It's Alive!

by Richard Woodley

  “I should say so.”

  “. . . Because, doctor, as I’m sure you already know, her glands may still be so afflicted, still producing in outrageous spasms.”

  “Quite right.”

  “And if they are, doctor, we must assume one of two things.”

  “One or the other.”

  “Either she is unique, in a way herself a mutant . . .”

  “Or . . .”

  “. . . or she is not unique. If the former applies, we have a simply medical curiosity. But if it’s the latter—let us pray it is not—then we could be facing what might turn out to be—I don’t want to overstate it—a horrifying epidemic.”

  The phone quivered in Norten’s hand as he stared wide-eyed at the wall. “We must keep this under our hats, professor.”

  “You think so? I was about to suggest that we send out an urgent alert to obstetricians and others involved with—”

  “No, absolutely not. Not until we’re sure. We would risk a panic.”

  “But what if—”

  “Continue your excellent work, professor. Don’t breathe a word to anyone except me. As the one in charge of the medical aspects of this case, I must assume total responsibility. Mrs. Davis must be approached cautiously, for she is highly suspicious of tests or treatment just now. First, we must have the infant. Then, at the proper time, I will undertake the research into the bodily functions of Mrs. Davis.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I believe in proceeding with care and caution.”

  “So many people already dead . . .”

  “What’s past is past.”

  “Or prologue, doctor.”

  The old woman slogged along the dark sidewalk as if through deep sand, lifting her feet wearily, pushing in front of her a twisted, rusting shopping cart loaded with rags. It was for this she was known around town as “the rag lady.”

  She wore a long, tattered coat, ripped army boots, and a faded kerchief on her head. She muttered to herself as she moved painfully along.

  She slept in stairwells or wherever anyone would let her in to curl up behind a door. Though not an esthetic treat, she harmed no one.

  Whenever anyone would listen, the rag lady told tales. Stories of things she knew, things she saw: sagas of adventure, visitations of spirits and Martians, insights into the cosmos as well as the immediate neighborhood. Children loved her fables, and would often bring her bits of discarded clothing, which she added to her cart; parents begged them to stay away from her.

  All day and into each night, she walked alone, mumbling her own stories over and over again to herself.

  She plodded past the playground, where so often she could find an audience. But now she didn’t bother looking for anyone, because it was night and the playground was naturally deserted. She trudged steadily on, her head bobbing in rhythm to the slow dirge of her legs.

  Until she heard a swing creak.

  She pressed her face up against the chain-link fence and tried to focus her watery eyes on the row of swings in the center of the playground. The swing squeaked again and again in regular tempo. Just as it did during the day, when the schoolchildren were there.

  Straining to see a distance beyond her normal view, she blinked several times to clear her old, dim eyes. She could make out the swing now, arcing steadily back and forth. And someone in it.

  “Halloo,” she called weakly.

  The swing stopped. The child got off. It came toward her. Not walking, rather half crawling and half hopping. It began to cry.

  It neared the fence and stopped, its crying increasing in pitch and intensity. It wailed now, screamed. It sprang onto the fence.

  The rag lady’s eyes widened slowly in terror. Blood drained from her face. She stumbled backward. “Nooo,” she whimpered, “nooo . . .” Her eyes rolled back in her head. She fell across the shopping cart, knocking it over and spilling its contents along the sidewalk.

  There she lay, face up, amid all her rags, seeing no longer what now reached the top of the fence and dropped down beside her.

  They found her early in the morning.

  “Look, sarge, it’s the rag lady!”

  They pulled the police cruiser to the curb and jumped out. The sergeant quickly knelt at her head and put his hands along the sides of her neck, feeling for pulse.

  “She’s alive, at least. Call for an ambulance.”

  The patrolman trotted back to the cruiser to send the call while the sergeant cradled the rag lady’s head in his arm.

  She stirred and opened her foggy eyes. She threw her hand up as if to ward off a blow, then slowly lowered it as she peered at the sergeant.

