Indiana Jones and the Hollow Earth

by Max McCoy

  "I need another room," he stated.

  "Huh?"

  "The window's broken."

  "Yep," the clerk said.

  "Well," Indy asked. "Do you have another room?"

  The clerk looked over his shoulder at the rows of keys hanging on the wall. He methodically selected one from the bottom row, made a note of it in the register, and handed it over.

  "Thanks," Indy said. "Oh, and you might want to do something about that window—it's like an icebox in there."

  "Yep," the clerk said.

  Once inside his new room, Indy chained and bolted the door. He was still cold, so he turned up the radiator. Then he took Baldwin's logbook and stood in the middle of the room, searching for a place to hide it.

  There was a knock at the door.

  "What is it?" Indy barked.

  "It's me," a female voice said. It took him a moment to place the voice as Zoe's. "I heard you had some trouble. The clerk told me you had changed rooms."

  "News travels fast around here."

  "It is a small town, dear," Zoe said.

  Indy dropped the logbook on the desk, then went to the door and put his hand on the chain. He hesitated. He put his ear to the wood, trying to hear if there was anyone besides Zoe on the other side.

  "Are you alone?" he asked.

  "Of course. Why?"

  "Just checking," Indy said as he swung open the door.

  "Why, you wicked thing," Zoe drawled as she drifted lazily into the room, smoke trailing from the cigarette in the absurd holder.

  "Do you mind putting that thing out?" Indy asked.

  "What's wrong?" she asked as she threw her coat on the bed.

  "It stinks," Indy said. "And the smoke hurts my eyes."

  "Well, if you're going to be such a baby about it." Zoe ground out the cigarette in the ashtray on the desk. Then she turned and draped her arms around his neck.

  "What do you want?" Indy asked.

  "That should be obvious," she said, "even to an old gravedigger like you. Wouldn't you like to examine these bones? Render a professional opinion, perhaps? You might learn something that could benefit... mankind."

  "I'm flattered." Indy gently pushed her away. "But it's very late and I'm not in the mood, even if I am turning my back on the Rosetta stone of Romance."

  Zoe frowned.

  "I just came by to see if you're hurt."

  "I'm not."

  "Or if you needed anything."

  "I don't."

  "If you're going to be that way—"

  "I am."

  She looked at him with hurt eyes.

  "I'm not too old, am I?" she asked.

  "Of course not," Indy said. "Zoe, I don't really deserve all this attention. I'm glad you came by to check on me and all of that, but I'm really okay and all I need is some sleep."

  "Oh, all right." She sighed and grabbed her coat.

  Indy glanced at the logbook on the desk.

  "Zoe," he said suddenly. "There is one thing you can do for me."

  "What would that be?" she asked tiredly. "Quit breathing?"

  Indy held up the logbook.

  "You want me to hide it for you?" she asked.

  "I don't know," he said. "Maybe it's not such a good idea."

  "What do you mean by that?" she asked, taking the book. "I can do this. I've hidden lots of stuff in my time."

  "This is what those thugs were after earlier tonight," Indy said, "and I would feel safer if it wasn't in the hotel. But I would hate to think what might happen to you if they knew you had it."

  "I thought there was only one thug, and he was in jail."

  "They run in packs," Indy said. "Like wolves."

  "I can take care of myself," Zoe told him as she put on her coat. "See you in the morning."

  "Hey, wait a minute," Indy said. "Where're you going—"

  She placed a finger to his lips.

  "Shush," she said. "Either you trust me or you don't. When you want it back, just ask."

  "All right," Indy said. "I'm too tired to argue. Wait. There's something else."

  He took the crystal from around his neck and gave it to her. She put it on.

  "Does this mean we're engaged?" she asked.

  "Be very careful, Zoe."

  She waved him off.

  "Piece of cake, Doc," she said, and shut the door.

  Indy rubbed his eyes, wondering if he had done the right thing by letting her take the logbook and the crystal. His gut told him, however, that the book was safer with her, at least for the time being. Then he locked the door and undressed, uncharacteristically letting his clothes spill across the floor. He took a pair of long underwear from his suitcase and pulled them on. Then, after he had slipped beneath the covers, he realized he was still wearing his hat. He removed the fedora and tossed it on a bedpost.

