Army of the Undead # Rafe Bernard

by Keith Laumer

  He began to count slowly from ten. As he reached there she moved, stretched her arms, raised her head. At the count of one she opened her eyes. He had turned the flashlight beam away from her face.

  She laughed gaily. "Hallo, David! Oh, what must you think of me—dropping off like that!"

  "Mountain air does that to me, too." He laughed with her.

  She jumped up, looked around. "Gosh! Where did I put my coat?"

  "It's in the car. You were showing off your new dress."

  She whirled in the light beam.

  "You like?"

  "M'm. Beautiful. Shall we go?"

  "We'd better." She took his hand. "Don't tell Wayne or Mummy I drove up the mountain, will you? They'd have kittens. Honestly, they fuss so!"

  She drove like an angel, so David thought. Damned if she hadn't looked like one, too. He closed his eyes and didn't wake up until they reached Sixth Street.

  Chapter 12

  GIVE ME A NUMBER!

  The Racing Wheel bars were nearly empty. Carmen Verrel first questioned David very sharply, after Liane had burst into the office, leaving him to tag along at a quieter pace behind her. He was still hungover from his session on the mountain—learning the skills of a hypnotist was a task he'd accomplished only in the past two years. He did not use them in his normal life, though he'd almost forgotten what it meant to live a normal life since having become involved in "Project I.R." meaning "Invader Research."

  The word "research" can cover everything. Put research under a security blanket and anything goes, because no one dares to ask questions. But such procedure does at times prove helpful. It had helped David in providing the world's finest teachers to school him in a crash course in how to be a hypnotist without even your best friends knowing.

  The course confirmed that he had latent powers. It also helped him greatly to understand more of the outward aspects of the aliens' power, to jealize its fearsome potential and yet to be reassured by recognizing its limitations. His acceptance and partial understanding of how transmutation was achieved was possible only because such an intensive course gave him greater knowledge of man's inner powers. But though he, himself, now possessed greatly increased powers, the using of them in hypnosis still drained him more than any prolonged or even violent physical effort. His ability to sense the aliens' telepathic transference also was due to this specialist teaching in the use of his own mind.

  But you cannot tell the somewhat accusing mother of a very beautiful young woman, "It's okay—she's only been hypnotized by me in a hut at the top of a mountain. Don't worry." What mother wouldn't? So he let Carmen Verrel's motherly tirade wash over him, glad that it didn't upset the now radiant Liane.

  "Yes, darling. No, darling." Liane replied meekly to her mother's "Where have you been? I've been nearly frantic… The mountain? You've been up the mountain in that car at night! Now listen to me, Liane…" Which was when Liane's yes-no patter began, her shining eyes beaming at David when her mother wasn't looking.

  "All right," said her mother at last. "One day you'll learn some sense and be more considerate of other people. It's for your own good, you know."

  "Yes, Mother."

  Her mother smiled. "Oh! Go on with you! Go and get changed. It's a lovely dress, darling, but I'm sure it's not—well—quite decent."

  "I'm sure it isn't," Liane agreed. "That's the whole point of it." She kissed her mother, blew a kiss to David and left the office.

  "You didn't say much, David."

  He smiled. "I thought you were doing all right without my two cents' worth."

  She frowned. "There's something wrong. I sense it. Liane is her old, bubbling self."

  "And that's wrong?"

  "No. It's wonderful to see her like that. Since her father died, she's changed. Quite natural, I suppose. They were very close. She adored him and he worshipped her. Oh, David—it was such a tragedy!"

  "For you, too."

  "For me? Yes, but not in the same way. I wasn't so vulnerable as Liane. She's quite brainy, you know, got terribly high marks in electronics and stuff too complicated for me to understand. Old Thias thinks the world of her. She's been working with him for several months on hush-hush work, and for very long hours. She looks so tired some days and—so much older. I didn't interfere. I thought it was best she should keep busy. It took her mind off the tragedy."

  She laughed softly, "Poor Wayne hasn't seen much of her either, but he's been away racing so he wasn't here to see her anyway."