  “It’s okay now, lady, just take it easy. We got an ambulance on its way. Don’t try and move.”

  She moaned and rolled her eyes. “Oooh, ooww . . .”

  “On its way, sergeant.” The patrolman knelt beside them as they heard the siren in the distance. “What’s with her, anyway?”

  “Probably hasn’t eaten in a week. Take it easy now, lady.”

  She rocked in his arms and moaned. “I seen it, oooh, I seen it—”

  “Yeah, yeah, take it easy, we’ll get you into a nice, warm bed.”

  “Seen what, sergeant? What’d she see?”

  “Martian, dinosaur, pot of gold, maybe John Wayne. Who the hell knows? What’d you see, lady?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Oooh . . . baby, I seen the baby . . . ooww . . .”

  “What baby?”

  The ambulance whined around the corner and lurched to a stop. Two white-clad attendants pulled a stretcher out of the back and ran over to where the rag lady lay moaning. Quickly they arranged a pillow and blankets. “Where’s she hurt, sergeant?” one of them asked, dropping to his knees beside him.

  “Nowhere I can find. I think she just collapsed.”

  “Okay, ma’am,” the attendant said, slipping his arms under her, “nice and easy now, we’ll just move you onto the stretcher.”

  “. . . I seen it . . . aaah . . .”

  “There, there.”

  They put her gently on the ambulance bed. One attendant stayed with her, the other closed the doors, and went around to take the driver’s seat.

  The sergeant waved goodbye and turned toward the cruiser. “Guess we better take her goddam cart,” he said to the patrolman. “Stick it in our trunk.”

  The patrolman picked up the cart. “Sergeant, where’s her rags?”

  “How the hell should I know? Maybe she sold ’em.” He picked up the telephone receiver on the radio. “Dispatcher, this is Car 31, Car 31. Over.”

  “But who would want to buy—”

  “Car 31 . . . Yeah, we got a ten-fifty-four here outside the Darwin School playground, turned out to be the old rag lady . . . Yeah, ambulance just left . . . No visible injuries, like maybe she just passed out . . . Only communication was she kept ranting about seeing something or other . . . Yeah, a baby. Right . . . I don’t know, just a baby. Maybe it was Jesus . . . You knew her . . . Yeah. So we’ll get back on our ten-ninety-eight . . . What? Resume our patrol, for chrissake. Ain’t you got no code chart down there? . . . Right. Ten-four.”

  “It was just the old rag lady, lieutenant.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Detective Perkins said, wetting down a fresh cigar, “but what’s this about seeing a baby?”

  “I don’t know. That’s all the sergeant said when he radioed in. This is verbatim.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Perkins said, scanning the transcript. “Listen, get him back on the radio, make him repeat exactly what he heard, tell him I said so. I’m going over to the hospital.”

  “But lieutenant, she wasn’t even injured—”

  “Just do as I say. You get any more details, call me there.”

  Detective Lieutenant Perkins, accompanied by Dr. Norten in his green surgical gear, and Professor Eckstein, hurried along the corridor toward the bed of the rag lady.

  “Why the unusual interest, lieutenant?” asked Dr
. Norten. “You think she really saw something?”

  “You never know.”

  They entered the room and went quickly to the bedside.

  The rag lady was propped up on pillows, clean and pale, her jaw set in sassy disdain for her visitors.

  “Now then, missus, I’m Detective Perkins, and you know the doctor here. I understand you saw something last night. Would you tell me about it?”

  “Hmmph. I seen it, that’s all.”

  “What?”

  “The baby. That monster whippersnapper you been lookin’ for.”

  “Now, dear lady,” Dr. Norten cooed, “we all know how you—”

  “Tell me what you saw, missus.”

  She snorted. “Well, if I’m talkin’ to a real detective! Lot of folks pretend to be the law. I see lots of things, you know, on my rounds. Nobody believes me nohow.”

