It's Alive!

by Richard Woodley

  Frank whirled to the tray, grabbed the tape recorder, and smashed it against the wall. “Get OUT!”

  Nurse Gray trotted out, terrified, stumbled her way down the stairs and out the front door.

  Frank knelt beside the bed. “Lenore, Lenore, god I’m sorry! What was that all about? What was she recording?”

  “She wanted to know everything. She wanted me to talk.”

  “But why? For who?”

  “She didn’t say.” Lenore cried quietly.

  “Lie down now, please, just try to calm down. She’s gone. It’s okay.”

  “I don’t want anyone else in here,” she sobbed, “no one in the house but you. And Chris. Just our family.”

  “Just us, sweetheart. Just relax now.”

  “And Chris.”

  “Chris has gone fishing with Charley, to the lake. He’ll be back tomorrow or day after. He’s fine. Then we’ll all be together.”

  “Nobody but our family.”

  “Nobody. I don’t understand what happened with that nurse. I can’t trust anybody. You had your pills? Good. Sleep now, darling. Just go to sleep.”

  With Frank caressing her forehead, Lenore gradually fell asleep.

  Frank went downstairs and slumped into his chair in the den. He needed to sleep too. My god, that such a thing should happen to Lenore! Like everyone was against them. She was on the ragged edge already, he feared. No one to turn to. Thank god for Charley. He wished he could go to work tomorrow. But even if he could, he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t leave Lenore alone all day.

  They needed the three weeks, anyway. They needed to get away—would, in fact, to St. Thomas, just as soon as she was able.

  A bright new day. The driver stopped his white Homes Dairy truck at the curb and went around to the back and opened one of the loading doors. Bottles and cartons in crates were stacked nearly to the roof. He whistled cheerfully as he clanked through the bottles, picking one from here, one from there, and filling his hand-carrier.

  Still whistling, he strode up the sidewalk toward the porch of the ranch-style house. A breeze riffled through the hedge to his left.

  Except that there was no breeze.

  On the porch was a row of empty bottles, a note protruding from the top of one. The milkman set down his carrier and pulled out the note and read it.

  The breeze seemed to move along the hedge, toward the milk truck.

  The driver nodded, folded the note, stuck it in his pocket, took out four of the eight bottles that were in his carrier, and left them on the porch. Then, resuming his whistle, he headed back toward the truck. At the sidewalk he paused to adjust a trash-can lid that was only half on. Then he stepped into his truck, started the engine, and moved off down the road.

  The bottles clinked behind him as he rolled to a stop sign. There, with the truck standing still, the bottles continued to rattle.

  The driver knitted his brow. He pulled on the brake, stood and turned to lean in the small door behind the driver’s seat, and adjusted the position of the nearest crates. Still the bottles farther back continued their glassy tinkling. He scratched his ear. Then he leaned far in, bending over the nearest crates to reach the farther ones, standing on his tiptoes.

  He froze. “My GOD!” Suddenly his feet left the floor. He had no time to scream. A gurgle came from his throat. He saw only the narrow, long, clawed fingers that flashed toward him, digging into his neck and back and hauling him through the small door.

  Bottles crashed. Out of the rear door, milk trickled, then poured in a flood, washing down over the bumper; a river of fresh white milk flowed down the gutter and disappeared into a storm drain.

  Fresh white milk until it mixed with red.

  Detective Lieutenant Perkins was quite irritated indeed by the presence of State Police Captain Sanford and his Troopers. He didn’t like them butting in. Perkins and Captain Sanford and a handful of officers under the command of each stood near a wall over which was spread a huge map of the western parts of the city. Jutting from the map were five stickpins, four with tiny blue banners on them, one with red.

  Captain Sanford peered at the map, and Perkins chewed a cigar and peered at him.

  “Well,” said the captain, “throw out the first pitch, get the ball rolling, everybody out of the trenches, let’s get this show on the road. This is serious.”

  “We’ve been serious,” Perkins drawled, “for three days now, captain.” He stepped to the map. “The red pin is the hospital where the first attacks occurred. The four blue pins represent the locations of the subsequent attacks.”