  An hour later Indy had a vivid nightmare that someone was trying to strangle him by shoving a handful of ripe persimmons down his throat. He woke to find Reingold holding an ether-soaked rag over his mouth and nose.

  Indy struggled, but his hands and feet were tied.

  "Anesthesia," he heard Reingold say, "has been described as dying in degrees. What do you think, Dr. Jones?"

  Indy's curses were muffled by the rag.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," Reingold said. "How rude of me."

  He removed the rag for a moment, and instead of screaming, Indy found that all he could do was gasp for air. When he had filled his lungs, Reingold clamped the rag down again.

  "Becoming faint, are we?" the Nazi asked. "Things growing dim? It will get blacker and blacker, you know, until you finally lose all consciousness. Can you imagine what we will do to you then?"

  Indy's eyes narrowed in defiance.

  "All you have to do is give us what we want," Reingold continued. "Then we will leave you alone. It's that simple. Do you understand?"

  Indy nodded.

  Things were very dark now.

  "Good," Reingold said. "No tricks, now, or I'll be forced to shoot you."

  He removed the rag.

  Indy gulped in air, nodding, while Reingold hovered over him anxiously.

  "I'm never staying at this hotel again," Indy muttered.

  "Enough of your bravado," Reingold snapped. "Where is the journal?"

  "I don't have it," Indy said.

  Reingold shook his head.

  "I am sorry to hear that," he said. He produced a bottle from his pocket, removed the stopper, and doused the rag again. "We have a very nasty surprise for you if you disappoint us. Now, once again: where is the journal?"

  "I told you," Indy said. "I don't have it."

  "Can you tell us where to find it?"

  Indy was silent.

  "Ah, I was afraid it would come to this," Reingold said, feigning sadness. "And it is such a waste, Dr. Jones. Why die for a few dozen pages of scribbles?"

  Silence.

  "This is your last chance," Reingold said. "Once I administer this final dose, you won't be coming round again—at least not on this side of the grave."

  Indy swallowed.

  "Maybe we could work something out," he suggested.

  "Go on," Reingold said.

  "Okay," Indy said quickly, trying to buy time. "Let's say, just for the sake of argument, that I tell you where Baldwin's journal is."

  "Yes."

  "How do I know," Indy said, "that you'll let me go?"

  Reingold laughed.

  "You don't," he said.

  "Terrific," Indy said.

  "Enough stalling, Dr. Jones. This is your last chance. Are you going to tell me where to find the journal?"

  "Yeah, I'll tell you where to look for it," Indy said. "You can start by going straight to—"

  Indy's shout was silenced by the rag in his mouth.

  "By the way," his tormentor crooned. "My name is Reingold. Just thought you might like to know. Pity you won't get a chance to share this knowledge with anyone."

  At first, Indy thought he had go
ne blind. The only times he had experienced such numbing darkness had been in caves and other underground places.

  Or in dreams.

  Then, of course, he thought the nightmare had returned. He was in some kind of tightly closed box, as usual, with barely enough room to wiggle his shoulders. He could hear voices, and the droning of what sounded like a minister's voice, but the words were strangely muted.

  The peculiar thing was that his head ached. And it was cold. But it wasn't until he ran his hands along the inside lid and sides of the coffin, and jammed a splinter into the tip of his right index finger in the process, that he realized that this was no nightmare.

  He truly had been buried alive.

  Then he heard the preacher quite clearly:

  "...ashes to ashes, dust to dust..."

  A handful of soil sprinkled down on the lid of the coffin with the gentleness of a light rain. Indy tried to scream, but his throat was so dry from the anesthesia that all he could manage was a hoarse, painful whisper. He tried beating his fists against the lid, but there wasn't enough room to get much of a swing; if anyone heard the resulting sound, they did not show it.

  Slowly, the sounds of the crowd moved away.

  All was quiet for a few minutes.

