The Walt Whitman MEGAPACK ™

by Millard, Joseph J.

  Lion seemed well satisfied with the arrangements, for he worked swiftly and well. Perspiration stood out on his face. His hands, very white under the light, were shaking.

  He stepped to the light switch and turned out the single bulb that illuminated the room. Then the tubes on the machine started to flicker, became powerful and the cabinet hummed like a queen bee. Then I held on and watched it happen.

  Neva Lion seemed suddenly to change. Her white, delicate flesh turned dark, then brown. It shriveled and her flesh seemed to fall away beneath it…

  I held down a yell of terror. I kept looking, forgetting that my face in the window might be seen anytime. No danger. Lester and his boss weren’t looking for anyone in my direction.

  The girl was changing before my eyes, into a bony, mummified corpse. Then I knew what Lion was doing. He was destroying his daughter and producing a sort of cross-current that gave her qualities to the mummy on the table.

  Flesh filled out under the cracked, dried skin of the thing on the table. The skin itself changed color and glowed with life. The face took shape.

  Lion had discovered the deadly secret of exchanging one life for another. I knew that this thing had taken place once before. The mummy, now a well formed, sleeping girl with long black hair, was the same creature I had seen floating about in the boat on the surface of the lagoon.

  I wanted to do something. I wasn’t in a position to do anything but hold on. In three minutes, and they seemed like centuries, the thing was over. Lion was turning off the machine and wrapping the girl in a soft blanket. Lester covered the thing on the bed. They left the room and I started backing downward as fast as I could. I did all right until I was six feet from the porch roof. Then I took the fastest way.

  I lay still on the rooftop and watched them carry the girl to the garden. Lion’s voice came up to me clearly.

  “Watch the gate. We’ll be out of here in an hour. The shock would be too great to her if we left at once.”

  Lester growled something I didn’t understand and went back toward the front of the house. So this was the payoff. After Lion was out of sight in the darkness, I crawled down the post and followed him. In the shelter of the trees, I watched him place the girl on the bench near the water and pull the swan boat toward him on a long rope. He gathered her into his arms and placed her in the boat. Her arms sought his neck and drew him down close. Their lips met. The girl was like a hypnotized thing. She moved slowly, without energy, without interest in anything but him.

  “You have awakened again, Princess,” Lion said. “We will go soon, to strange places in this world.”

  He was a pretty convincing wolf as wolves go.

  “I am glad,” the girl said.

  “I made you sleep again,” he said. “Now you will remain awake and will not suffer. Do you like your lagoon and your swans?”

  She nodded and the long, ebony hair moved in the breeze.

  “I brought you to your lagoon so that you would not be frightened. Will you leave with me, and not be frightened when you see strange things? Will you trust me?”

  “I am safe with you,” she said. “And very happy.”

  I looked away from this tender scene and thought of the ugly corpse on the bed in Neva’s room. I fought down all the emotions I felt toward the dream stuff in Lion’s arms. Who was she? Nothing but a mummy, I told myself. A damned, dried up mummy who had no reason to live again.

  When I had worked my temper past the lukewarm point and it was boiling, I stood up and went toward Lion. I pushed my automatic ahead of me. They looked pretty silly when they saw me. The girl didn’t mind. She was out cold as far as thinking was concerned. Not Lion. He knew I wasn’t playing games this time.

  “I’m not talking very much,” I said. “I’m not wasting any lead.”

  He managed to drop her and get to his knees. The girl threw her arms around him and he tore himself loose. She started to sob.

  I said, “You got fifteen seconds to start talking.”

  I sounded pretty frightening. My voice slipped way down into the bass key and I imitated a tough guy who is having fun being that way. I guess I was.

  He talked.

  “You’ve got to let us go,” he said. “There’s nothing in this for you. I’ve got money. I’ll pay you well. Give me an hour. I can pay.”

  “You’re repeating yourself,” I said. “Stand up.”