  “Four? I understood there were only three others.”

  “A motorist stopped out in the canyon to fix a flat. Found him in a ditch beside the road. Few hours ago. That makes four.”

  The captain squinted at the map, extending a thumb and forefinger, rotating his hand and sighting over them. “There’s no pattern here, no angles, no coordinates. The thing just moves around from one place to another, killing wantonly.”

  “Actually,” piped up one of Perkins’s officers, “we think it may be heading—”

  Perkins held up a palm quickly, and scowled at his junior man, chomping vigorously on his cigar. Then he turned to the captain. “You didn’t expect it to have some kind of master plan, did you? After all, it’s only three days old.”

  “Three days is too much . . . too much,” Sanford said somberly, shaking his head. “I guess that’s why we were called in.”

  “I would imagine,” Perkins said.

  “Manpower,” the captain snapped up straight, “and clout. Equipment, personnel, entrée to the governor. We got all that. That’s some kid out there.” He stuck out his lower lip. “Could have used this kid in Vietnam. Appetite for combat. Guerrilla warfare. Heh-heh. Now then,” he rapped on the map with his knuckles, “we could just flood the whole area with Troopers, scour it from top to bottom, flush the bugger out that way.”

  “I’m afraid we’d end up shooting each other,” Perkins said.

  “Leadership and discipline would correct that. Or, we could just slip a few plainclothesmen into the area, like ordinary citizens, you know, have them leaning on lamp posts, strolling on side streets, sitting on park benches.”

  “I don’t think we need decoys,” Perkins said. “Our problem ain’t that kind of problem. We just need a careful, intelligent search.”

  “Choppers and binoculars. Hover all over the area, keeping eyes peeled.”

  “Helicopters wouldn’t help us much at night, which is half our problem.”

  “Gas, smoke, bring him out coughing like crazy, ready to quit.”

  “This is a heavily populated residential area, captain. Excuse me, but I’d like to suggest that we gotta just be quiet and careful and fast. We been using a tactical quick-strike mobile force, on the road round-the-clock, coordinating with foot patrols. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Time, time, TIME! This thing is killing people! If only I could see what this thing looks like, just once, get a peg onto it, get my hooks into it!” He jabbed his finger into Perkins’s chest. “Before it gets its hooks into you. Heh-heh. Listen, the orders are pretty simple. Kill the goddam thing, right?”

  “Right.”

  “No arrest, no reading the rights.”

  “Nope.”

  “That shouldn’t be hard.”

  “Finding it is the hard part.”

  “We’ll do ’er, we’ll do ’er. Now, you say this thing—what should we call it? You got a better name? We ought to put a code on it.”

  “ ‘Thing’ ” is okay. We know what you mean.”

  “Now, you say it’s larger than a baby, but smaller than an adult?”

  “Judging by the hole it got out through, right.”

  “But stronger than either?”

  “Well, it jumped straight out that hole, in my opinion.”

  “Christ, must have thighs like Jim Brown. And what else?”

  “We figure it must have claws of some sort,
from the wounds. Beyond that, we got a blank on it. Seems like it drinks milk, like from the milk truck. Cries sometimes—some people claim to have heard it, before it killed. We don’t know for sure. We know it moves around, we don’t know how. Like a mole, maybe. That’s about it.”

  “Does it bleed?”

  “Who knows?”

  The captain snickered. “Oh, it’ll bleed all right. Wait’ll it gets a taste of my magnum hollow-tips.”

  “We just figure it’s like an animal, captain. Approach it that way. Like a very dangerous, unpredictable animal.”

  “Like your damn DOG!” Captain Sanford belched laughter.

  “Just to keep people from panicking, captain.”

  “What’s the difference, get chewed up by a mad mutt, or ripped apart by some two-headed dwarf? Dead’s dead.”

  “Well, I think word has gotten around anyway that it wasn’t a dog, captain. You can’t fool all of the people too long.”

  “Let’s not let politics creep into this,” the captain said sternly. “Job is tough enough. Straight ahead with it. We’ve got to act before more innocent people die.”

