He points at the ceiling. “What the hell is that?"
There are three creatures clinging to the rafter beams, like bats. If bats had seven furry clawed appendages. They match the color of the dark wood. That thing that looks like an octopus body is a translucent sac of dark fluid the size of a football.
"You ever see them before?"
He shakes his head. “Christ and Buddha. Is that her blood?"
"I guess.” Three of them, three wounds.
"This planet is so ausgefuckt,” he says. “A vampire chameleon octopus?"
"Furry, too.” The xenobiologist in me has to marvel. “How could they have gotten in? Under the door?” Giant cockroaches on Earth can do that.
"And why would she get into bed with them? On top of them."
"Safe to say she didn't. They killed her first, or knocked her unconscious.” Would she bleed out so completely if her heart had stopped?
He pats his hip. “Didn't bring a gun."
"Let's don't kill them,” I say. “We need one alive, anyhow, to study."
"Okay, Doc. You climb up there and pick one out."
"Sure.” I call the lodge and explain the situation. The safari manager says he'll send someone out with a cage right away.
I move around to where the light's better. “I have seen them. That sac was hidden away, small, under the thorax. Saw a few down by the picnic area. Tried to catch one but it got away."
"Good thing."
"They were kind of cute, like hamsters. Maybe she brought them home."
Roos and I have both lived on Runaway for more than a year. We could learn caution. But I don't say anything when he takes a broom out of a closet and uses it to prod one of the things.
I don't know when I've ever seen an animal move so fast. It streaks down that broomstick in a flash and clamps onto his hand. He screams bloody murder, and the other two creatures launch themselves, one at him and one at me.
I bat it away and leap halfway across the room, toward the drawer with the woman's gun. My collarbone cracks when I land.
By the time I get the drawer open and the laser unlocked, the thing is clamped on my ankle, and a cold dead numbness radiates up my leg. I fire a wild shot that brushes it, and it takes off across the room like a dervish. I make scorch marks on three walls, missing it. Then it gets back up to the rafters and holds still. I take one aimed shot and it blows clotted blood all over everything.
Try to stand up and fall over, one leg a dead log. Crawl across the room toward Roos.
One of the things is on his wrist. I steady the pistol with both hands and squeeze off a beam; the thing pops in a spray of blood.
The other one is on his throat. No choice. I crawl up and put the muzzle sideways against the thing and squeeze. It blows up in a spray of dark blood and then bright blood gushes from Roos's neck. I put my hand over the wound and then pull up his shirt to staunch it. He makes a clearing-throat noise and drools out some blood and mucus, looking dead.
Fading out, I look down and see that my ankle is also pulsing blood. Anticoagulant. That much? I am totally calm. Dying, but okay. Everything dies. I blink really hard, staying awake. This is how she felt.
Phone in my shirt pocket. It takes forever to reach it, like a dim dull dream. I slowly punch 9-1-1. Shit, wrong planet. 9-9-9. “Blood,” I say. “We need lots of blood.” Though we do have blood everywhere. I fall asleep.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Novelet: I WALTZED WITH A ZOMBIE by Ron Goulart
Introduction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is pretty much responsible for my career, such as it is, as a writer. I was about sixteen when I bought the premier issue from the newsstand at my local drug store in Berkeley, California. The title of that very first issue was just plain Magazine of Fantasy. Encouraging to me, since the science fiction I was trying to write back then was not very strong on science but did all right when it came to fantasy. They changed the title with the second issue, but I kept buying it anyway. I'd already been buying pulp sf magazines, but F&SF seemed a step above the pulpwoods. More like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, after which it was modeled.
And it now and then had a story by my then-idol, Ray Bradbury. F&SF also introduced me to such writers as Alfred Bester, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, and Alan Nelson. And more serious chaps like Richard Matheson. Another thing I found fascinating about the magazine was the fact that it was edited in my home town by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas. McComas I'd never heard of. Boucher's work, however, I knew pretty well, having read most of his mystery novels and his detective novel reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle (the title of the column was “The Gory Road") and listened to the weekly Sherlock Holmes radio shows that he cowrote (they starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce). Now if you're a teenage boy who aspires to writing science fiction and you know there's the editor of an sf magazine living right smack in the same town as you do, you try to figure out how to meet him. Just sending in a story by mail, and including return postage, didn't seem enough.