  He flipped open his wallet to reveal his gold shield.

  “All right, then. I seen that thing, close up, on the fence. It come right over to me.”

  “Describe it”

  “Well, it didn’t look much like nothin’ I ever seen before. It had great big eyes, and claws.”

  “Mmm-hmm. What else? Did it have hair?”

  “No hair. Bald as a bowling ball. Funny, round body too, you know? Claws on the legs. I know, ’cause it was grippin’ real good on to the fence.”

  “Mmm-hmm. Did you just find it there, hanging on to the fence?”

  “Oh no. It was over there on the swing, swinging up and down. I thought it was maybe one of my friends, one of my many close friends. So I called to it. And it come hoppin’ right over to the fence.”

  “Hopping?”

  “That’s what I said. Like a goshdam kangaroo. Except farther. It hopped farther, higher.”

  “Hmm. Did you have any conversation with it?”

  “Conversation?”

  “Yeah, did it talk to you?”

  “Now looka here, you may be a detective, but that don’t cut no ice with me if you’re gonna wisecrack. How could I talk with a thing like that? I don’t even speak French good no more. It just hung there and cried, just like a baby.”

  “I see.”

  Dr. Norten took Perkins by the elbow and turned him around and whispered to him, “Detective, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. She could have read all this.”

  “Mmm. So it just hung there and cried?” Perkins pulled away.

  “Cried louder and louder. And then it started up the fence.”

  “And?”

  “Next thing I seen was them policemen and the ambulance fellers.”

  “What happened to your, unh, belongings?”

  “My cart! Where’s my cart?” She sat up straight.

  “We have your cart, missus, but there was nothing in it.”

  She shook her head and pursed her lips. “Now that just goes to show ya, can’t leave nothing lying around for one minute, somebody up and steals it.”

  “You think somebody would steal your possessions?”

  “Hmmph, these days? You kiddin’ me? Why, just the other day I was carrying a shopping bag full of T-bone steaks, with my purse lyin’ on top of it, with five hundred dollars in it, and six Mexicans came sidling up to me and started sweet-talkin’, and next thing I knew, they run off with my meat and my money.”

  “See, lieutenant,” Dr. North said, smiling sadly, “what we’re dealing with here?”

  Perkins bowed. “Thank you, missus. Get a good rest now.”

  “I hope my credit’s good. My medical insurance just run out.”

  Detective Perkins stood in the hospital corridor and rubbed his chin pensively.

  The doctor and the professor stared at their shoes. “I wonder,” Perkins mused, “what happened to her rags.”

  Professor Eckstein fidgeted with his tie. “Maybe the thing took them.”

  “Now, professor,” Norten said, “I can’t believe that you take the rag lady seriously. After all, she apparently wasn’t even attacked, or hurt in any way.”

  “Well, perhaps she wasn’t a threat to it, once she passed out. And if the thing was there, perhaps it took the rags. Perhaps it wanted to build a nest.”

  “A nest?” Perkins narrowed his eyes.

  “Maybe it’s getting cold.”

  “Surely, professor,” Dr. Norten said, “if it’s gone this long . . .”

  Professor Eckstein studied the ceiling. “It could be starting to get cold—if it’s running out of adrenaline . . .”

  Dr. Norten stepped firmly on the professor’s foot.

  “What’s this about adrenaline?” Detective Perkins asked.

  The professor looked back and forth between Perkins and Norten. “Um, well, unh, just that, um, any warm-blooded animal can, ah, run out of energy, and get cold.”

  “I see.” Perkins peered at him and chewed his cigar. “Well, maybe the rag lady didn’t see anything at all. Maybe she just left her rags someplace. I’ve got to get back to the station house. Thank you, gentlemen, for your time.”

  They watched him walk away toward the front entrance.

  “Well, professor,” Dr. Norten hissed, “you almost blew it.”

