The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  He patted his coat pocket again and registered satisfaction.

  “Fortunately, our serum has come through safe and sound.”

  He removed his coat, put it out of the way, and came down to where Blaine was lying.

  “And now I’ll ask you to cooperate like a gentleman while your superintendent prepares you to drop down and join your girl fr—”

  His speech was cut short. Blaine, bound though he was, rolled into him with such violence that he toppled to the floor. With a scared shriek he barely scrambled out of reach of Blaine’s clutching fingers. Even when bound Blaine seemed a dangerous adversary. If Borden had any more taunting remarks, he withheld them. He was pale with fright. Still he was possessed by the flaming madness to finish the murderous business he had started. His movements became swifter, more nervous—his eyes more insane.

  He snatched up the dying flashlight and sought out the piece of lead pipe he had hurled at Blaine’s head a few minutes before.

  Blaine saw him advancing and knew his time had come.

  A second later all lights went out for Blaine and the rumbling thunder was no longer audible to him.

  CHAPTER VII

  Strange Revenge

  In his hospital bed Blaine pondered these events. His memory could not carry him beyond that second blow on the head. What had happened then? Had someone intruded upon the scene and stopped the insane Borden? Had an ambulance come for him to bring him to this hospital? He did not know. He only knew that he burned to wreak a swift revenge upon the mad Keohane. He would act—as soon as his physical condition would permit.

  With this decision he relaxed into a deep, restoring sleep, and when he awoke many hours later the pain in his head had eased. There was food on the stand beside his bed which he ate with a vigorous appetite. His strength was returning. He got out of bed, slipped into a lounging robe, and walked over to the window. There was a glorious view before him—a most beautiful city with futuristic towers, elevated highways, and swiftly moving traffic. Strangely, he could not hear a sound, nor could he see any smoke.

  There were bullet-nosed cars speeding along the broad highways. Above the buildings the air was dotted with what appeared to be individual helicopters that were hopping about from rooftop to rooftop as cunningly as birds. High overhead were thin streams of air traffic shooting in different directions at different levels. It was unbelievable—this magic picture before him.

  He rubbed his eyes. Could it be—A nurse entered the room. She greeted him and expressed her surprise to see him walking about. “You seem to be gaining rapidly,” she said, after taking his pulse and his temperature.

  “Yes,” said Blaine. “Where am I? What’s the meaning of all this? Am I seeing things or—”

  “You’d better get back in bed and rest some more. There will be several physicians coming in to visit you as soon as you are a little stronger so you’d better save your questions for them. They’ll have several to ask you, too.” She started to leave.

  “Wait,” Blaine called. “There’s something I want you to tell me. Do you know a Borden Keohane?”

  The nurse looked at him quizzically. “You mean—the famous Borden Keohane? Why, of course I know him. Everybody in the medical world knows about him, but we in this hospital are particularly fortunate in being able to observe him. He is one of the most unique cases on record, you know.”

  “Did you say you observe him?”

  “Certainly. We have a special room for him at the further end of this floor. Physicians come here from all over the world to—”

  “He’s here—in this building?” Blaine grew tense. The heat of revenge swept through him. “I must see him!”

  “Perhaps later—after you are stronger—but now you must rest. Remember, many eminent men of science will wish to interview you as soon as you are able—Oh, I almost forgot to tell you, I’m allowing you one visitor this morning—a young lady. Here she comes now.”

  The nurse left. Blaine stood bewildered. What was the meaning of the curious things she had said about Borden Keohane? Why should he be suddenly famous in the medical world? Was it possible that—

  His thoughts were cut short. Before him in the doorway stood a young, darkeyed girl, radiantly beautiful. “Marcella!” he gasped.

  “Blaine!”

  They were in each other’s arms.

  “I can’t believe it, Marcella. Has it really happened? You’ve gone through the Pit of Death and come out alive?”

  “Yes, Blaine,” said Marcella, glowing with happiness. “We’ve both gone through the Pit of Death, and here we are—just as we were before. My, you’re looking wonderful, Blaine, for one who has been dead a century and a half!”