  Then the first shovelful of dirt splattered down with the finality of a death sentence. Indy rocked back and forth and clawed at the lid, but it did not stop the torrent of dirt that followed. He could hear the gravedigger humming to himself as he worked.

  Indy fought down his panic. He closed his eyes and concentrated on working up enough saliva for one long, loud scream.

  "Help!"

  The avalanche of dirt ceased.

  Indy could hear the gravedigger grumbling to himself.

  The tip of the shovel scraped away some dirt, then thumped twice on the lid.

  Indy thumped back.

  "Get me out of here," Indy pleaded hoarsely.

  "I'll be damned," he heard the gravedigger say as he clambered down into the grave. On his hands and knees, he put his head close to the coffin. "You alive in there?"

  "I hope so," Indy managed.

  "What do you mean by that?"

  "I mean we wouldn't be having this conversation if I weren't," Indy said. "Come on, get me out of here."

  He heard a couple of other voices urging the gravedigger to get him out as well. One of them belonged to Zoe, but he couldn't place the male voice.

  A few minutes later the gravedigger had pried the lid off the coffin and Indy crawled out onto the snow-covered ground. He lay on his back in the snow, looking up at the Thule Stone framed by the winter sky.

  He was still in his red long johns.

  "You're not my uncle," Zoe said.

  She was standing over him with her arms crossed. Next to her was a middle-aged man in an expensive suit.

  "I never thought I'd be so glad," Indy said, "to be seen in public in my underwear."

  The gravedigger rubbed his neck. Then he pulled the pint bottle from the back pocket of his overalls. He pulled out the cork and held it high in a toast.

  "Now I've seen everything," he announced.

  The man in the suit held out his hand.

  "I'm glad that I stayed behind to say good-bye to Captain Baldwin in my own way," he said.

  "Well, you're wasting your time," Indy said. "He's not at home."

  "So I gather," the man said. "Forgive my manners. I'm Lincoln Ellsworth."

  "American millionaire and arctic explorer," Indy said.

  "The very one," Ellsworth said. "And you are the infamous rogue scholar Indiana Jones. I had rather hoped that I would meet you here. Although, I must confess, I never expected such a dramatic entrance."

  Ellsworth removed his overcoat, draped it around Indy's shoulders, and helped him to his feet.

  "Thanks," Indy said.

  "He's getting a real reputation around here," Zoe said. "You should have seen what he did to the movie theater last night. I'm sure the sheriff will be thrilled to hear about this."

  "Tell me," Ellsworth said. "May we presume that Captain Baldwin's body is missing?"

  "You presume right," Indy said. "That's his coffin I was in—I know because I brought it with me from Princeton—but I don't know where the old boy is now. I was drugged when they stuffed me in that thing at the funeral home."

  "Lucky they held up the funeral for two hours waiting for my arrival," Ellsworth said, "or else you would have come to with six feet of soil on top of you. But who would do something like this?"

  "The same Nazi thugs that have been trying to steal Baldwin's journal since I left New Jersey," Indy said.

  "Nazis in Kansas," Ellsworth remarked. "How very strange."

  Indy waited for Ellsworth to ask why they were after the journal. When he didn't, Indy suspected that he already knew the answer.

  The millionaire put his hand out and touched the Thule Stone reverently.

  "Dr. Jones," he said. "Forgive my rudeness, considering your ordeal, but have you been able to decipher this?"

  "Not exactly," Indy admitted.

  "Let me give you a hint," Ellsworth said. "The stone tells the story of Ultima Thule, the mythical land where the gods live at the top of the world."

  "A fairy tale," Indy said.

  "A legend," Ellsworth said. "And some legends ring true. The name first cropped up as long ago as 330 B.C., when the navigator Pytheas of Massalia was commissioned to find a new trade route to the amber markets of Northern Europe. According to Pytheas, who found the place when he was blown off course, Thule lay far north of Britain—a sunless land in winter, where volcanoes erupted under glaciers, the sea turned to jelly, and beneath which the gods lived. The Venerable Bede applied the name to Iceland, but I think he was in error...."