I was still mulling this over some months later, when I saw a small notice in the book section of the Chronicle announcing that Boucher was going to be teaching a once-a-week class in writing at his home every Thursday night. The address was on Dana Street, up fairly near the campus of the University of California. It was the same address as the editorial offices of the magazine. I signed up. It cost $1.00 per night. My mother advanced me the money each week and my dad, since I'd flunked my first driving test, drove me there and picked me up. Boucher usually had about eight or ten pupils in attendance and, sitting at a card table in the center of his living room, he'd read one of the submitted stories and then discuss it and listen to the students’ comments. He'd usually make it through three or four stories each week. The room was ringed by cases that contained books, many of them by him, his collection of seventy-eight r.p.m. opera records, and, as I recall, at least two Edgars that he'd won from the MWA. Those statues of Poe fascinated me and I vowed to win at least one myself. I'm still working on that, although I have had two nominations.
The first time Boucher read a science fiction story that I'd submitted, he asked me afterward if he could hold it to consider for F&SF. That was exactly what I was hoping for. Turned out they never bought that planet yarn, and it wasn't until I was nineteen that I made it into the magazine. Time passes much faster for me now, but then three years seemed like a hell of a long time to wait. My first sale was a reprint of a parody of letter columns in sf magazines that had appeared in the UC humor magazine. I was paid $25 and from that moment I considered myself a professional writer. A few months later Boucher and McComas bought a brand new story that I tried on them.
Since then I've branched out into mysteries and nonfiction and added books to my list. But I figure if I hadn't discovered F&SF when I did and hadn't had the nerve to sign up for Boucher's course, I might be a retired English teacher living in El Cerrito or Walnut Creek. On the other hand, I might be relaxing in a villa on Lake Como, living on the residuals from a long string of top-rated sitcoms.
One never knows.—Ron Goulart
* * * *
It was the only movie ever made starring a dead man. This was back in the late spring of 1942 and Hix, the short, feisty, and unconquerably second-rate writer of low budget B-movies, was one of the few people who knew about it. He'd hoped to turn the knowledge to his advantage. But that didn't quite work out.
His involvement commenced on an overcast May afternoon. He was pacing, as best he could, his diminutive office in the Writers Building on the Pentagram Pictures lot in Gower Gulch.
Carrying his long-corded telephone in one hand and the receiver in the other, he was inquiring of his newest agent, “In what context did Arthur Freed use the word ‘tripe,’ Bernie?"
"He applied it to your movie treatment, the one I was foolish enough to let you cajole me into schlepping over to MGM,” replied Bernie Kupperman from the Kupperman-Sussman Talent Agency o
ffices over in the vicinity of Sunset Boulevard. “The full sentence was, ‘How dare you inflict such a load of tripe on me, Bernie?’”
"That's not so bad. He could have called it crap instead of tripe.” Hix, his frizzy hair flickering, halted just short of an unstrung mandolin that lay in his path.
"Actually, Hix, he did, but I never use that kind of language over the phone."
Sighing, the short screenwriter set his telephone down on his wobbly desk atop a scatter of glossy photos of starlets, drafts of scripts, three old issues of Whiz Comics, and a paper plate that once had held a nutburger. “Alas, that's the curse of being ahead of my time with my ideas."
"Two weeks ahead isn't that far,” suggested his agent. “Oh, and Freed, hardly using any profanity at all, did mention that he'd heard that Val Lewton is planning to do a picture with the same title over at RKO."
"What I hear is that Lewton and his heavy-handed director Tourneur are probably both about to get the bum's rush out of the studio before they have time to make another clinker like Cat People.” Hix gazed at a spot on the far wall where a window would've been if his office actually had a window. “More importantly, Bernie, Lewton's flicker is entitled I Walked with a Zombie, while my proposed blockbuster enjoys the far superior title of I Waltzed with a Zombie."
