other physical sensations departed him altogether, he became aware that the mastiff had enthusiastically begun to tear at his legs.
“I was right, godammit, I was right!” his voice echoed triumphantly, if only in his skull: “I was right all along about them Bleaks!”
And the frown line faded completely and entirely and forever from his forehead.
Remains to Be Seen
David Morrell
“On my honor, Your Excellency!” Carlos clicked his heels together and jerked his right arm upward, outward, clenching his fist in salute.
“More than your honor! Your life, Carlos! Swear it on your life!”
“My life, Your Excellency! I swear it!”
The Great Man nodded, his dark eyes burning. His once robust face had shrunk around his cheekbones, giving him a grimace of perpetual sorrow. His pencil-thin mustache, formerly as dark as his eyes, was now gray, his once swarthy skin now sallow. Even if a miracle occurred and His Excellency’s forces were able to crush the rebellion, Carlos knew that the strain of the past month’s worsening crisis would leave the marks of its ravages upon his leader.
But of course, the miracle would not occur. Already the rattle of machine guns from the outskirts of the city intensified. The echo of explosions rumbled over rooftops. The shimmer of fires reflected off smoky clouds in the night.
A frantic bodyguard approached, his bandolier slapping against his chest, his rifle clutched so rigidly his knuckles were white. “Your Excellency, you have to leave now! The rebels have broken through!”
But the Great Man hesitated. “On your life, Carlos. Remember, you swore it.”
“I’ll never disappoint you.”
“I know.” The Great Man clasped his shoulders. “You never have. You never will.”
Carlos swelled with pride, but sadness squeezed his heart. The gunfire and explosions reminded him of the massive fireworks that had celebrated the Great Man’s inauguration to the presidency. Now the golden years were over. Despondent, he followed his leader toward a truck, its rear compartment capped by a tarpaulin.
A crate lay on the cobblestoned courtyard. It was wooden, eight feet long, four feet wide. The Great Man squinted at it. His gaunt cheeks rippling, he clenched his teeth and nodded in command. Six soldiers stepped forward, three on each side, and hastily lifted the crate. It tilted. Something inside thumped.
“Gently!” the Great Man ordered.
Straining with its bulk, glancing fearfully toward the shots that approached the heart of the city, the soldiers slid the crate inside the truck. One yanked down a section of tarpaulin. Another raised the creaky back hatch. The Great Man himself snapped the lockpins into place.
“Your Excellency, please! We have to go!” the bodyguard implored. An explosion shook windows.
The Great Man seemed not to have heard. He continued to stare at the truck.
“Your Excellency!”
The Great Man blinked and turned toward the bodyguard. “Of course.” He scanned the flame-haloed outskirts of the city. “We must leave. But one day. . .one day we’ll return.” He pivoted toward Carlos. “Do your duty. You have the itinerary. When I’m able, I’ll contact you.” Flanked by bodyguards, he rushed toward his bulletproof limousine.
“But Your Excellency, aren’t you coming with me?” Carlos asked.
Racing, the Great Man shouted back, “No! Separately we have a greater chance of confusing the rebels! We have to mislead them! Remember, Carlos! On your life!”
With a final look at the truck, the Great Man surged into his limousine, guards charging after him. As the car roared out of the palace courtyard, speeding southward away from the direction of the rebel attack, Carlos felt suddenly empty. But at once he remembered his vow. “You heard His Excellency! We must go!”
Men snapped to attention. Carlos scrambled into the cabin of the truck. A sergeant slid behind the steering wheel. The truck raced eastward, a jeep before and behind it, each filled with soldiers with automatic weapons.
They’d gone five blocks when a rebel patrol attacked. The front jeep blew apart, fragments of metal and flaming bodies twisting through the air. The truck’s driver jerked the steering wheel, skidding around the wreckage. Gunfire shattered the windshield. Glass showered. The driver slammed back, his brains erupting behind his skull. While the truck kept moving, Carlos lunged past the spastic corpse, shoved open the driver’s door, and thrust the dead sergeant onto the street. The body bounced. Stomping the accelerator, Carlos rammed through a barricade, gripping the steering wheel with one hand, using his other to fire his pistol through the shattered windshield.
He and the remaining jeep swerved around a gloomy warehouse, raced along the murky waterfront, and screeched to a stop beside the only ship still in port. Its frightened crew flinched from nearby gunfire and scurried down the gangplank toward the truck. They yanked the crate from the back. Again something thumped.
“Gently!” Carlos ordered.
Heeding the nearby gunshots more than his order, they dropped the crate on a sling and shouted obscenities to someone on deck. A motor whined. A crane raised the crate. A rope broke. Carlos felt his heart lurch as the crate dangled halfway out of the sling. The crate kept rising. It swung toward the freighter and landed on deck with a crash.
