The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “Then he’s there. I’ll drop you off at your apartment. You mustn’t get mixed up in this.” He called to the driver to stop.

  “No!” cried Marcella. “I’m going with you. He’ll be desperate.”

  “I can take care of myself in any fair fight,” said Blaine.

  “Fair fight! You’re not talking about Borden! No, I won’t get out! I’m coming with you!”

  The taxi stopped at Marcella’s address and Blaine lifted her out even though she was sobbing her protests.

  “Don’t go up there alone, Blaine, please—”

  “I’ve got to stop him—before he ruins everything—”

  Marcella was clutching toward him frantically but he pushed her arms away. He jumped into the taxi and sped off.

  Marcella stood there helpless. There were no other taxies in sight. A storm was gathering overhead. Thunder was crackling and heavy raindrops were beginning to spatter.

  CHAPTER V

  Baffle in Laboratory Eleven

  The elevators at the Keohane Laboratories were not running at that hour of the night. Eleven floors to climb. Blaine’s heart was racing as he gained the last flight of stairs. In the dark corridor there was a weak gleam of light from the large laboratory beyond. He stopped and listened. He could hear nothing except a slight rustle from a nearby room that contained guinea pigs. A flurry of lightning revealed only an empty corridor before him.

  He started to switch on the lights—then stopped. Sounds were reaching him from the laboratory—footsteps—the turning of a stout lock—the opening of a heavy door. He knew those sounds perfectly. Borden had opened the door to the Trap Room.

  What could that mean? Only one thing. Another victim for the Pit. Had Borden interpreted Blaine’s approaching footsteps as the arrival of the victim? Blaine wondered.

  It was plain that Borden had planned this night carefully. He had kept a key to the Trap Room and bided his time for a chance to use it. He had schemed the party to have Blaine safely out of the way. What other preparations had he made? How desperate would he dare to be if Blaine confronted him coolly and ordered him out? Blaine had plunged blindly into this dangerous situation—unarmed. With jaw set and eyes alert he moved toward the open door from which the dim light issued.

  He stopped in the doorway. His eyes took in the laboratory at a glance. The only light in the large room came from the desk light at his own desk. His files had been opened and his notes were scattered. Near the outer edge of the circle of dim light he could discern the bottle of hormone serum on a work table. The seal over its stopper had not been broken. Beyond, at the far corner of the room deep in the shadows, the door to the Trap Room stood open. Borden was standing near it with his face turned toward Blaine.

  “What’s up?” said Blaine sharply.

  “Come in,” said Borden. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

  “You needn’t wait any longer,” said Blaine, marching over to his desk. “What’s the meaning of this mess?” Borden advanced a step. Blaine could see a fanatic gleam in his eyes.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he repeated in an evil tone.

  “You’ll kindly lock that Trap Room before you go,” said Blaine. “You’ve no business opening it.”

  “Oh, is that so?” said Borden mockingly. “Who is the superintendent here anyway?” He advanced another step, then another—stealthily—like an animal approaching his prey. He stopped before the work table and placed his hand upon the bottle of serum.

  “I was on the verge of using this when I heard you coming. You’re late. I expected you an hour ago. Surely that electrical recording didn’t keep you fooled all this time. It must have been the girl friend—”

  “Be careful how you talk,” Blaine snapped. He was now standing at the opposite side of the work table glaring at Borden with eyes that flashed like a steel blade.

  “Now that you’ve finally come, you and I are going to talk business, Mr. Rising. As your superintendent I have decided it’s time for you and me to show our colors. It’s time to prove our experiments. It’s time to prove we’re not cowards—or if we are—to find it out.”

  Blaine laughed in disgust. “You’re a fool, Keohane.”

  Borden’s face heated with anger. “I’m in authority here,” he rasped, “and you’re going to listen to me.” He swung the bottle upward in his clenched fist as he gestured in fury.

  “Put that down!” Blaine roared.

