The shack was locked with a heavy chain. Bartley blew it off with one well-aimed bullet. He swung open the door and peered inside. There was enough dynamite in there to blow the whole place sky high. He would wait, hold them all off with the gun if he had to, until the chimeras came back from the woods, until they dove down into the depths of the quarry, entered the underground streams far below, and emerged back in the cavern’s pool. He would not have long to wait. They would come back long before dawn arrived.
He grabbed the dynamite and set about placing the sticks in strategic places. That locked steel door at the other end of the tunnel might keep the opposition out for hours. In any case, they would never suspect him of going this far, not even Anton. They would think he was simply trying to find another way out, trying to make it to the surface so that he could go to the authorities and blow the whistle on them. Well, they were wrong. He was far more dangerous than that.
But he had to accept the fact that he and his precious evidence would probably not survive, no matter what precautions he would take. No matter—David would tell them. The explosion would be investigated, their operations crippled. Maybe this time not even they could cover up what they’d been doing.
He sat and waited. Soon, very soon, it would end.
Anna woke up and was surprised to see how dark it was. What was it that had disturbed her? The phone, that was it. She could hear it downstairs, its persistent ringing calling to her, nagging. David. David will answer it.
But then she remembered that David had left. She had just been barely aware that someone—she had heard David call him “Mr. Bartley,” that George’s father probably—had come to the house during dinner. Part of her had wondered what was happening. Another part— the part controlled by the debilitating chemicals in her antihistamines—only wanted to go straight back to bed. The antihistamine won.
She had heard a car drive away, heard the silence of the house afterwards, telling her that David had gone off somewhere with the visitor.
So David was not there to answer the phone. It might even have been David himself who was calling. She pulled herself out of bed and walked down the stairs, clinging to the banister. Still the phone rang, over and over, crying to her to answer. She shivered without knowing why; she felt warm enough now.
She managed to get to the phone before the caller could hang up. It was a man’s voice on the other end. It kind of gave her the creeps. Perhaps that was because she was still sleepy and all alone in a strange house. Deep in the country woods. Alone.
“Miss Anna Braddon?”
“Yes?”
“I have a message for you from David Hammond.”
“David? Where is he?”
‘ “He’s been in an accident. A car accident. Him and Ted Bartley. I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
“My God—is he all right?”
“I can’t lie and say it isn’t serious. But it’s not exactly hopeless either. He was able to ask me to call you. The accident occurred right near my home, so they were brought into the house while we waited for help to arrive. The doctor’s with them now. They can’t be moved just yet. Please try and get here as quickly as possible, Miss Braddon. He keeps asking for you.”
“Why haven’t they taken him to a hospital?”
“They will later. They can’t be moved just yet. If they do move them before you arrive, I’ll tell you where to go. Please hurry.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Where are you? What’s your name?”
“Ernest Dunsinger.” He gave her directions to his house. “We’re in a small settlement off the main highway. Perhaps you know of it?
“It’s called Felicity Village.”
Frederick Anton hung up the phone and smiled.
Damn Bartley. Damn them both. Well, he would have the last word. His shoulder, which had been washed and wrapped with bandages, hurt like hell, and his men were having difficulty getting through the door that led to the tunnel—but he’d get one small revenge at least.
He’d called Bartley’s wife first. The maid had said she was “indisposed.” Well, he could still get even with the other one, that Hammond fellow.
He had realized who David was before Ted had finally told him, sometime before the battle which had ended with him getting shot. Bartley had, after all, told him weeks ago about Hammond’s phone call, about his son’s visit to the young man’s apartment. Anton had sent men down to search the place, to find George. They had found him eventually, lying, festering, in an alley. So it wasn’t hard to figure out who Bartley had enlisted in his war against the Corporation; one of George’s friends. And Bartley had confirmed this for him.