  “Sorry. Although he’s the police, after all, and I thought he should know everything that would help them catch—”

  “Not now, professor, don’t you see? The matter of hormonal balance means nothing to him. That’s a matter best left to the medical profession. It has nothing to do with their search for this mutant.”

  “But I was thinking, doctor, that if this thing thrives according to our thesis, then quite naturally its supply of hormones would tend to be used up when it’s on its own. There’s only one place it could go to get the vast amounts needed to restore its strength.”

  “No need to belabor what we already know, professor.” The doctor bade him goodbye, then ran into his office to scribble down some hasty notes with a trembling hand.

  The United Parcel delivery man handed Frank the large box and he lugged it into the house and put it on the living-room floor.

  “My, what’s that, darling?” Lenore came into the room wiping her hands with a dish towel.

  “From the office. Must be a present of some kind. Heavy.”

  “Well, go on, open it! I’m excited.”

  He slit the tape with a letter opener and folded back the flaps. He sat staring at it. “It’s my stuff. My office stuff.”

  “Why would anybody—”

  “Pen set, ashtrays, your picture, books—all my stuff.”

  “Frank . . .”

  “I’ve been kicked out of my office.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”

  She knelt beside him on the floor. “Look, there’s a note stuck in there.”

  He opened the envelope and read aloud:

  Dear Frank,

  Thought it was best for everybody, to close things out this way, without going through all the goodbyes and crap up here that might embarrass you. Everybody here thinks you’re terrif, as you know. You’re a hell of a PR man, one of the best anywhere, but it just wasn’t going to work out any longer staying with our firm, under the circumstances.

  I know you’ll understand how difficult this decision has been for me. I really can’t afford to lose you, but that’s the way it goes.

  A check for a month’s pay will be in the mail to you. You know I’ll give you absolutely the highest recommendation whenever you need it. My loss will be somebody else’s gain.

  My best to Lenore. And please keep in touch, by phone.

  Your friend,

  Buck Clayton

  P.S. I know you must be going through one hell of a trying time right now. Guess it’s rough being a parent, although I’ve never been one—that I know of, ha-ha.

  The note slipped from Frank’s fingers and fell to the floor. Lenore picked it up and looked at it.

  “I don’t understand, Frank, I don’t understand at all.”

  He shook his head.

  “But he mu
st have said something. You talked to him. You told him you were going to take your vacation. You said everything was all right.” Tears were in her eyes.

  “I wasn’t being quite honest with you, Lenore. It was Buck who insisted I get away for a while. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to keep working, keep my mind occupied. He made me go. But he never said anything about this.”

  “But why? Why would he fire you? You had his top accounts.”

  Frank went to the bar and poured himself some Chivas. He drank it straight and poured some more. “He fired me, Lenore, for public-relations reasons. I should have expected it.”

  “But you were the best PR man he had—he says it himself.”

  “He didn’t fire me for public-relations work, just public-relations reasons. With all that has happened, I guess I became a millstone for the company. I would make clients uncomfortable, nervous. And in this business, that’s the worst thing you can do, no matter how good your work is. So, along with everything else, our family now has,” he drained his drink, “no breadwinner.”

  “Couldn’t you talk to him, Frank, reason with him? Maybe I should talk to him. I could explain—”

  “No, no, no. I understand it completely. Buck did the right thing, business-wise. I just happen to be the unlucky one lately, falling into one trap after another.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Maybe the hospital PR job’s still open. Be a natural for me, even at half the salary I’ve been making. I’d be a real insider.”

  “What do you mean by failing into traps?”

  He slammed his glass on the bar. “You know goddam good and well what I mean, Lenore! I’ve worked hard all these years to be good at what I do for a living, and to be a good husband and father. What did I ever do to deserve getting kicked in the belly like this?”

  “But, Frank, what did I ever do?”

  “I don’t know what you did. Pills, garbage, God-knows-what . . . But whatever you did got you that damn mutated animal that’s running around out there killing people! It’s already cost me my job, and who knows what else it’ll cost me before it’s through!”