  "So this is what brought you here?" Indy asked as he picked the splinters out of his palm.

  "I came here to pay my respects to Captain Baldwin," Ellsworth said indignantly. Then, he added, somewhat less defensively, "And I am highly interested in the area where Baldwin was lost in 1902. You see, that is the same area in which my friend Roald Amundsen disappeared during an airplane flight some years ago."

  "Amundsen was on a rescue mission," Indy said.

  "Yes," Ellsworth said sadly. "Roald was fifty-six and considered himself retired from polar exploration. He had been the first to reach the South Pole, you know, and then flew over the North. I had the privilege of accompanying him on that expedition, and it was an extraordinary experience. He undertook one last air expedition in 1928, to search for his colleague Nobile and the airship Italia."

  "I remember that!" the gravedigger exclaimed, and took another swig while the others tried to ignore him.

  "Nobile was eventually found alive," Ellsworth continued, "but Amundsen—and his hydroplane, and the magnificent airship Italia—were lost to the frozen wastes."

  Indy could not suppress a shiver.

  "Dr. Jones," Ellsworth said. "Do you have the lapis exilis? Did Baldwin give you the stone?"

  "You mean this old thing?" Zoe asked. She reached inside her blouse and brought out the smoky crystal. "The doc here already told me it wasn't worth much."

  "Worthless, and yet priceless," Ellsworth said.

  "You want to buy it?" Zoe asked.

  She slipped the thong from her neck and held out the stone.

  "It's not for sale," Indy growled, and snatched the stone away.

  "Hey!" she protested.

  "I'm not offering to buy it," Ellsworth said. "I am not that crude. My interest is in the stone's connection to Ultima Thule."

  "So you don't want to buy the stone?" Zoe asked.

  "I'm afraid not, my dear."

  Zoe rolled her eyes.

  "Do I have anything else you're interested in? There's this journal—"

  "Zoe!" Indy snapped.

  "Don't worry, Doc," she said. "It's safe. I hid it under the front seat of my car."

  "And it's still there?" Indy asked incredulously.

>   "Sure," she said. Then she took Ellsworth's arm. "And if you're not interested in that, maybe I could just show you around town. I promise you'll have a good time."

  "I'm sony," Ellsworth said as he gracefully disentangled himself. "As charming as you are, I'm afraid that I'm simply not in the market—for anything."

  "Tell me something," Indy said as he draped the stone around his own neck. "How is it that you know so much about Captain Baldwin and all this stuff about a mythical land in the far north?"

  "After his patron quit him, the good captain approached a number of wealthy men looking for support," Ellsworth said. "He came to me and said he had the secret which would unlock the power of the aurora borealis, the northern lights, and provide an inexhaustible source of power for mankind. He shared with me a portion of his story of being lost in the wasteland in 1902—just enough, mind you, to whet my interest. But it just sounded too fantastic at the time, so I declined to finance an expedition; I did not think of it again until my friend Amundsen was lost in the same area."

  Indy's teeth began to chatter.

  "I'm freezing," he said. "Do you mind if we go someplace a little warmer?"

  "I'm afraid that I must be going," Ellsworth said. "Business demands, you know. But I would be keenly interested in following your progress in this matter."

  He produced a business card and handed it to Indy. "Please give me a call, at any time."

  "I'll keep you in mind," Indy said.

  Ellsworth hesitated.

  "Ah, Dr. Jones—this is somewhat awkward, but may I have my coat?"

  Zoe dropped Indy off in the alley behind the hotel.

  "Wait," she said, and handed him the journal.

  "Thanks," Indy said.

  "See you around, Doc," Zoe said. "Good luck."

  Indy slipped into the hotel through the service entrance. A somewhat astonished maid let him back into his room. After a warm bath and donning fresh clothes, he packed his bags and went downstairs to the desk.

  "Dr. Jones," the clerk said. "I'm surprised to find you still here."

  "Not as surprised as I was," Indy said. "Look, I missed my train to New Mexico this morning. Can you call the depot and find out when the next one is?"