  "Does Wayne understand how Liane felt about her father?"

  "Oh, yes, indeed he does. For a young man and a racing driver at that-7-well, I mean, they're usually pretty harum-scarum—he's most understanding."

  "Are you?" David asked quietly.

  "Me? Well, I hope so. Why do you ask?"

  "May I have a brandy with some hot coffee? I see you have a percolator bubbling over there."

  "Why, surely! I was going to have some when you came in. Forgive me for being a bad hostess."

  "You were too busy being a good mother. I had to ask because I need a hot stimulant."

  She gazed at him shrewdly as she went to the hot plate. "You look a bit peaked. I'm sorry, David, but I almost forgot the real reason you're here. My motherly instincts overrode my fear of outside forces." She poured coffee, then placed bottle and glass on the table at his side.

  "The two are connected," said David. "Sit down, Carmen. Although your husband and others were on the point of contacting me, it was you who actually took that step. So you're responsible for my presence here. It is right that you should know as much as I can tell you. It is right that you should know why Liane has changed. It is right that you should be prepared for what is about to happen. I do not ask you to understand everything I say, but I beg you to accept it without question."

  She said quietly, "I think I'll have some brandy, too." She poured it, then settled back in her chair. "I know something is going to happen, that's one reason why I was so on edge when Liane came in. The bars are nearly empty. There's been—what shall I call it?—an electric atmosphere in the whole town since this afternoon. Corny, but that's how it felt. Arid all the top men at the plants seem to be locked in conferences, the police have been rushing around, and—oh well, perhaps it ties in with what you have to say. Tell me, David."

  He told her the full story, and in the telling made a constructive summary for himself. When he finished she was crying—not hysterically but quietly, deeply, as if all the misery and fear of the past months were being dissolved and flowing out from her.

  "Those poor people!" she sobbed. "Those poor, poor people! Their wives and families—all believing they're still alive." She shuddered violently. "It's horrible—horrible!"

  "It could be even more horrible," he said gently, "if you hadn't had the courage to speak when you did. I don't know how long it would take before this town became a city of walking dead, but be sure it would happen."

  "Oh, I'm so grateful no alien occupied Chick. I couldn't have borne it. I'm glad he really died. And my Liane, my beautiful Liane, you're sure she's not harmed?"

  "Quite sure. The only harm that could come to her is through your trying to make her remember. Trying to make her tell you things that I have buried in her mind forever, I hope. She will not do so, but you may stir something in her mind."

  Carmen Verrel dabbed her eyes, sat up straight.

  "So that's the pattern of this alien power? They occupy men completely, and enter women's minds at the moment of great emotional shock and dominate them."

  "That is the pattern I believe the aliens are trying to perfect," David agreed. "I don't know what purpose they can use women for, other than as power containers and transmitters."

  "Sexual? There seems a horrible possibility—"

  "No," David interrupted. "This is a human reaction, a physical one, born of our physical experience—the great myth of sex! We are so preoccupied with it that we fail to see there can be any greater force. But there is,
and the aliens possess it. And in possessing it they destroy the only real power women have to achieve their ends—the power of sex. The aliens are using women in nature's sense of being receptacles, miniature storehouses that receive and pass on life."

  "Like supercharged dummies?"

  He spread his hands and shrugged. "More like living receptacles with automatic release mechanisms when they are fully charged. A natural biological pattern, but resolved in terms of power instead of flesh."

  "Stop them!" she cried. "For God's sake, stop them, David!"

  He moved to the desk and phone. "We are going to do just that. Go downstairs. Close the bars and the club. Make any excuse you like. There won't be many people in—not from the racing or testing jobs. If you have any trouble, phone Willard Knight. Tell him I requested the closing and to send you assistance."