  “What?”

  “Yes, Blaine. It was a hundred and fifty years years ago that you and I—”

  “Why, it’s incredible!”

  “That’s exactly what the other scientists are saying. But they know it’s true. And Blaine, we’re not a day older. There’s a new world waiting for us to explore. Hurry up and gain your strength back. I’ve been back to life for three days now—and I’m getting anxious to see this new world—as soon as you’re ready to go with me. Those injuries on your head were pretty bad. You haven’t come out of it so easily.”

  “I feel strong,” said Blaine. Marcella looked at him sharply. There was an ominous sound in his voice. “I’m strong enough for the first task I must do.”

  “What’s the matter, Blaine?” Marcella spoke with alarm.

  “Do you know that Borden Keohane is still alive? Do you think I’m going to plunge into life again until I’ve first settled my score with him? There isn’t room in the world for the two of us. Not until I’ve crushed out his miserable life can I look the world in the eye. And the quicker I act the better.” Blaine was already striding down the hallway.

  “No, Blaine, you mustn’t!” Marcella cried as she tried to force him back. “You don’t understand. We’ve nothing to fear. That’s all gone. A century and a half in the past.”

  But her pleading could not halt Blaine. The fires of violent hatred engendered in his breast on the night of Borden’s insane brutality had not been extinguished by the icy interlude of one hundred and fifty years. His tense fingers gathered strength for a choking death grip as he bolted toward the farthest room. Marcella followed him crying, “No, no, no, Blaine you don’t know what you are doing!” But he would not listen.

  He entered the open door at the end of the hallway, Marcella following. An attendant confronted him.

  “Is Borden Keohane here?” he demanded.

  “Yes,” said the attendant with a gesture toward the object at the center of the room. Blaine looked. It was a bed with high sides that hid the occupant from view. The air of the room was heavily laden with incense that was almost stifling, as if mingled with fetid odors. The effect was somewhat subduing to Blaine’s fury. The walk had been too strenuous for him. He spoke less brusquely.

  “You mean—he’s a patient here?”

  “Certainly,” said the attendant. “He has been for about seventy-five years.”

  “Oh.” Blaine breathed heavily.

  “I was trying to tell you—” said Marcella at his side.

  Blaine broke in anxiously. “Will he—live—long?”

  The attendant smiled. “That’s the very question that has all the physicians baffled. He seems to be so near death—and yet he lives on, year after year.”

  “I must see him,” said Blaine.

  “Let me warn you that the sight is extremely repulsive,” said the attendant. “You see, his bones have been completely decomposed. Why—nobody knows, although the theory is that he must have used some sort of hormone serum earlier in his life, the formula of which is a mystery.”

  “I understand,” said Blaine quietly.

  “Doesn’t he give any explanation for his own condition?” Marcella asked.

  “Not to my knowledge. Of course he has been unable to talk for many years. As his bones
were eaten away he became a formless mass with almost no use of his voluntary muscles. Even his breathing is cared for mechanically. It is very difficult to move him, even in his bed, without injuring him. For his eyes no longer have any protective sockets and of course his brain is inclosed in nothing but a covering of loose skin and hair. No jaws. No teeth. Only loose flesh. If you wish to see him, you may. But don’t expect him to look like a human being.”

  Blaine and Marcella glanced over the high sides of the bed at the curious mass of aged, wrinkled flesh before them—the exposed upper half of a shapeless human body, partially encased in instruments. The misshapen eyes were closed. The object did not move. There was only one familiar detail—a gray-white blotch on what had once been a cheek.

  One look was enough. Marcella and Blaine walked out in silence.

  “You were speaking of—revenge?” Marcella asked.

  “Yes,” said Blaine quietly, “but I had never intended anything so horrible as Borden has brought upon himself.” They stopped at a window and looked down upon the glorious picture—a futuristic city gleaming in the morning sunshine.

  “It’s a new world,” Marcella said.

  “A new world,” said Blaine, smiling at her, “and we have life before us.”