  He slipped and fell flat on his back. He got to his feet. He was a changed man. I guess the strain had been pretty heavy on him. He really liked that kid in the boat and he had worked hard to keep her.

  “I don’t like men who murder their wives and their daughters,” I said. “They stink—in any language.”

  Lion got some control over his voice. “I had to kill my wife,” he said. “She wouldn’t shut up. I offered her money and a divorce. She would have gone on talking.”

  “You strangled her,” I said.

  He took a step in my direction. “Don’t you—can’t you understand what this means to me?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I understand that there’s a girl upstairs who gave up her life for this.”

  He started to plead his case, and he would have, made a clever shyster lawyer.

  “You haven’t anything to gain by this,” he said. “I worked for years to perfect the thing I have done. I wasn’t a criminal. I found that I could bring life back to people of the past. I didn’t mean any harm.”

  His voice became cool and technical. He was so wrapped up in his own greatness that he forgot to be frightened.

  “I can steal the blood, the soul, even the atom, structure from one person’s body and transfer them to another. I doped the person from whom I stole. I gave them back their life when I had completed the work.”

  He looked tenderly at the girl.

  “I was learning history from the very lips of the past. Then I created this—this girl. She was lovely. She stole my heart. I couldn’t bear to send her back to the tomb.”

  He paused and made a futile little gesture with his hands.

  “I fell in love.”

  “Nice sentiment,” I said.

  He sent a flood of words at me. He recited a well learned lesson.

  “I wanted the Princess. My wife thought I was mad. She saw the girl in my arms. She learned what I had done. I told her she was crazy. I went on and built the lagoon down here. I put the swan boat and the swans on the lagoon. All this cushioned my Princess from the shock of entering this world. My wife left, but I could not let Neva leave. Then you came, and I had to revive Neva so that you could talk to her.

  “Tonight I have brought my Princess back to the lagoon for the last time. If you help us, we will both be gone from here in a few minutes. Think, man! I can make you rich! You will speak to no one. No one will ever know.”

  “It sounds profitable for me,” I admitted.

  “It will be,” he said eagerly. “I’ll write a check. You name the amount.”

  “It sounds profitable,” I repeated. “It also sounds like the kind of a deal a skunk like you would dope out.”

  He was coming after me. There was an insane streak in the man. He had the spirit of an animal, fighting for its mate.

  “You spoiled everything,” he said coldly. “Why didn’t I kill you when I had the chance?”

  He moved like lightning. The girl cried out as he hit me in the belly! It knocked the wind out of me, but I brought the barrel of the gun down on his head and saw red. It was his blood.

  He fell back and hit the trunk of a pine tree.

  He grunted and didn’t move again.

  I don’t know how I went through with it. I never really use my head for anything but taking the brunt of any attack. I must have been thinking without realizing it. I took the girl by the hand and d
ragged her toward the house. She didn’t have any fight in her. She was like a sleepwalker. I guess I’m human. I wondered for a while, when I was close to her, if it wasn’t a good idea for me to skip the country—and take my little mummy with me. Then I got back on the right track and didn’t dare to look at her again. She had a lot of figure that would have made me happy, if I could have forgotten Neva.

  I locked her in the room with Neva. I didn’t worry about her much. She slumped down on the bed and sat there. I got Lion and dragged him up to the house. His feet beat a tattoo on the stairs and I grunted and strained until we reached the room on the third floor.

  I dumped Lion in the corner of the room. He was still out cold. I picked up the girl and put her on the table. She couldn’t think for herself. She didn’t have an ounce of fight in her.

  “Don’t worry, chicken, this isn’t going to hurt—much.”

  I had been day-dreaming for a long time. I didn’t think of Lester again until he came into the room like the Twentieth Century on a record run. It wasn’t time now to employ idle conversation. I saw him coming, that meatball face of his all lighted up with a slaughterhouse look. I pivoted and drew at the same time. I pumped lead into him until he stopped coming and went down on his knees.