Anton also knew that die fair and lovely Anna Braddon was visiting the fair and lovely town of Hillsboro; he knew where she was staying and who she was staying with. Little that went on in this town went unobserved by his multitude of spies. He had got Hammond’s number from information, and placed the call, his hands thumbing through a file that listed the names of the various residents of Felicity Village. Ah, yes. “Ernest Dunsinger” would do quite well.
So now Miss Anna Braddon was heading out towards the village, to arrive just in time for the chimeras’ attack. Hammond had helped Bartley; they had taken the life of Nurse Hamilton. It would be a fitting revenge to arrange the death of Hammond’s woman. And she would die. There was no way Hammond could stop the attack of the hybrids; no way either of them could survive. He closed the book.
And smiled.
Everything was very still and strikingly quiet in the parking lot of Porter Pharmaceuticals, like the tranquility of the sea before a gale. David had made it out of the building without incident but now came the hard part. How would he explain why he was taking Mr. Bartley’s—or more accurately Mrs. Bartley’s—automobile from the parking lot without Mr. Bartley? He crossed his fingers mentally, thinking up all kinds of plausible explanations. He could have the security guard at the gate ring Anton’s office, but what if Bartley didn’t answer, or what if he had left by that time? Even worse, what if he had been disarmed and apprehended? It was too risky.
Luckily Bartley had remembered to leave the car unlocked, keys in the ignition, or it would have all been over already. David had just started to climb behind the wheel when he saw a shadow looming over him, felt a presence staring downwards.
It was another security guard, one he hadn’t seen before. A younger fellow with short-cropped hair evident under the sides of his cap, and a trim, muscular body that looked more than capable of subduing unwanted visitors. “All right. Just hold it,” he barked. “Can I ask what your business is here?”
David prepared himself for trouble. “Mr. Ted Bartley was showing me around the facilities this evening,” he explained, “and had to stay late for a conference with—uh—Frederick Anton. As it was getting quite late, he gave me permission to drive back to town in his wife’s car. I believe Mrs. Bartley will call for him later on this evening.”
David had thought quickly. The guard seemed convinced that he was not a simple car thief; the name-dropping had seen to that. But what about the rest?
“I’ll have to check with Mr. Bartley if you don’t mind. Why don’t you come with me?”
A shiver shot up and down David’s spine. If he went along with him, he thought, he’d never walk out of there alive. Somehow he knew that as well as he knew his own name and birthdate. He looked to the right through the windshield and got an idea. That path was there, the one through the woods, the one that led right to the village, and then on to the quarry. Yes, that was it. He got out of the car slowly, acting friendly and submissive to keep the watchman off his guard. He closed the door, wondering if the man would take a shot at him if he ran. He would have to take that chance. Then he got another brainstorm.
As they started back to the lobby, David looked up and over towards the woods. He raised his arm, shouted “Hey you! Stop that!” and ran off towards the path— pretending to be in pursuit of someone else! He knew what he was do
ing had to be the dumbest ploy this side of the Keystone Kops—if that guard wanted to kill him, no games would prevent it—but it startled the man just enough so that David was in the woods before a shot could ring out. As he dodged through the brush and onto the path, he realized that there had been no shots at all, as if the man didn’t care where he went and knew better than to follow him at that time of night. And he was not following him, or David would have heard him. He was glad for that, at least. Perhaps the watchman didn’t know about this path, and figured David would wind up hopelessly lost. And if he knew about the chimeras— which was unlikely, but not impossible—he wouldn’t follow David even if he did know where he was going. More likely, the watchman wasn’t allowed to wander far from his post”; it was too easy to be suckered by decoy action that way.
And then it hit David. He was in the woods alone at night, approaching the clearing where the hybrids were even now about to mass. He must have been crazy to dart into the forest like that! At least in an automobile he would have had some protection, some means of escape. But now?
Fortunately, there was enough moonlight coming from the trees so that he could see where he was going. Just barely.
The most horrible thing was, even though he had been told what the creatures were made up of, he still didn’t know exactly what they looked like. Except that some had human heads.
Of course, he would know what they looked like when he saw them.