  WIVES IN DUPLICATE

  First published in Amazing Stories, August 1939

  Aghast, Ray Lattimer saw two women in the televisor, and both of them were identical—both his wife!

  Ray Lattimer, the youthful president of Radio Transit, Inc., scowled as he thumbed through the papers on his desk. With a disgusted groan that would have sounded like an approaching thunderstorm over an amplifier, he took up his desk pen and wrote a memorandum: “Bring Blougan to time.”

  His scowl deepened as he worked over the papers. With an angry snort, this time a crashing thunderbolt, he crumpled the first memorandum, seized the pen, and jotted: “Oust Blougan!” No use to keep a man in a high position after he’s gone sour.

  Ray had worked past the dinner hour. By this time most of the staff who were off duty had boarded radio transit cars and gone—through three hundred miles of space at the speed of light, to arrive at Professor Buchanan’s party.

  All employees of Radio Transit, Inc., had been invited. The professor was celebrating the first anniversary of the wonder of the age—transportation by radio! For a full year the famous Buchanan-Lattimer invention had been delivering passengers and freight through space instantaneously and, to Ray’s great pride, without a single mishap. Unless certain sly maneuvers charged to Bart Blougan could be called mishaps. Blougan was a pain in everyone’s neck, even if he was a director.

  A buzzer sounded. Ray touched a button and looked up from his papers to the televisor.

  “Ray, dear—” Vivian, his young bride, was on the screen before him in full colors. She spoke softly. “Have you forgotten our engagement?”

  He paused for an instant to admire her beauty. The abbreviated lines of her party costume were becoming to her shapely body.

  “I’m sorry, Vivian,” he said apologetically, “but you’d better go on to the party without me. I have a bad deal on my hands and I’ll be stuck here for another thirty minutes. The report I’ve been waiting for finally came in, but it’s a complete washout.”

  “Bart Blougan’s again, I suppose.”

  “As usual. I’m going to see that he’s ousted at the next meeting—which is likely to be tonight after the party. If so, I’ve got to be ready—with an ultimatum for Blougan.”

  “You know my sentiments,” she said, laughing. He nodded. They had tried to treat Bart Blougan as a joke, but it was really no joking matter. The cunning efforts of the middle-aged, wolfish director to flirt with Vivian had become a constant annoyance. He would linger about on one pretext or another as if his presence were a favor to her. But all of Vivian’s worries were trifles as long as her broad-shouldered, masterful husband was within a few steps.

  “You hurry on to Professor Buchanan’s and give him my apologies,” Ray said. “And don’t forget to call back when you arrive.”

  Vivian blew him a kiss and the televisor snapped off.

  Don’t forget to call back. That little ritual had become a habit back in the days when Ray shuddered every time Vivian boarded radio transit. It was an instinctive distrust of allowing the human body to be resolved into radio waves, sent through space, and reorganized into human form at the receiver. Even after a year of faultless operation, radio transit to Ray’s inventive mind was still full of unknown perils.

  He stepped outside his office into the balcony that overlooked the vast, white-walled hall of power with its familiar smells and sounds of smooth humming machinery. The blur of steel cars spinning down the spiral tracks into the mouth of the transmitter told him the operator was on his job. Faithful Dwight. He had never made an error.

  A few minutes later the televisor in Ray’s office buzzed, and the young president of Radio Transit, Inc., knew that his wife had arrived safely. He touched the button. Vivian was again before him. Back of her low voice the music and laughter of the party were faintly audible.

  “Everyone’s here, Ray, and the party’s in full swing,” she said. “I hope you can come soon.”

  “I’d better,” he laughed, “or Bart Blougan will be beating my time.”

  “Awfully worried, aren’t you?” she teased; then with a turn of thought, “Oh, that reminds me. Blougan hasn’t come yet. I noticed him hanging around there in the station a moment ago as I was boarding.”

  Buzz. Someone else was ringing for Ray’s televisor.

  “I’ll see you soon,” said Ray. “I have another call waiting, but I’ll see that no one detains me.”