A deafening explosion followed a moment afterward as, a block from the harbor, a building erupted in a thunderous blaze. The freighter’s crew raced up the gangplank, Carlos and his men rushing after them, the gangplank beginning to rise.
Already the freighter was moving. Scraping from the dock, it mustered speed to surge through the night. Ghostly reflections from the fires in the city guided it toward the harbor’s exit.
Carlos barked orders to his men—to remove the tarpaulins from the fifty-millimeter cannons at the bow and stern. As they armed the weapons, he tensely watched the freighter’s crew repair the sling and lower the crate through an open hatch. Sweating, he waited for the shout from below that would signal the crate’s safe arrival in the hold.
Only then did he feel the ache of tension drain from his shoulders. He exhaled. The first stage of his mission had been completed. For now, he had nothing to do except to wait till he reached his next destination and then wait again for further orders from His Excellency.
Behind him, a woman whispered his name.
He spun. “Maria.”
/> Beaming, she hurried toward him: short, with ebony hair and copper skin, handsome more than beautiful. Her pregnancy emphasized her stocky build. Her strong-boned features suggested faithfulness and endurance, the hardy virtues of peasant stock.
They embraced. During the previous hectic week, Carlos hadn’t seen his wife at all. Despite his devotion to the Great Man, he’d felt the strain of being separated from her—a strain that must have shown, for a day ago the Great Man had told him to send her a message to meet him on this freighter. Carlos had been overwhelmed by the Great Man’s consideration.
“Is it over? Are we safe?” Maria asked.
“For now.” He kissed her.
“But His Excellency didn’t come with you?”
“No. He plans to meet us later.”
“And the crate?”
“What about it, Maria?”
“Why is it so important that you had to bring it here under guard?”
“His Excellency never said. I would never have been so bold as to ask. But it must have tremendous value.”
“For him to entrust it to you, to ask you to risk your life to protect it? By all the saints, yes, it must have tremendous value!”
She gazed with worship into his eyes.
At three A.M., in a cabin that the Great Man had arranged for them, Carlos made love to his wife. Hearing her moan beneath him, he felt a pang of concern for his benefactor. He prayed that the Great Man had escaped from the city and hoped that His Excellency would contact him soon. His wife thrust against him a final time and went to sleep with a patient sigh as if proud that her marital duty had been accomplished.
Obedience, Carlos thought. Of all the virtues, obedience is the greatest.
At dawn, he was wakened by a soldier pounding on the cabin’s door. “Rebel boats!”
Carlos strapped on his pistol. “Maria, stay here!”
In the two-hour battle, he sustained a minor wound to his left arm as he manned the stern’s cannon after the soldier at the trigger was sprayed by machine-gun fire.
The freighter too sustained slight damage. But the rebel boats were repelled. The crate was protected. The mission continued.
As the freighter’s doctor bandaged his bleeding arm, Carlos peered at a message that the radio operator had given him. The Great Man had escaped from the city and was fleeing through the mountains.
“May God be with him,” Carlos said.
But the radio operator looked troubled.
“What is it? What haven’t you told me?” Carlos asked.
“The boats that attacked us. I monitored their radio transmissions. They knew His Excellency was in the mountains. They knew before they attacked us.”
Carlos frowned.
The radio operator continued. “Why were they so determined to attack us if they knew His Excellency wasn’t on board?”
“I have no idea,” Carlos said.
But he lied. He did have an idea.
The crate, he thought.
They wanted whatever’s in the crate.
In the hold’s fish-smelling darkness, Carlos aimed his flashlight toward the wooden planks that made up the crate. He walked around it, examining every detail. One bottom corner had been splintered—not surprising, given the rough way the crew had brought it aboard. But no bullets had pierced the wooden planks. The contents remained intact. He leaned against a damp bulkhead and stared in puzzlement at the crate.
What was in it? he wondered.
Twenty minutes later, while he continued to stare fascinated at the crate, a crew member found him, bringing a radio message.
Carlos aimed his flashlight at the sheet of paper. Escape from the mountains accomplished. Avoid first destination. Proceed to checkpoint two. Instructions will follow. Remember, on your life.
Carlos nodded to the man who’d brought the message. He folded the piece of paper and tucked it into a pocket. Pushing away from the bulkhead, he fully intended to follow the crew member from the hold.
But he couldn’t resist the impulse to aim his flashlight at the crate.
What was in it? he thought again. Why was it so important?
“Your arm!” Maria said when Carlos at last emerged on deck. “Does it hurt?”
Carlos shrugged and repressed a wince. “The doctor gave me something for the pain.”
“You mustn’t strain yourself. You need to rest.”
“I’ll rest when the Great Man reclaims his property.”