  He waited while she dabbed make-up on her eyes and face, then left the office. He called Thias Rumbold. He wasn't shocked at what Thias had to say. Eight out of fourteen top drivers had refused the Serenda Valley invitation. All the pit staff except Clem Makim also had refused. Fifteen out of forty top security men throughout the plants had been involved in car or other accidents. At least one hundred and twenty production-line inspectors were suspected transmutes, but the figure might really be four times as great. The list grew longer and longer. David did not mention Liane, therefore could not explain why he knew how the aliens transmitted power into their transmutes, who required daily recharging.

  "That part may one day be told," said David, "but at present it's not conclusive. It is the source of transmission of power to certain top transmutes. There could well be others among the lower ranks of plant employees, such as secretaries or sales staff. Anyone who comes into contact with a number of people in the course of their work would be an ideal transmitter. We have more urgent action to take. This is what I need from you." He detailed his requirements.

  "Okay," said Thias. "That won't take long. I'll see you at the club. You'll contact Shelden and Knight?"

  "Will do," said David. Then added, casually, "Oh, by the way, Thias—where will Gineas be right now?"

  "I'm keeping tabs on him. He's in his private office in his executive's suite, top of the Carasel main office block."

  "Call him. Tell him you have a message from Liane. That she will be there in"—David checked his watch—"in half an hour, and to wait for her. Don't worry, she won't be there—but I will."

  He next called Knight, spoke briefly, then Shelden. The Halo Highway reports checked out. A strange fact emerged. Experts declared that many of the crashes, from a checkback on witnesses' and passengers' evidence, could not have been killers. David skipped the lengthy cross-checked reference reports and detailed the co-operation he required from the police and the district attorney's office.

  The club was almost clear when he went through. Four policemen were ushering out the last argumentative guests.

  Carmen Verrel listened to David quietly. Then she nodded as she repeated:

  "Code word is Starspace. No one to come in but those who give it. Okay. You'll be back?"

  "Sure." He spoke to one of the cops. "Willard Knight asked me to tell you to phone him straight away on the H.Q. private line."

  "Okay, Mac. What goes on here? This joint contaminated, or somep'n?"

  "Or somep'n." David smiled, left the club, ran to the taxi stand, gave the driver an address.

  Auto City's streets were strangely deserted.

  "Quiet tonight," said David casually.

  "You ain't kidding," said the driver. "Started late afternoon. People just began staying off the streets. They tell me the plants have a lock-in. Some sort of production crisis. Thousands of day workers still in there, plus the night shifts. Sure is queer. You one of the top brass—seeing you're going to the front office block?"

  "Sort of," said David.

  Thias Rumbold had moved fast and thoroughly, with all the ruthlessness of a man used to a major crisis. He obviously hadn't time—no one could have—for a detailed check, but wherever a group of transmutes were found in any section, then all of that shift had been asked to stand by. Large bonuses were hinted at. Union leaders appeared to be passive. Half of them were transmutes anyway. The aliens' linkage was being encircled.

  A private elevator ran direct to the deputy security chief's executive suite. Its door opened on to a gracefully designed entrance lounge. David walked silently over the thick pile carpet, his cigarette case held carefully at an edge-on angle.

  A man's voice called, "That you, Liane? Conie in. I'm on the phone. I can't seem to raise one damn driver!"

  His back was to David, but he faced a mirror and their gazes met over his shoulder. A young edition of old Thias, but slick-smooth and steel-hard around eyes and mouth.

  "What the hell are you doing here, Trome? Staff are not allowed up here."

  "I bet they're not," said David, glancing across at the massive console radio which stood against the opposite wall. "Turn around, Rumbold. And you might as well put down the phone. You won't reach any of your drivers tonight. Not your drivers."

  Gineas Rumbold crashed the phone on its cradle and whirled.

  "God help me!" said David, and fired the mercury pellet at point-blank range.

  Rumbold clutched at his chest. David leapt to the far side of the large room. Rumbold looked disbeliev-ingly at his hand. The blood on his shirt front had been splodged by its pressure and red smears covered his fingers.

  "You shot me!" he said, with an incredulous expression on his face. "You shot me, you damn fool! With that trick case!" He turned, strode to the desk, yanked open a drawer. His hand came out holding a gun. It was David's turn to be incredulous.