  Vivian blew him another kiss and snapped off.

  As he reached to the television button to cut in the new caller, he had not the slightest premonition that anything unusual was about to befall him. The figure appeared on the screen. It was Vivian again. Her reappearance shocked him. Before he had time to think why it shocked him, she began to speak. There was nothing unnatural in her voice; still, it expressed such a change in mood from her previous conversation that he gulped in surprise.

  “Ray, there’s been a mistake. I’ve come to the wrong place. I’m here at Space Ship Center. I told Dwight distinctly that I wanted to go to Buchanan’s and here he’s sent me eleven hundred miles in the wrong direction.”

  “You’re—where?” Ray had heard but he could not comprehend.

  “At Space Ship Center, here at the Union Station. I just thought I’d let you know I—”

  “But you just got through telling me the party was in full sway—”

  “No, Ray, I didn’t say anything about the party—”

  “But you just called me from there.”

  “How could I? I haven’t been there. Dwight routed me the wrong way and I—”

  “Wait a minute!” Ray was mentally jolted as if his universe had suddenly jumped out from under him. As he glared from the screen he saw that Vivian was not calling from the same room as before. There were no sounds of party music. This was a private television booth. What had happened? He could not believe that his imagination had simply played a trick on him. Could it be that—

  “Don’t look so blank,” Vivian was saying. “It isn’t as serious as all that. I’ll come right back by radio and we’ll go on to the party together.”

  “Wait, Vivian. Wait till I check the controls. Something’s haywire.” He tried to fight off his dazed feelings. “Probably just a slip-up. Give me your number there and I’ll call you back as soon as I okay things.”

  He took the number down as she snapped off.

  Any of Ray Lattimer’s friends knew that by nature he was more an inventor than an executive. He had to force himself to make quick decisions. But the present enigma might well have caught anyone without a ready course of action. The implications were coming into the clear, but it was hard to accept them. Unless his senses were playing tricks on him, Vivian Lattimer,
his one and only wife, was in two places at once.

  Appalled by the thought of an unspeakable technological possibility, he snatched up the telephone and dialed for Dwight. No one answered. He ran out of the office, through the long sweep of balcony to the control room at the passenger platform. No operator was there. A few passengers were strolling around, waiting for service, but no one was at the controls. Never had such a thing happened before—not since Ray’s first official command: that no one should touch the controls except his own certified operators.

  “Dwight! Dwight!”

  No one answered.

  “Dwight!” In his frenzy Ray had forgotten to make use of the telepage. The ticket agent reported the call, however, and in another moment the clattering voice of the telepage sounded throughout the plant.

  “Dwight Richardson wanted at the control room. President Lattimer calling Dwight Richardson.”

  The swift three minutes of telepaging and searching gave Ray’s suspicions time to shoot out on several sharp tangents, all of which gravitated toward the name of Bart Blougan. Only a few minutes ago, when Vivian left for the party, he bad been here. Now it was apparent he was not here. Had the sly faced, nosy director pulled a fast one?

  One of Blougan’s malpractices had been originally responsible for Ray’s demand for certified operators. For in the early days of Radio Transit, Inc., Blougan had tampered with the controls. At first for his own amusement. Then, discovering in this new plaything a rich vein of private income, he had watched for his chances to engage in the unauthorized practice of “duplicating”—that is, multiplying the goods that went through, by switching on additional receivers.[*]

  How much of this Blougan got away with Ray never knew; but once, at least, a case of gems of great value was involved. As the case had rolled into the transmitter to be radioed to Buchanan’s station, Ray chanced to see Blougan step to the controls and touch two switches.

  To be sure he wasn’t misjudging Blougan, Ray bad traced the results. He found that the jewels had arrived at two different stations simultaneously, just as he had expected. One box reached the addressee; the other Blougan sent for. A very neat trick for converting electrical energy into new tangible wealth. But Ray, already confronted by a wall of legal restrictions, clamped a tight lid on this practice. His franchise was for transportation, not manufacturing.