But by then it might be too late.
“I’m sorry, Miss, but you’re obviously mistaken. Is it possible that someone was playing a joke on you?”
Anna was trying very hard not to cry. She had ran out of the house, panic-stricken, filled with dread and fear, so anxiety-ridden that she had nearly cracked up David’s car more than once getting over here. The thought that David was badly injured, that she might lose him, had been too awful to even contemplate. Now here she was in Felicity Village, standing in the foyer of Ernest Dunsinger’s house, and they were telling her that there had been no accident, that no one in the house had called her.
“Pretty sick joke, if you ask me,” Dunsinger’s wife Madeline said sympathetically. “Maybe you got the name wrong. Or the address. We would have heard the sirens if an ambulance had driven into the village. Not much excitement in here, let me tell you.”
“I don’t know anyone in Hillsboro,” Anna protested. “Who would do such a thing? I just can’t imagine.”
And then she thought: Derek ? Is he jealous enough, nasty enough, to engineer a sick joke like this? But no, how would Derek have known that David had driven off with Mr. Bartley? Besides, she had never even discussed David with Derek. Maybe it was Bartley’s son George who was behind it. But why? Had there been an accident; if so, where was David and what was his condition?
Anna had felt sure that she was at the right place when she’d first walked in and seen the doctor in the living room, which was just off to one side of the foyer. A heavy set, elderly woman was lying on the couch looking pained and uncomfortable. It was Mrs. Dunsinger’s mother, who had been having chest pains ever since dinner time.
The portly middle-aged doctor was just leaving as the Dunsingers and Anna stood awkwardly in the foyer, trying to come to some resolution over David’s strange disappearance and the phone call that the Dunsingers had not made.
“Indigestion,” the doctor said. “That’s all it is. Your mother has a vivid imagination, I’m afraid. One burp and she thinks she’s having a heart attack. I’ve given her a sedative and she’ll be fast asleep shortly.” It seemed that the doctor lived next door and was friendly enough with the Dunsingers to make an occasional house call. He worked in the hospital in the nearby town of Walling-ford, and when he heard of Anna’s predicament, suggested that she call there for information. “If your friend was in an accident, he would have been taken there. Why don’t you call the emergency room?”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” Mrs. Dunsinger agreed. “You can use our phone. It’s right down the hall in the—” She was interrupted by her mother calling out from the living room. “Excuse me just a second.” She went in to see what the elderly woman wanted, leaving her husband- and the doctor standing in the foyer giving Anna admiring glances. Anna was beginning to think the whole thing had been a mistake, a joke, and she felt relieved. She hoped that the call to the Wallingford Hospital would not shatter her newly found composure.
“She wanted some tea,” Madeline said, returning from the living room. “But I’m afraid the poor dear will be asleep before I can bring it in to her.”
“Just see that she gets lots of rest,” the doctor reminded her. “A lot of your mother’s trouble is tension. Lack of sleep. She’ll feel better all around if she relaxes some more.”
“I’ll see that she does,” Madeline assured him.
The doctor excused himself, and Mrs. Dunsinger turned to Anna. “You look like you could use a little rest yourself. Come and have some coffee with us. You can use the phone in the kitchen.”
Anna appreciated the gesture. “Thank you so much. I’m sorry to be such trouble.”
“You’re no trouble,” the husband said, already smitten. There wasn’t a soul in the village who wouldn’t want to entertain the Anna Braddon for an hour or two.
They went into the kitchen and Anna had her first good look at her hosts. Mrs. Dunsinger was an attractive woman, thirtyish, with blond hair cut short and a rather pretty face and clothes; she knew how to make herself look good on a limited expense account. Her husband was kind of plain, but nonetheless appealing, with a rugged, unshaven face and a masculine build.