  "Okay," Rumbold snapped. "Get your hands up."

  David obeyed.

  "Now then…" Gineas Rumbold began, but his voice faltered as his body began to shake violently. He retched, staggered, making horrible noises in his throat The gun dropped from his hand.

  Then like a slow-motion puppet his hands moved up as if gripping a steering wheel, his body swayed from side to side before jerking backward, twisting,. head dropped to the left. He crumpled, still slow motion, falling half across a six-seat divan and lay still. David jerked out of his stunned and statuelike posture and raced across the room. Gineas Rumbold was breathing heavily, his face moist with sweat, a bluish lump swelling on his right temple. David ripped open the shirt collar, then the shirt. The tiny pellet had entered Rumbold's chest to the right of the sternum. A very tiny puncture, not even bleeding much now.

  Rumbold's eyes flickered open.

  "Your fault," he said thickly. "You've no right to stop suddenly in the fast lane, I never had a chance. And you a top driver. Rod Baker—the greatest! You know what? You're a goddam menace on a highway!"

  David pressured his scattered wits to react swiftly.

  "I couldn't help it. The rear axle jammed on me. I couldn't warn you."

  "Jammed?" said Rumbold. "How could it jam? It's a new car, you crazy…" Then suddenly his eyes went blank, his voice lost its power. "My head—oh, my head!"

  The big body went limp as his last breath gushed stutteringly from his throat. For a brief, almost imperceptible moment the body seemed to glow from chest to head. Then the pallor of death etched across the clammy skin.

  David gave a long shuddering sigh, straightened up, went to the phone, dialed a number.

  Willard Knight's voice said, "Yes?"

  David said, "Starspace. David. Is your highway check list close to hand?"

  "Just a moment, the file is here… Yes?"

  "The day Rod Baker's crash was reported—who else crashed at the same time? Was it a multiple collision?"

  "Yes. Gineas Rumbold crashed into Baker, and Ace Blumen into Gin."

  "Damn!" said David. "Why didn't I see this might happen?"

  "What's wrong?"

  "Gineas Rumbold has just died—apparently from a severe blow on the head received in a car smash. He re-enacte
d the last moments before the crash. But he died in his own office. He wasn't dead when the transmutation took place. You know what this means?"

  There was a silence. At last Knight said:

  "A lot of people are going to die in this city tonight. All of them, David? Will they all die like that?"

  "God help me. I wish I knew," said David. "Wait…" He thought intently. "Have you a large civil defense volunteer force in this city?"

  "Yes, we're proud of their numbers and their efficiency." Willard coughed apologetically. "I'm head of it. My wife is head of the Red Cross here, and my daughter is head of the nursing auxiliaries. Our family has a pronounced civic conscience."

  "Good for you," said David. "There couldn't be a better man to organize coverage of the transmutes. I doubt if you'll find them all, but among Thias Rumbold, Shelden and yourself you have enough check lists to place your lifesaving forces somewhere near most of them."

  "Presuming you reach your objective," said Willard Knight, "you and your band of volunteers."

  "We'll reach it—or die in the attempt," said David grimly. "And that's no cliche, man!"

  "I know it, my friend. This means I cannot go with you. I have to put our defense organizations into action. They'll not fail us, but what I'll tell them to look for I'm damned if I know."

  "Delayed results of accidents," said David. "Mostly head or spinal injuries. Tell them that a full explanation will be given later. You'll need blood plasma by the gallon—at least that's my guess. Plus morphia and sedatives. All transmutes who recover will be in severe shock at the time. Actually, they should be hypnotized to save them from traumatic involvements."

  "Now look, David," Knight sounded harassed, "we haven't all got your knowledge and objective outlook. We've come into this too late. It's like a nightmare. We must keep it simple."

  "Yes, you're right," David agreed. "Sorry. Do the best you can, and we'll explain later. Can you send someone trustworthy to collect Gineas Rumbold? All these cases will have to be post-mortemed."