"Even so, Hix, we—"
"Furthermore, pal, Lewton's movie is going to be just another trite lowbrow effort aimed chiefly at the Saturday matinee crowd, mostly pubescent boys who flock into movie palaces to eat popcorn, whistle at Rita Hayworth, and pass gas,” he pointed out. “My effort is a big budget musical, the very first horror musical comedy ever conceived by man."
"So far nobody—"
"Face it, buddy, the concept of a Technicolor musical in the horror genre is, well, both brilliant and unique.” When Hix's head bobbed enthusiastically, his frazzled hair fluttered. “Were I given to hyperbole, I'd dub it super-colossal."
After a few silent seconds, his agent told him, “Estling over at Star Spangled Studios wants you for another Mr. Woo quickie."
Hix sank down into his slightly unstable swivel chair, sighing again. “As a potential Oscar winner,” he complained, “I ought to be working for somebody who's not as big a moron as Estling."
"He's offering five hundred bucks more than you got for Mr. Woo at the Wax Museum."
"Okay, tell him I'll write it,” said Hix. “But keep pitching I Waltzed with a Zombie."
"Only if it doesn't look like it's going to result in my suffering bodily harm."
Hix hung up and slid the phone toward the edge of his desk. “Twenty-nine smash B-movies since I came here six years ago and they still treat me like a hack."
The telephone rang.
"Mr. Hix's private office,” he answered in, he was quite certain, a very convincing imitation of a very polite British servant.
"Listen, Hix, I've got to talk to you."
"That can be arranged, Marlys,” he assured her. “Still unhappy about how things are going for you at Paramount? You've only been under contract for a little over three months after all."
"I still haven't been cast in one darn movie, Hix,” Marlys Regal told him. “But this is something else, something maybe worse. Can you meet me in the Carioca Room at the Hotel San Andreas on Wilshire at five?"
"I can, sure. But what exactly—"
"Listen, besides writing a whole stewpot of movies that are always on the lower half of double bills, I know you've done some amateur detective work now and then."
"I wouldn't apply the word amateur to my work in the ‘tec field, kid. In fact—"
"You also know a lot about spooky stuff, occult matters?"
"We've been keeping company for well over a month. In that time you must've deduced that I'm an expert in the field."
"Particularly zombies?"
"Well, sure. My as-yet unsold epic musical is about.... Whoa now. Are you hinting that you know something about real life zombies?"
"I am, yes, and I'm afraid I could be in trouble."
"So, tell me exactly what—"
"Nope, it's too darn risky to say any more from where I am right now. Meet me at the Carioca Room. Bye, darling.” She ended the call.
Cradling the receiver, he stood up and lifted his umber-colored sport coat off the eagle-topped coat rack to the left of his desk. As he shrugged his way into it, frazzled hair vibrating, he made his way to the door. “If I crack a zombie case,” he said, grabbing the dented doorknob, “I can get some terrific publicity for I Waltzed with a Zombie."
The green and scarlet parrot behind the long teakwood bar was alive. He swung on his gilded perch in his gilded cage, now and then squawking out what were probably Brazilian curses. The other parrots, the ones perched high in the fake banana palms that decorated the dimlit Carioca Room, were stuffed.
Arriving about ten minutes after five, Hix stopped near the bar and scanned the surrounding South American gloom.
"Still busily turning out crap, Hix?” asked an overweight writer who was occupying a nearby stool.
"I've recently been promoted to writing tripe, Arnie.” Eyes narrowed, he looked again at the surrounding tables. There was no sign of Marlys.
After swallowing the rest of his Manhattan and plucking the cherry from the bottom of the glass, Arnie said, “Buy you a drink, old buddy?"
"I'm meeting somebody."
"Anybody I know?” he inquired, biting the cherry.