Madeline dialed the number of the emergency room while Anna stood by her side on tenterhooks. While it rang, Madeline called out to a little boy who was playing on the back porch. “Our son Steven,” she explained. “It’s past his bedtime, but it’s his father’s birthday today.” Anna smiled quickly at Ernest. “We went out to dinner and the movies. Oh, here we are—”
Madeline handed the phone to Anna; a lump had formed in Anna’s throat. She felt nervous and prickly all over. She asked the woman on the other end about David. Not only had he not been brought to the hospital, but there had been no accidents so far that evening, and the woman would have known if there had been, unless it had happened within the past half hour or so. It had been longer than that. Anna hung up, relieved, but terribly confused.
“Have some coffee, dear,” Madeline insisted. “Then you can drive back home and wait for your friend. I’m sure they’ll be a good explanation for all this.”
“Thank you for being so nice,” Anna said. Madeline pshawed. She put the water on the stove, while Ernest sat in the chair next to Anna, grinning away at her. Anna couldn’t help but smile.
Suddenly the phone rang, startling them all. Ernest started to rise from his chair in response, but Madeline made a grab for it. He sank back down again, wondering what to say to his glamorous guest.
“Hello. Who is this? Oh, Viv! How are you?”
Ernie chuckled. “Her friend. Lives two houses down. Don’t know why she bothers using the phone all the time.”
Madeline listened carefully, then turned to her husband. “Ernie. This is weird. Viv says there’s some kind of crazy man running around the village telling everyone to get out. Says we’re going to be attacked or something.”
“What?”
What now, Anna mused.
“Ernie, go get your rifle. Just in case. Viv is scaring me.”
Ernie excused himself and did as he was told. “If he comes to this house,” he muttered, “I’ll blow his goddamn brains to kingdom come.”
Madeline was speaking again and it took Anna a few seconds to realize that the housewife was addressing her. “. . . probably someone who wants us all to leave so that they can rob all of our houses. And we left Yonkers for this?”
Anna smiled, almost too tired to wonder what it was all about. She hoped she could get out of this lovely house before too long. Guns and looters made her nerv
ous.
The doorbell rang. Madeline gasped. Anna sat up straighter in her chair, suddenly wishing she had simply driven straight to the hospital instead of calling from here. Someone was banging on the door now. The knocking had an ominous quality to it, although Anna assured herself that in her tense state she was merely imagining things. She watched her hostess step out into the hallway, calling her husband’s name, then got up herself and stood by the exit from the kitchen, hoping the visitor was only a harmless neighbor coming by for a cup of sugar.
Ernest marched heavily past his wife as she approached the door, a rifle held rigidly in his hands. ‘‘Let me get it,” he told her. “Go look after Steven.” He advanced on the door, pulling it open with a rugged wrench. “What do you want?” he said to the figure outside. Neither Anna nor Madeline—whose curiosity had prompted her to stay there rather than follow her husband’s instructions—could see who it was. The figure was bathed in a bright glow of light from the fixture above the door, and was surrounded by a blackness punctuated here and there by glows of illumination from the other houses in the area.
“I know this is going to sound strange,” the person in the doorway began, “but I must insist that you evacuate. Your family is in terrible danger.”
Dunsinger was having none of it. “So you’re the nut who’s been going around spreading that cockamamie story! Our neighbors warned me about you. Why don’t you get the hell out of here before I blow your goddamn brains out with my rifle!” He lifted the weapon and aimed it, shifting his body to a more strategic position. In that instant, Anna saw who it was at the door. She ran down the hall shouting: “No! No! Please don’t shoot! I know him. He’s a friend of mine!”
David was as startled to see her as she was to see him. “Anna! I wondered if that was my car parked outside, but it didn’t seem possible.”
His face reflecting caution and wariness, Ernest put down the gun and let David come in, whereupon David and Anna quickly embraced. “Oh, David, thank God you’re all right. What’s going on?” Before he could reply, she rapidly explained how she had come to be there. She told the Dunsingers who David was. “What is this all about?” she asked him. “Are you the one who’s telling everyone to leave their houses?”
Spawn of Hell Page 34