  “I’ll put it down all right,” Borden snarled. “I’ll put it to good use in about two minutes. But first, my dear Mr. Rising, you have a little duty to perform.” He made a gesture of mock graciousness toward the open door of the Trap Room. “You may come back and see us in a few years—maybe ten—maybe twenty. There’s no great hurry in matters of this kind,” he added sarcastically, placing the bottle of serum in his coat pocket. Then suddenly changing to a violent manner he whipped out a small revolver. “Will you go to the Pit like a man—or must I drive you in with this? Get out of those clothes!”

  Blaine did not move.

  “Get out of them before I fill you full of lead.”

  “You wouldn’t shoot,” said Blaine, glaring across the table. “You wouldn’t get any pleasure out of sending a dead man to the Pit.”

  “You underestimate the pleasure I would get out of killing you. Get over there! GET OVER THERE!” Blaine remained motionless. He was wondering how long Borden had been insane and whether he was not a paranoid—suffering from delusions of persecution—building up in his mad mind a plot to extinguish his associates of Laboratory Eleven who so obviously distrusted him.

  “All right!” screamed Borden, “you can have it!”

  Blaine’s fist shot out. The revolver barked. The bullet went wide, splintering some glass beakers. A shower of broken glass and chemical solutions splattered over Blaine’s open desk a few feet away.

  Borden was staggering backward from the blow, but the revolver was still in his fingers. As Blaine leaped over the table toward him he pulled the trigger again. Click! The weapon had jammed. Blaine was upon him. Again the gun clicked. It was dead. Borden swung it at Blaine’s head. Blaine caught his wrist in mid-air and the revolver flew from his hand, crashing into the light at the desk. There was a dazzling flash and a puff of smoke as the chemicals on the desk exploded, and suddenly there was near-darkness in the room.

  Under the rain of Blaine’s blows Borden had gone down in a heap. He was the heavier of the two but he was no match for Blaine. There was a dim flickering light now. Blaine did not have time to see where it was coming from, for Borden was coming up again. Blaine pulled him to his feet, dodged his wide swing, and struck him down again with a cooling blow. He made no effort to rise.

  Now Blaine turned to more important business—the source of the flickering light. The explosion had set fire to the papers on his desk and the flames were licking over the files and the scattered notes, consuming data that represented years of labor—papers that held secrets of science nowhere else recorded. Blaine tore off his coat and lashed the flames frantically. With every slashing stroke the room grew darker.

  Before extinguishing the last flame Blaine looked toward Borden who was still lying on the floor as if helpless. Blaine snapped the last flame out and groped through the darkness toward a light switch. He reached for his flashlight only to discover it had been broken in his pocket.

  He stopped short. Footsteps were sounding on the stairs. He knew those footsteps. They were Marcella’s.

  “Blaine,” she called, “are you all right?”

  A flurry of lightning revealed her as she stepped inside the doorway at the opposite side of the room.

  “Yes,” Blaine answered. “Give me a light.”

  She snapped the switch. “They’re off,” she called.

  Blaine tried a nearby switch with the same negative result. “We’ve blown a fuse.”

  Now Borden was stirring. It was too black to see him, but Blaine could hear him moving stealthily at a little dis
tance. On the instant he realized what a dangerous situation was at hand. A mad scientist in a black room, bent on seizing a human victim. The terror of the situation was redoubled by Marcella’s presence. A moment ago Blaine had been whipping the flames as if there was nothing more worth saving than his formulas. Now at the sound of Marcella’s frightened voice he knew there was something more important to him. No greater danger could befall this girl than to enter the present scene of violence. For the door to the Trap Room was still yawning hungrily, and the violent Borden was moving about somewhere in the blackness.

  “Get out of here, Marcella! Quick I Get out of the building! You’re in danger! Don’t ask any questions! Hurry!”

  He started toward Marcella’s side of the room. There was a brilliant flash of lightning. For an instant he saw the girl standing near the doorway—a beautiful figure in her evening dress. So vividly did the purple lightning reveal every detail of the picture that Blaine caught sight of her wind blown hair and the splattered mud on her slippers and her dress. So she had run through the storm to come to him! But before the flash of lightning was gone he saw the courage in her eyes giving way to terror. He whirled to try to catch a glimpse of Borden. Too late.