"I'm hoping for Carmen Miranda,” Hix answered. “My doctor advised me to get more fruit in my diet. I figure if I eat her hat, I'll—"
"Marafona,” cried the parrot, agitating his golden cage. “Marafona."
Marlys Regal, smiling very faintly, had just entered the cocktail lounge. She spotted Hix, gave him a minimalist wave before crossing to an empty table next to an almost believable palm tree. Before sitting down, she looked back toward the doorway. She was a very pretty young woman in her early twenties, slender and, at the moment, a redhead.
Arnie nodded. “Cute, but a little too skinny for my tastes,” he observed. “And obviously too good for you."
"She's lowered her standards because of wartime shortages.” Hix, his crinkly hair fluttering, went trotting over to the actress. En route he passed out greetings to some of the other customers. “Hi, Chester, you were great in the new Boston Blackie flicker."
"That crap,” said the actor.
"Tripe,” corrected Hix. “Howdy, Eleanor, loved you in Ship Ahoy."
"Do I know you?"
As he seated himself opposite Marlys, the young actress asked, “Did you notice anybody watching me as I came in, Hix?"
"Sure, each and every guy, with the exception of Grady Sutton. As I've oft told you, kiddo, you're very presentable."
"No, seriously. I'm pretty sure I'm being watched."
He reached across, put his hand over hers. “Okay, so what's going on wrong?"
"Well, I know something and I figured maybe Paramount wouldn't want it known. All I really was after was a chance at a good part, you know."
"Are we talking blackmail?"
"I call it goosing my darn career. Thing is, I'm not sure how they took my proposition and, past couple days, Hix, I have this really spooky feeling they've got a watch on me."
"The time has come, Marlys, for a few more details."
She inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly. “Now this all started before I met you at the Rathbones’ party in April, Hix, so don't get jealous or hit the ceiling. You see—"
"What'll you folks have?” asked the buxom blonde waitress who materialized out of the shadows.
The red-haired actress said quietly, “I'd like bourbon and water."
"Plain ginger ale,” said Hix.
Nodding, the waitress departed.
Resting both elbows on the tropical-patterned tablecloth, Hix suggested, “Get back to your story."
"Well, before I met you I dated other people."
"Sure. I've been known to do the same."
&
nbsp; "Well, some four months ago I was seeing Alex Stoner and—"
"Stoner? The grand old man of the silver screen? Ain't he a bit old for you?"
"He was only fifty-six."
Hix straightened. “Was? According to Louella, Hedda, and Johnny Whistler, the old boy is still above the ground. Fact is, he's over at your very own Paramount about two-thirds of the way through starring in their big budget historical fillum of the year, The Holy Grail. He's cast as King Arthur."
She took another slow breath in and out. “Alex died early in March,” she said in a low voice. “Three weeks into The Holy Grail."
"So how come he's still acting in the darn film?"
"They brought him back to life,” she replied.
* * * *
It was a little over an hour later that Hix got knocked cold by a conk on the head.
He and Marlys had retreated to the small living room of the small cottage that Hix was renting on the ocean side of Santa Monica. The starlet had become convinced that it wasn't safe to keep talking at a public place like the Carioca.
Pacing the venerable flowered carpet he'd acquired at a rummage sale over in Altadena last fall, Hix was going over what details the young actress has thus far provided. “So you were sleeping with this old coot when he shuffled off?"
Marlys was sitting on the lime-green sofa. “Yes, I woke up at seven in the morning and the poor guy was stone cold dead next to me,” she said. “That was really unpleasant."
"Tell me some more about what you did next, kid."
"I was alone at his place in Bel Air. Alex had given his two servants a few days off,” she said. “I was darn certain he had kicked off, so there sure wasn't any reason to call an ambulance."
Hix sat on the wobbly arm of his only armchair. “And what about the cops?"
"Spending a night in bed with a dead major movie star doesn't give you the kind of publicity I need,” she answered. “Besides which, Alex was already partway through shooting the King Arthur flick and I figured Paramount might not care to have his dying made public right away."
"How come you phoned this guy Wally Needham?"
FSF, October-November 2009 Page 27