  Even then he wasn’t afraid. He tried to speak twice, and finally got the right words out.

  “Don’t—shoot—any more,” he said, and slumped down on the floor. I didn’t.

  It wasn’t necessary.

  When I got through with Lester, Frank Lion was on his feet again. He was so groggy he didn’t know what it was all about. He was game, though, and desperate. He staggered toward me.

  “Stay away,” I said. “It’s my party now.”

  He didn’t hear me. His eyes were glazed over. He was breathing hard. He grabbed a handful of tubes and was going to break up the machine. I let him have it. I emptied the automatic into his guts. He didn’t have time to ruin the cabinet. He let go of the tubes, grabbed himself with both hands and went to the floor. Saliva was drooling from his mouth. Then the saliva was red. He wasn’t going to get up.

  I don’t know how I did it. I go to church only on Easter Sunday. I don’t ask God for a lot of things that I’m better off without in the first place.

  I guess I have a photographic mind.

  I had watched it all happen once. I figured I had to try.

  I locked the door. I’m glad I did. Before I had turned my back, I heard footsteps pounding up toward me. The Intellect was shouting my name. “Okay,” I said. “I’m in here. The door’s locked. Don’t break it down.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “You go down stairs and wait there. I got something to do. I’ll come down when I’m ready.”

  The Intellect sounded hurt.

  “I don’t get it,” he said.

  I sighed. I was busy tying the girl down to the table. The copper wire came in handy. She didn’t protest. Her eyes never left Lion’s corpse.

  “You’ll get it, all right,” I called to the Intellect. “You wait a while, and you get more than you asked for.”

  He was arguing with someone outside the door. After a minute, they all went away.

  I tried to figure out all the wires. Evidently Lion had had trouble on the same thing. They were labeled, on the face of the cabinet. “Right foot” — “left hand”—“negative”—“positive.”

  I guessed that the Princess ought to be negative, and hoped I was right. Neva was positive. I got all the wires in place.

  I’ve never prayed. I looked up toward the ceiling, because that was supposed to be the right direction to look in at a time like this. I didn’t see the ceiling. I saw the clear, star filled sky beyond it. I don’t know what else I saw, but I said:

  “It isn’t for me. It’s for Neva. She’s a pretty good kid. She deserves some help.”

  I pressed the switch that lighted the tubes.

  I think if I had had another slug in my gun, I would have used it on myself in those next few-moments. Nothing happened! I gave up. I looked at the poor, dead thing on the bed and there was sweat standing out in beads on my face. Then my eyes started to sting, and I wiped them with my coat sleeve. That wasn’t sweat.

  Slowly, the change started to take place. I leaned closer, not during to trust my eyes. There was movement below the skin. There was color, coming slowly back to the skin itself.

  Gradually, the change became complete. I have never witnessed a miracle before. I wouldn’t know how to tell it, so a person could understand. Maybe Lion could, but not any longer for he was dead.

  I went down the stairs carrying Neva in my arms. I left the door open upstairs because no one was going to get away—not now. I had wrapped Neva in a soft blanket, and I carried her proudly, holding her close to me. She was my baby now, and I had given back her life to her.

  She wasn’t awake. The drug would hold her in its spell for a long time. Her body was normal, though. So normal that it made my heart beat like a trip hammer.

  The Intellect met me at the bottom of the steps. Foggerty and a half-dozen cops were there. They started asking questions. I didn’t let go of Neva. I didn’t feel the wound in my shoulder. I felt swell.

  “You’ll find two dead men and a mummy upstairs,” I said to Foggerty. “When Frank Lion died, he had confessed to murdering his wife. He tried to kill his daughter. She’ll tell you that when she’s normal and well again. The other corpse is an ex-con. You won’t have to jail him. You can bury him instead.”

  “You said there was a mummy,” Foggerty said, and I didn’t blame him for looking at me as though I’d better go to the hospital myself.

