Petrified

by Graham Masterton

  Jenna went up the concrete steps to the front door and jiggled the handle.

  ‘Locked,’ she said. ‘Ed – do you want to do the honors?’

  ‘You know that we don’t have a warrant,’ Ed reminded her.

  ‘Of course I know that we don’t have a warrant. But we heard screaming from inside the building and so we had cause to break in and investigate, didn’t we?’

  Ed gave his bolt cutters to Nathan to hold, and then wedged his crowbar into the side of the front door. It took only three hefty tugs before the wood splintered and the lock gave way. They stepped into what had once been the factory’s reception area. There was a plywood desk, a tipped-over chair, and a very dead yucca, its leaves trailing black and dry over the sides of its pot like a giant tarantula.

  Their shoes crunched on grit and broken glass. Jenna checked the back of the door and said, ‘There’s a key in it. That means that somebody locked it from the inside.’

  They paused, and listened. Torchy shuffled on his perch but still didn’t warble or screech. On the walls around them there were half a dozen yellowed posters for different kinds of fire extinguisher, as well as a group photograph of the staff of Flame-Ban, Inc, all grinning inanely.

  ‘Maybe Theodor Zauber is not here after all,’ said Aarif. He sounded almost hopeful.

  Jenna went across to the door beside the reception desk labeled PRIVATE: STAFF ONLY. The door was slightly ajar, and so she leaned close to it and listened. At first there was nothing, but then she thought she heard humming. It sounded like classical music, the Blue Danube or something else Strauss-like.

  ‘There’s somebody here,’ she said.

  Nathan joined her by the door and listened, too. After a few seconds, he said, ‘Zauber. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘We go in,’ he said. ‘Or at least, I go in, with Aarif and Kavita. You cover me.’

  Jenna said, ‘If Zauber’s armed, or if he attempts any kind of violent retaliation, I do warn you that I’ll shoot him.’

  ‘Of course you will. You’re a police officer. That’s what police officers do for a living, isn’t it?’

  Nathan turned around and beckoned to Aarif and Kavita. ‘Come on, you two. Keep close behind me.’

  He opened the door. He found himself in a short corridor, with offices on either side, both empty except for a bent filing cabinet and a bicycle wheel. The corridor gave out on to a metal platform with a handrail, which overlooked the main factory building.

  Nathan walked along the corridor as quickly and as quietly as he could, with Aarif and Kavita following him. When he reached the platform, he stopped and said, ‘Holy shit.’ He could hardly believe what he was looking at.

  The factory floor was over a hundred feet square, and it was filled with at least three hundred gargoyles – a grotesque crowd scene of hideous creatures with wings and claws and hunched backs, and faces that represented every kind of depravity that nature could devise. Nathan recognized gargoyles from churches and cathedrals in every European country, from France and Belgium and Germany and Poland, but there were many that he couldn’t identify, which looked as if they might be Japanese or Indian.

  Their faces were contorted into snarls, leers, and maniacal stares. Some of them had the beaks of vultures or carrion crows, while others had the faces of pigs or wolves.

  Although all of them had been turned into stone, and none one of them was moving, there was an overwhelming aura of malevolence in the factory, as if all of the oxygen had been taken out of the air and replaced with a cold, odorless gas that made anybody who breathed it in feel weak and hopeless and afraid.

  This was a host of evil; a legion of sheer terror. This, petrified, was a representation of the depths to which men and animals were capable of sinking. This was the massed army of hell itself.

  On the far right of the factory floor stood a long trestle table, cluttered with glass jars and copper bowls and test tubes, as well as bunches of different grasses and twigs. Two gas burners were flickering at one end of it, and behind them, his face distorted by the reflection from the flames, was Theodor Zauber, wearing a long dark brown lab coat. He was loudly humming the melody from the Voices of Spring waltz.

  With a long glass rod he was stirring a pale blueish liquid in a large glass globe, and spooning into it some carefully-measured powder. He looked up and saw Nathan standing on the metal platform. Immediately, he stopped humming, but he continued to stir the liquid and drop more powder into it.