“Whatever it is,” she said. “Do you think it’s gold or jewels? Rare coins? Priceless paintings?”
“Secret documents, most likely. It’s none of my business. Tomorrow evening, thank God, my responsibility ends.”
But the Great Man wasn’t waiting when the freighter docked at the neutral port that was checkpoint two. Instead a nervous messenger raced up the gangplank. Wiping his brow, he blurted out that although the Great Man had reached a neighboring country, the rebels persisted in pursuing him. “He can’t risk coming to the freighter. He asks you to proceed to checkpoint three.”
“Three days to the north?” Carlos subdued his disappointment. He’d looked forward to showing the Great Man how well he’d done his duty.
“His Excellency said to remind you—you vowed on your honor.”
“On my life!” Carlos straightened. “I was with him from the beginning. When he and I were frightened peasants, determined to topple the tyrant. I swore allegiance. I’ll never disappoint him.”
That night while the freighter was still in port, a rebel squad disguised as stevedores snuck on board and nearly succeeded in reaching the hold before a vigilant soldier sounded an alarm. In the furious gun battle, Carlos lost five members of his team. All eight invaders were killed. But not before a grenade was thrown into the hold.
The explosion filled Carlos with panic. He emptied his submachine gun into the rebel who’d thrown the grenade and rushed to the hold, aiming his flashlight, shocked to discover that the grenade had detonated fifteen feet from the crate. Shrapnel had splintered its wooden slats. A large chunk had torn a hole in the side.
Carlos felt smothered, tracing trembling fingers along the damaged wood. If the contents entrusted to him had been destroyed, how could he explain his failure to His Excellency?
I swore to protect! Fear made him stiffen. What if the shrapnel had stayed hot enough to smolder inside the crate? What if the contents were secret documents and they burst into flames? Grabbing a crowbar, he jammed it beneath the lid. Nails creaked. Wood snapped. He jerked the lid up, desperate to peer inside, to make sure there wasn’t a fire. What he saw made him gasp.
A footstep scraped behind him. Slamming the lid shut, he drew his pistol and spun.
Maria emerged from shadows, frowning, caught by the beam of his flashlight. “Are you all right?”
He exhaled. “I almost. . .” Shaking, he holstered his pistol. “Never creep up behind me.”
“But the shooting. I felt so worried.”
“Go back to the cabin. Try to sleep.”
“Come with me. You need to rest.”
“No.”
“What did you find?”
“I don’t understand.”
“When you opened the crate.”
“You’re mistaken, Maria. I didn’t open it.”
“But I saw you. . .”
“It’s dark down here. My flashlight must have cast shadows and tricked your eyes.”
“But I heard you slam down the lid.”
“No, you heard me lose my balance and fall against the crate. I didn’t open it. Go back to the cabin. Do what I tell you!”
With a plaintive look, she obeyed, the echo of her footsteps dwindling. The flashlight revealed her pregnant silhouette. At the top of the murky metal stairs, a hatch banged shut.
Carlos forced himself to wait. Finally certain she was gone, he turned again toward the crate and slowly lifted the lid. Before he’d been interrupted, he’d had a quick glimpse of the contents, enough to verify that the
re wasn’t a fire, though he didn’t dare tell Maria what was in there for fear she’d speak without thinking and reveal the secret.
Because what he’d seen had been more startling than a fire. The coffin was made of burnished copper, its gleaming surface marred by pockmarks from shrapnel.
His knees faltered. Fighting dizziness, he leaned down to inspect the desecration. With a sharp breath of satisfaction, he decided the damage was superficial. The coffin had not been penetrated.
But what about the body?
Yes, the body.
Whose?
It was none of his business. The Great Man hadn’t seen fit to let him know what he’d pledged his life to protect. No doubt, His Excellency had his reasons.
Carlos subdued his intense curiosity, lowered the lid, and resecured it. He’d exceeded his authority, granted! But for a just motive. To protect what had been entrusted to him. His duty had been honored. The coffin wasn’t in danger for the moment. He could have its copper made smooth again. He could replace the crate with one that hadn’t been damaged. His Excellency would never know that Carlos had almost failed.
But one container had led to another. The mystery still wasn’t solved. The ultimate question remained. Why were the rebels so determined to destroy the crate? Who was in the coffin?
Burdened with responsibility, Carlos climbed from the hold, ordering the freighter’s crew, “Bring down a mattress and blankets. A thermos of coffee. Food. A lantern.” He told Maria, “I’ll be staying in the hold tonight. Every night till His Excellency reclaims what’s his.”
“No! It’s damp down there! The air smells foul! You’ll get sick!”
“I made a vow! I’ve ordered my men to triple the guards on the hold! No one but myself is allowed down there! Not even you!”