  Again there was nothing but thick blackness.

  “Look out!” Marcella screamed. “He’s throwing something!”

  CHAPTER VI

  Into the Pit

  A flying object whizzed through the black air. Blaine leaped in the dark but the missile found its mark. He took the blow across the head and went down, the sound of his fall drowned in a roar of thunder.

  “Blaine! Blaine!” Marcella called in vain. The only answer was more crashing thunder, and after it died away—the sound of Borden’s swift footsteps. Marcella called again in a terrified voice. No answer.

  But for her strong nerves she would have been wild with fright and would have given way to her impulse to scream at the top of her voice. She was thinking fast. Could she reach a telephone? There would be none operating in this part of the building. Should she run for help? No, for she had glimpsed the open Trap Room and understood. It was up to her to fight off Borden until Blaine regained consciousness—or was he dead? She listened.

  Click! Borden was locking her in. Now he was only a few feet back of her, making a round of all the doors. She groped her way swiftly and silently among the tables toward the middle of the room. Click. Borden was locking the farthest door. Now his footsteps were coming toward her. His voice sounded through the darkness. It was his sneering laugh. He was gloating in his capture.

  “Well, well, how fortunate that you have joined us, Miss Kingman. I’m sorry our lights are off so I can’t see to greet you, but I think I know where to put my hands on a flashlight . . . Yes, here we are.”

  Marcella slid under a table and pulled the folds of her evening dress after her—barely in time. Borden flashed the beam of a sickly flashlight about the room.

  “Oh, you’re hiding from me, are you? That’s all right. Just so you don’t go away. We’re going to have a nice little party right away—just the three of us. If you’ll only come out like a nice girl, we’ll get your part of it over before the boy friend wakes up.” Marcella held her breath. It seemed that her thumping heart would betray her place of hiding. Borden started across the room. She watched sharply as the light from the waving flashlight skipped along the aisle toward the table under which she crouched. As Borden came abreast of her she thought the beam of light surely caught the corner of her dress. But Borden evidently did not see it, for he marched on across the room, talking as he went.

  “So you prefer to stay hid, do you? A nice little game of hide and seek? That’s all right. It will give me time to swing a cord around your boy friend’s hands and feet—just to make sure he cooperates. He might wake up and change his mind.”

  Now Marcella could see Blaine lying in a heap. At least he was breathing, but his head was seeping blood. Borden was examining him cautiously. A mess of ruins lay a few feet from them in the edge of the light—several broken beakers and half burned formulas and—Marcella’s heart leaped at the sight—a small revolver. Cautiously she slipped from one table to the next.

  Already the terrorist had bound Blaine securely and he was taking pains with the knots. He was being deliberate now, as if confident that he could proceed with his little party in his own way—now that Blaine was out. He put his head down to listen to the breathing of his victim.

  “Yes, it’s a good thing I wrapped you up, old man. You’re feeling pretty good. In another minute or two you’ll be popping your eyes open and wanting to fight, but I think you’ll just lie quiet in your hobbles until we get this over with. It won’t take long. I’ll have you ready for refrigeration right away. By the way, what’s happened to the girl friend?”

  He shot the light around. Marcella’s heart beat loudly as she crouched in the shadows. She knew that the light would not catch her unless Borden went down to look under the tables. If he did—she would make a break for the revolver.

  “All right, sweetheart,” he goaded, “just stay out of sight till I’m ready for you. And you’d better turn your head for I’m about to deprive your boy friend of his clothes. We don’t want any half-way freezing jobs.”

  He laid the dimly burning flashlight down on the floor and began removing Blaine’s shoes. Blaine stirred.