  Nathan looked up. There were fire-sprinkler pipes all the way across the ceiling, and he just hoped that the system hadn’t been shut off. He walked down the steps and across the factory floor, weaving in between the gargoyles.

  ‘Well, well, you have discovered my lair!’ said Theodor Zauber. ‘You are even more astute than I imagined, Professor. You like Strauss? Frühlingstimmen, my favorite.’

  ‘Do you know how many people you murdered last night?’ Nathan demanded. Unexpectedly, he found that he was so angry that his voice was shaking.

  ‘I listened to the news at noon,’ said Theodor Zauber. ‘At last count, three hundred and forty-one. But I did warn you, did I not? You are responsible for those deaths, just as much as I am. So – tell me – why have you come here today? To join me and to help me, or to tell me how much you regret the consequences of your own stubbornness?’

  ‘I’ve come here to finish this,’ Nathan told him. ‘It’s over – you and your gargoyle project.’

  Theodor Zauber stirred the pale blue liquid a little more, and then smiled. ‘I think not, Professor. You know what this is? This is the quenching water that brings these poor petrified creatures back to life. A combination of calcium, sodium and potassium to create a strong electrolyte which will induce muscle activity, as well as the secret ingredients which Artephius mixed in, including the finely-ground bark of the fortune tree.’

  ‘You’re not hearing me, Zauber. It’s over. You need to stop stirring and give yourself up. The police are outside. They agreed to give me the chance to persuade you to surrender yourself without any violence.’

  Theodor Zauber flared his nostrils. ‘You think this is over? This is only the beginning! Look at all of these gargoyles! Look at them! They are magnificent in all of their ugliness, and they will make me great one day! You think you can stop me? You? You and your petty dabbling with birds and worms? This is where evil can be used for the greater good! This is where God and Satan join together to conquer death!’

  Nathan said, ‘You’re crazy, do you know that? You’re worse than your father, and he was hanging off by his hinges. Use some intelligence, Zauber. The police are outside and it’s over!’

  Theodor Zauber stopped stirring. He looked down at the quenching water that he had prepared, as if he were thinking. Then he picked up the glass globe, held it high over his head in both hands, and tossed it over the nearest gargoyles. It smashed, and splashed over at least three of them.

  ‘Es ist Zeit, damit Sie zum Leben kommen!’ he screamed. ‘Es its Zeit, damit Sie kämpfen!’

  With that, he took hold of the trestle table and heaved it over, along with everything on it – jars, test tubes, gas burners and bunches of grass. It fell on top of Nathan and knocked him backward on to the floor, with smashed glass and ceramic scattered all around him. Theodor Zauber pushed his way between the gargoyles and headed for the steps that led up to the metal platform.

  ‘Aarif, stop him!’ Nathan shouted, levering himself out from underneath the table. Aarif whipped the black cloth from Torchy’s cage, and held it up high. The phoenix screamed and spread his wings, as aggressive as he had been when he was first recreated.

  ‘You think I am afraid of some bird in a cage?’ shouted Theodor Zauber. He started to clamber up toward the platform, but Kavita went to the top of the steps, gripped the handrails for support, and kicked him hard in the chest with her black high-heeled boot.

  Theodor Zauber staggered backward, his shoes clang
ing, but he managed to snatch at the handrail and stop himself from losing his balance. Grunting with effort, he hoisted himself back up the steps and when Kavita kicked out at him a second time, he seized her boot and pulled her down with him. The two of them rolled over and over in a tangle of arms and legs until they hit the bottom step.

  Nathan climbed to his feet and body-swerved between the gargoyles toward the steps, but he was seconds too late. Theodor Zauber had dragged Kavita to her feet and had his left forearm hooked around her throat. Kavita was wide-eyed and choking for breath.

  ‘You want me to break her neck?’ Theodor Zauber shouted, with spit flying from his lips. ‘You want your lovely assistant to die in front of your eyes? I can do it, you know!’

  At that moment, Jenna appeared behind Aarif, closely followed by Ed. She pointed her gun at Theodor Zauber and snapped, ‘Zauber! Let her go!’

  ‘Oh, no,’ said Theodor Zauber. ‘This time, it is a Zauber who is the winner!