  “Just misplaced,” I said. “Put her back in her coffin in the front hall. She won’t hurt you.”

  We all stood there wondering what to do next. I said:

  “How about an ambulance and a police escort. This girl needs a doctor.” Foggerty came out of his trance and jumped for a phone, I eased myself into a chair and cuddled Neva’s head on my shoulder. Her clean, blond hair tickled my nose. It smelled wonderful. In her sleep, she snuggled closer. They all went upstairs. When they came down, they tried to pump me.

  “I’m not talking yet,” I said. “I’ve got business first. When Neva feels better, I’ll try to tell you some things I don’t know much about myself.” Foggerty was a good cop, and a good guy.

  “Sure,” he said. “Sure, you better rest up. You’ve been shooting to beat hell, and you collected a little lead yourself. I think everything is going to turn out okay.”

  I heard the police siren in a distance. I stood up and Foggerty made a path to the door for me.

  In the ambulance, I started to feel a lot better.

  SATAN TURNS THE TIMETABLES, by David M. Norman

  Originally published in 10-Story Detective, Sept. 1943.

  The accompaniment of hissing steam, clatter of the drawbars, and the clickety-clack of wheels on rails never soothed Joe Mead into relaxing his vigilance. Piloting Number 74 through one of the worst stretches of track required a man’s full attention.

  Joe Mead, grey, grizzled, and weather-seamed, leaned out of the locomotive cab window, eyes on the road-bed every second. Pretty soon he’d reach that sharp curve which by itself was bad enough, but a man couldn’t throttle her down too much because there was a steep grade just around the bend. It was an engineer’s nightmare, but Joe Mead had taken it so often, he scarcely thought about the matter.

  He glanced at his fireman who was resting on his shovel.

  “Ever get notions?” Joe Mead asked. “Call ‘em hunches if you like. I’ve got a feeling we’re in for trouble.”

  The fireman made a derisive wrinkling of his nose. “You got the heebies, Pop. Anyway, nothing better happen to this train. Not with fourteen cars loade
d with passengers.”

  “Nothing will,” Joe Mead said grimly. “Sure, it’s the heebies, all right. I get ‘em every time we roll through here. It’s where Midford got his five years ago—when the locomotive and tender went over. Midford was my pal. We started work together and planned to retire together. Hey—make me some steam. We’ve got a schedule to fill, or didn’t you know that?”

  The fireman grinned and went to work. Joe Mead stuck his head out of the cab window again and saw the start of that bad curve in the powerful headlight. The locomotive took the corner gracefully. Joe Mead breathed a sigh of relief that was suddenly cut short.

  There before him, directly in the middle of the tracks, was a man. He stood not two hundred yards away so that the big headlight beam shot above him. Yet the man was illuminated well—as if the light formed around him like a halo. “Midford,” Joe Mead yelled. “Midford!”

  It was his friend, dead for five years—killed close by in an accident. Midford—whom he had known so well and could never mistake. Midford seemed huge, towering, and he stayed right in the middle of the tracks. Joe Mead grabbed the brake and yanked it with all his strength. Steel scraped against steel, throwing sparks, jolting the whole train.

  But it was too late. The train, traveling at fifty-five miles an hour couldn’t possibly be stopped. Joe Mead saw the man loom up larger and larger. Then the locomotive blocked his vision. Why hadn’t the man moved? Of course it couldn’t have been Midford. Joe Mead had been one of the pall bearers at his funeral, but no matter who he was, it became cruelly apparent that he’d deliberately committed suicide.

  The heavy train came to a stop. Joe Mead leaped out of the cab and raced down the tracks. A brakeman and conductor, armed with lanterns, joined him. His fireman came up, well to the rear. “What happened?” the conductor asked.

  “A man, on the tracks. Looked like Midford to me,” Joe Mead explained. “He stood there, let the train hit him. Help me look for what’s left.” The conductor glanced at his watch and turned to the brakeman.