  “Don’t wake up, my genius friend,” Borden soliloquized in a sarcastic vein—and Marcella knew he was speaking for her benefit. “Don’t wake up. In three minutes you’ll have the rare pleasure of being converted into human ice, and you’ll never know what happened—or how anxious your girl friend was to follow you down the shaft. You can both have a good long sleep without being disturbed. And when you wake up twenty or thirty years from now, drop in and see me. I think you’ll find me in the bloom of health and youth.”

  Borden hesitated as if a question had interrupted his chain of happy thoughts. He patted his hands against his coat pocket. He was making sure the bottle of serum had come through the recent fight unbroken. Satisfied, he resumed his monologue.

  “Yes, I think you’ll find me in the bloom of—”

  “Hands up!” cried Marcella.

  Borden whirled about. There was a revolver pointing at him from out of the deep shadows. His hands obeyed the command. He gazed at the dim figure of Marcella—her keen eyes piercing him—her wild hair—her mud-splattered evening dress.

  “So you thought you’d pull a fast one on me, did you?” he snarled. “Since when did you go in for firearms?”

  He was aware that Marcella was fearless. There was no reason she shouldn’t shoot to kill. But where had she gotten that revolver? He backed up a step. His eye scanned the floor and he was convinced. Now the cards were all his if he played his hand swiftly. The deck had been stacked in his favor. With a cynical smirk he said, “Is that any way to treat your superintendent?”

  His hands came down in a gesture of mock politeness.

  “Put ’em up!” Marcella commanded, “or I’ll shoot you on the spot!”

  “Not with that gun, sweetheart!”

  She pulled the trigger. Click! Again. And a third time. With each snap of the trigger she retreated farther back into the shadows. The gun was dead. Her heart sank. It was obvious now that she stood no chance against the heartless Borden. There would be no use trying to talk past him. He had waited too long for just such a moment. His half closed eyes shifted from her to the open Trap Room and back to her again, and his mouth spread in a grin of insidious victory.

  “Don’t go away,” he said. “I’m changing the order. I’ll let you be first. Ladies first, you know. You’ll find everything all ready for you—a nice cool plunge into liquid air—”

  “Don’t come near me, you brute!”

  “Be calm, my dear. The easiest way would be for you to step into the Trap Room, close the door like a lady, and slip out of your clothes before you walk across the trap. That would assure you a clean-cut freeze—and I hat
e to see experiments bungled, especially with such prize subjects.”

  “Get away from me!”

  Through the dim light she darted across the room to her only hope—the fire escape. A blaze of lightning helped her pick her path, but before the thunder struck full force the mad Borden had cornered her. She fought like a panther. Borden caught her wrists—lost them—caught them again—dragged her across the floor toward the Trap Room. She kicked and squirmed and fought. The slippers lost off her feet.

  Blaine had begun to mumble. He was returning to a hazy consciousness.

  “Shut up!” Borden roared at him. “I’ll get to you in a minute!”

  Blaine’s eyes grew wide as he began to realize where he was and what was happening. The mad man was dragging the fighting body of Marcella past him. He wriggled in his bonds helplessly. He was powerless to interfere.

  There was no lightning to illuminate the brutality of the next few seconds, but Blaine’s eyes following the struggling, shadowy figures could not mistake what happened. Borden swiftly pulled the writhing girl into the Trap Room, hurled her down upon the trap door, and ripped the dress off her body as she fell out of sight.

  Click! The automatic trap was shut. Blaine heard a muffled “O-o-o-o-oh!”

  —a cry of terror but not a scream. The pitch of her cry lowered as her fall accelerated. Then it was cut off and only its hollow echoes reverberated through the shaft.

  That cry left Blaine incredibly weak. He ceased to struggle. He was appalled. Keohane emerged from the Trap Room. He picked up Marcella’s slippers. Her rent clothes were under his arm. He took the articles to the laboratory furnace, thrust them in, and turned the blast on full. He returned for Blaine’s shoes.

  “Don’t be impatient, Rising,” he called as he thrust them into the furnace. “I’ll get to you in just a moment. But shoes are devilish slow to burn, and I don’t want to be here all night finishing up. Besides, I’ve got myself to work on yet, you know.”