  He turned toward his gargoyles and shouted at them again. ‘Hören Sie mich, meine Freunde! Es ist Zeit, damit Sie zum Leben kommen! It is time for you to come to life, my friends!’

  Nathan heard an extraordinary crunching noise, like concrete churning in a concrete mixer. He turned around, too, and saw that the three gargoyles that Theodor Zauber had splashed with his ‘quenching water’ were actually moving. Blotchy gray limestone was subtly changing into pale gray reptilian skin. Eyes were lighting up with an eerie greenish glow. Wings were unfolding and claws were spreading wide.

  The nearest gargoyle took one step toward Nathan and then threw back its head and screeched. It had long knobbly horns like a mountain goat, and a predatory beak with curved fangs protruding from it. It shook its wings open with a leathery bang, and then took another step forward, and then another, with the other two gargoyles following it.

  Nathan could hear its breath rasping in its throat, as if its insides had still not completely changed from stone into flesh.

  Jenna shouted, ‘Call them off, Zauber! You hear me? Call them off!’

  ‘Too late!’ Theodor Zauber shouted back at her. ‘They want human hearts, these beauties! Living, pumping hearts! Nothing I can do or say will stop them from ripping them out of you!’

  Jenna grasped her automatic in both hands and fired at the leading gargoyle. The noise of the shot was deafening, and echoed all round the factory. The gargoyle screeched at her but didn’t stop shuffling forward. She fired at it again, and then again, and then fired a shot at each of the other two gargoyles. They screeched in unison, like some kind of hellish duet, but her bullets didn’t even make them flinch. Only the densely-packed crowd of stone gargoyles was holding them back, and now they were pushing them out of their way, toppling some of them over.

  Nathan knew that the moment had come. He had brought Kavita for a reason, and he prayed that he hadn’t taken too much of a risk. If she got hurt, or was killed, he would never be able to forgive himself.

  He zigzagged between the stone gargoyles until he was only three feet away from Kavita and Theodor Zauber. Kavita was struggling and gasping, but Theodor Zauber had her in a headlock and he wasn’t going to let go.

  ‘Stay back, Professor!’ he shouted. ‘If you come any nearer, I swear to you that I will kill her!’

  Nathan lunged forward and seized Theodor Zauber’s sleeve, but Theodor Zauber swung Kavita between them and jerked her head back so hard that she let out a cry of pain.

  ‘I warn you, Professor!’

  Just then, though, a rippling golden light began to shine from the top of the steps. It quickly grew brighter and brighter until it was so dazzling that it was impossible to look at. It lit up the whole factory with all of its gargoyles as intensely as a bleached-out photograph. Nathan had to cup his hand over his eyes, and he could see that Aarif was doing the same, while Jenna and Ed had turned their faces away, toward the corridor.

  Kavita had closed her eyes tight, while Theodor Zauber was doing everything he could to stay in her shadow.

  The three living gargoyles all howled and screeched, and when Nathan looked around at them, he could see that the light was making them thrash their heads from side to side and collide blindly with the stone gargoyles that were assembled all around them.

  The light was so bright now that it was like the core of the sun. It was the phoenix, transforming himself into pure incandescent energy. He spread his wings wide, and rose through the bars of his cage as if he were no more substantial than flames. For a few seconds he hovered in the air, his wings beating so that flags of fire flew in every direction. Then he screamed, and swooped down toward Kavita and Theodor Zauber with a loud flaring sound like an acetylene cutting-torch.

  Theodor Zauber stumbled backward, and as he lost his footing, Kavita twisted herself free of his headlock and pushed him hard in the chest with both hands. He fell sideways on to the concrete floor, hitting his head.

  The phoenix was on him instantly. It caught his black coat in its claws and pecked viciously at his face, so that his head was engulfed in a mass of fire. He screamed and tried to stagger on to his feet, but the phoenix beat his wings against him, again and again, fanning the flames. Within a few seconds he was blazing from head to foot, as if he had been doused in gasoline and set alight.