  “Right.”

  “So,” Sanford pulled a large note pad from his inside jacket pocket, squatted, flipped it open on the floor, and began to sketch on it, “I’ve got a plan. A whole bunch of tactical mobile patrols, coordinated with foot patrols, a whole bunch of telephone operators sending important messages instantly to the field. When that pint-sized terrorist shows its hand—or claw or whatever the hell it shows—we’ve got it!”

  “One thing, captain.” Perkins bit off the end of his cigar and spit it away. “It’s also got a brain. Remember that. That’s why it can slip around like it does. And, at a distance of a few feet, it’s quicker than we are. Keep a tight rein on your men. You let one of your men drift off by himself, you’re gonna lose a cop.”

  Dr. Norten and Professor Eckstein of the U.C.L.A. Medical Center sat on the sofa in the Davis living room. Frank paced impatiently back and forth in front of them.

  “Mrs. Davis seems to be progressing very nicely,” Norten said. “I’m terribly sorry about that nurse. Frightful woman. Can’t understand what got into her. You must be handling the nursing job very well yourself.”

  “Not much to do,” Frank admitted. “Well then, I guess there’s nothing else to talk about.”

  “Actually, I and Professor Eckstein here were really hoping we could discuss a related matter with you for a few minutes.”

  “About what?”

  Professor Eckstein fidgeted with his briefcase. “You must understand, Mr. Davis, that I’m acting on behalf of the scientific community in the interests of increasing knowledge in the field of genetics.”

  Frank furrowed his brow. “Come on, professor, you don’t have to put it to music. What is it you want?”

  “I have here several forms upon which we would appreciate your signature. We are simply anticipating the complicated legalities which might intrude upon a study of this nature.”

  “Let me see the papers.”

  Eckstein handed him the documents. “I might mention that already in excess of one hundred thousand dollars has been allocated by the university for examination of this phenomenon. We have some of the leading men in the field prepared to associate in this project, and it is hoped that their research might lead to a breakthrough in the understanding of why mutations occur.”

  “What you want to do,” Frank said, slapping down the documents on the table, “is experiment on it.”

  “ ‘Experiment’ is not a word I would use,” Dr. Norten put in.

  “Undoubtedly it is dangerous,” said Professor Eckstein, “and will—and must—be killed. It is our hope that the brain will not be damaged. My department has already sent a memo to the authorities urging them to restrain themselves from excessive violence. If it can be dispatched by a single bullet, or preferably with a gas of some kind—”

  “You want me to sign away the body.”

  “In a nutshell. It’s your right. After all, it’s your child.”

  “It’s not my child!”

  “As you wish. It’s not for me or anyone else to judge you.”

  “In any event,” Dr. Norten said, “an autopsy would be desirable—probably required, in fact, in such a case. But I don’t imagine that you’ll want to have a funeral for the child. I mean, a formal burial. All of that wouldn’t be good for yourself or your wife, in her current mental state . . .”

  Lenore stood silently, unseen, on the stairs, listening and clutching her robe tight around her neck, her knuckles white and trembling. Tears glistened on her cheeks. She turned and disappeared upstairs.

  “. . . The Medical Center,” Professor Eckstein went on, “is simply willing to relieve you of this depressing responsibility. Now,” he held out a pen, “if you will just sign each copy, above where your name is typed . . .”

  “Christ.”

  Norten stood and raised his index finger. “It seems that out of every tragedy, every evil, some good can come, if we can conquer our—”

  “Shut up, will you, doctor?” Frank snatched the pen from the professor, sat down at the table, and began scribbling his name on the documents. “Here. I don’t care. Do whatever you want.”

  “That’s very wise of you,” the professor said, “to dissociate yourself emotionally.”

  Frank completed the signing and looked up from the table, his eyes softened. “I suppose it will be in all the medical journals, all the history books. ‘The Davis Child,’ or ‘The Davis Monster.’ Like Frankenstein.”

  “I would say it is very likely that this will be remembered,” Dr. Norten said, “long after all of us are forgotten.”