  He dropped heavily back on to the floor, jerking and twitching. As he did so, one of the gargoyles let out a long, hair-raising howl, and the three creatures began to push aside the rest of the stone gargoyles that stood in their way, and advance toward Nathan and Kavita with their claws raised. The half-ton gargoyles rumbled like falling boulders.

  ‘Time to get out of here, fast!’ said Nathan, and took hold of Kavita’s arm. He pushed her up the steps ahead of him, and Aarif was ready at the top to grab her hand.

  The gargoyles howled again, and came lurching toward the platform. Before they could reach it, however, the phoenix blazed up from Theodor Zauber’s still-burning body, screeching and beating his wings, and attacked them. The gargoyles snarled and screeched and lashed at him with their claws, but he was burning at such a high temperature that they couldn’t even get close to him. He was no longer a bird, he was a nuclear reaction, a continuous explosion of air and gases and mythical cells. He was consuming himself, burning up his own existence at a ferocious rate, but the gargoyles were his natural enemies, both physically and morally, and he was determined to destroy them, even at the cost of his own recreated life. The phoenix was fire and light and purity, while the gargoyles were unmitigated evil, turned into stone.

  Nathan pushed Aarif and Kavita along the platform until they reached the corridor.

  Jenna said, ‘What’s happening? What do we do now?’

  ‘Nothing!’ said Nathan. ‘We get the hell out of here as fast as we can! This place is going to go sky high!’

  ‘I’ll call the fire department!’

  ‘Don’t! They won’t be able to stop it and they won’t be able to contain it! They’ll only get themselves killed!’

  He looked back at the factory floor. The phoenix was now a huge ball of fire, and he could feel the waves of heat that were rippling out of it. The three living gargoyles were retreating from it, still howling, but the temperature inside the building was rising every second.

  It was then that the sprinklers were set off. Water suddenly began to spray from the pipes across the ceiling, drenching the gargoyles from one side of the factory floor to the other.

  The exothermic reaction was instant. The limestone gargoyles detonated like an atom bomb, and the whole factory floor was blotted out by a blinding flash, followed by a blast of heat and a shock wave that almost knocked Nathan over.

  As he pushed Aarif ahead of him along the corridor, he looked back and saw lumps of limestone tumbling through the white-hot inferno – heads and wings and torsos and legs.

  They hurried through the reception area, out of the front door and into the parking lot outside. It was raining now, and thunder was mumbling over Darby Creek.
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  They stopped, and waited. Shafts of light were shining from behind the sheets of corrugated iron that covered the factory’s windows, like the shafts of light from a movie projector, and they could hear a soft but threatening roar.

  Then the factory blew up, sending a geyser of fire high into the air. Chunks of concrete were thrown in all directions, bouncing into the roadway beside them. A loud bang echoed and re-echoed, and more debris fell from the sky, pieces of wooden window-frame and plasterboard and shredded paper.

  After that, though, there was nothing but the rain and the wind and the distant thunder. Several cars stopped close by, and their bewildered drivers climbed out to see what had happened.

  Jenna went across to Nathan and said, ‘I guess you were right, then. I owe you one.’

  ‘It was all a question of science,’ said Nathan. ‘Science, and mythology. And those are my two specialties.’

  Jenna looked around. ‘No pieces of gargoyle anywhere. Not that I can see.’

  ‘All converted to quicklime. That was the science bit.’

  ‘And what was the mythological bit?’

  ‘Believing that the gargoyles were real. Believing that creatures like that used to exist, once upon a time, and that they’ve left enough of their DNA behind for us to bring them back to life.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jenna, ‘good luck with that.’

  FORTY

  Wednesday, 4:46 p.m.

  Nathan was sitting in the kitchen, working on his laptop, when the doorbell chimed.

  ‘Denver,’ he called out, ‘do you want to answer that?’

  Denver heaved himself off the living-room couch and went to open the door. Nathan heard voices, and then Denver called back, ‘Dad, it’s for you!’

  He saved his work and went through to the hallway. Standing at the front door was Detective Pullet, accompanied by a thin young girl in a black cowl sweater and skintight jeans. Detective Pullet was carrying a large red cardboard box, tied with a red satin ribbon.

  ‘Detective Pullet,’ said Nathan. ‘Why don’t you come on in?’