  Frank stood and faced the wall across the table. He chuckled sadly. “You know, when I was a kid I always thought the monster was Frankenstein. Karloff, walking around with his big iron shoes, grunting. I thought he was Frankenstein. It wasn’t until I was in high school and read the book that I realized that Frankenstein was the doctor who created him, not the monster itself. Somehow, the identities get all mixed up, don’t they?”

  “Well, perhaps, but I don’t think that’s really—”

  “So I wonder if people will think of the monster as ‘Davis.’ But you’re right,” he turned toward the men, smiling slightly, “it doesn’t matter. It won’t be forgotten. Never.”

  Lenore came down the stairs with a sprightly step, smiling brightly, hair combed, makeup on. “Oh, hello, you two gentlemen still here? How nice.”

  “Actually we were just preparing to leave,” Professor Eckstein said. “I believe these,” he reached for the signed documents and tucked them into his briefcase, “are mine.” He closed the case and patted it.

  Dr. Norten put a hand on Lenore’s shoulder. “I don’t suppose you’ve been taking those pills as you’re supposed to.” He smiled benevolently. “You really should, you know.”

  Lenore smiled back and spoke softly. “Maybe it’s all the pills I’ve taken over the years that brought this on.”

  “Oh, now, pshaw. You know Dr. Francis wouldn’t have prescribed anything he thought harmful. Nor would I. You really shouldn’t be downstairs, should you?”

  “Nonsense.” Lenore brushed past him and went to the picture window and pulled open the drapes. It was growing dark outside. “It’s time I was back on my feet.” She turned to face them, her hands clasped together over her chest. “Why don’t you gentlemen stay for dinner?”

  “Oh no, we couldn’t have you—”

  “I believe we have some nice lamb chops in the freezer,” she counted off menu items on her fingers, “and mint jelly, and a fresh green salad, and I’ll make a very light angel-food cake for dessert—that’s Frank’s favorite.”

  “Truly we can’t stay,” Dr. Norten insisted.

  Lenore bustled around the room emptying ashtrays into a waste basket, straightening pillows on the sofa, adjusting lampshades. “This place is a mess,” she smiled as she moved around the
room, “lots to do. But I always feel better when I’m busy. Frank,” she didn’t bother to look at him, “be a dear and go down to the basement and get us a bottle of Beaujolais. That will be good with the chops.” She beamed over at Dr. Norten. “We keep quite an extensive wine cellar. You should see it. It’s one of Frank’s many hobbies. He can do so many things, a many-faceted man.”

  “I’m sure . . .”

  “I’ll see you to the door,” Frank said quietly to the two medical men.

  Lenore continued tidying up, humming as she worked.

  The three men went outside.

  “Her spirits seem surprisingly high,” Norten said.

  Frank didn’t answer.

  The doctor took a deep breath and looked off across the neighborhood. “Lovely evening. Southern California is truly so delightful, so pleasant for an old man like me. Such a nice, even temperature. Rarely too cold . . .”

  His voice trailed off. He averted his face.

  Never too cold. Frank suspected that the doctor was thinking the same thing. Never too cold. “That’s part of our problem, isn’t it, doctor?”

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “It doesn’t get cold enough at night. Not cold enough to kill a baby animal out of its den and away from its mother.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good night, gentlemen.”

  Frank stepped back inside and closed the door. He watched out the window as the two men walked toward their car, talking animatedly and nodding their heads.

  “They couldn’t stay,” Lenore said matter-of-factly, moving an armchair a couple of feet away from the wall. “That’s a pity.”

  Frank watched them drive away and remained staring out the window.

  “A nice meal, that’s what you need.” Lenore headed for the kitchen. “I’ll bet you haven’t eaten in a couple of days. Lamb chops and wine, candlelight . . .”

  Frank frowned. “I’ll get the wine.”

  He went through the kitchen to the cellar door, flipped up the hook, stepped in to the top of the stairs, and without thinking shut the door behind him.

  He hated these stairs. Black. You would think that somebody building a modern house like this would put a light switch right at the door. He would wire one up one day soon, he’d always told himself.