Worlds Away and Worlds Aweird

by James Hartley

  Later he asked his mother, “Why is Billy dead? He wasn’t hurt, he wasn’t even bleeding.”

  “Billy died because he was bleeding inside. The blood ran out of his heart and he died.”

  “It was my fault Billy died, wasn’t it? I didn’t call the ambulance soon enough.”

  “No, Kurt, it wasn’t your fault. I talked to Billy’s mother. The doctor said it was so bad, even if the ambulance had been right there waiting for Billy, they couldn’t have saved him. Don’t blame yourself.”

  But Kurt could never completely lose the feeling that he should have been able to do something about Billy, about Billy’s death.

  Where did this damn canyon come from? This isn’t on the survey map. The only canyon is west of the camp and I’m going north…no, wait a minute, the sun’s in front of me, I must have turned west. My pressure suit has a compass, why do I keep going off course? Let’s just take a compass reading…that’s funny, the compass clip is empty. How’d I lose my compass?

  Well, that’s not important. What’s important is the mission. Someone is dying, got to take care of it. North along the canyon, that’ll keep me on a line, keep me from going in circles. Time to get moving, someone is dying.

  The death of Kurt’s father came back when he was finishing high school, this time to help him. Kurt knew money was getting short, especially since he had turned sixteen and lost the Social Security benefits.

  All the teachers in Kurt’s school said he ought to go to college. The Guidance Counselor kept after him. “Behrman, why haven’t you sent off any applications yet? You have to get them in early to get the best choice of schools.”

  “We don’t have the money for me to go to college, Mr. Harwich. Sending applications is a waste of time.”

  “Nonsense. There are scholarships, co-op programs, student loans, all sorts of aid. All the more reason to apply early.”

  “Okay, Mr. Harwich. I’ll get to it right away.”

  But he knew he wouldn’t. He knew he would graduate from high school and get a job to help support his mother and his sister, Cheryl. Especially since his mother had been getting sick a lot and couldn’t work much. He knew what was best for him and was determined to do it his way.

  Then he got the letter from Senator Riggs. It said that the fifteenth anniversary of Captain Behrman’s death would come during Kurt’s first year in college. It said that Captain Behrman had been a hero, and that the country hadn’t done enough for his family. It said that the Senator had decided to give Kurt an appointment to the Air Force Academy.

  What it didn’t say was that the Senator had a tough fight for re-election coming up. It didn’t say that Kurt lived in a swing district that could win or lose the election, or that the Senator planned to play up this appointment to the hilt. Kurt accepted the appointment, although he might have been stubborn enough to refuse had he known. Quitting when he found out several years later seemed far different from never accepting, and he stuck it out.

  He did, however, worry about his mother and sister. “Mom, how are you and Cheryl going to get along without me getting a job?”

  “Don’t worry about it, Kurt. We’ll manage. And besides, with—” She was interrupted by a fit of coughing from her self-diagnosed bronchitis. Finally the coughing subsided and she continued, “With you off to college, there’s one less to feed, so the money will stretch farther. You go ahead, this is a great honor. You can’t turn it down.”

  Where am I now? I don’t see that canyon anymore. How can it vanish while I’m following it? Let me just check my compass…oh, that’s right, the compass is gone. But the sun is over there, right over that little hillock. Damn! That’s the same hill. I still got turned around. Why is it so hard to walk away from the camp? I really better get moving. Someone is dying. I have to hurry.

  Kurt was a good student at the Academy, and ended up in the top twenty in his class. During the final year, most of the bull sessions were about the assignments they’d get after graduation, and Kurt was just as worried as any of the others. Finally, a month before graduation, he got a call to see the Guidance Officer.

  “Cadet Behrman reporting to see Major Prysock as ordered, sir.”

  “At ease, Behrman. In fact, have a seat. I want to talk to you about your post-graduation tour of duty. No doubt you’ve been wondering about that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I have something special in mind for you. Behrman, you’re a good student, and I think you’d make a good officer. A good one, but not a great one. You have a bit too much independence, an ornery streak. Not enough for us to disqualify you, but someday, in a military situation, it could get you in hot water. So I’m recommending you for detached duty with NASA.”

  “NASA?” Kurt was so surprised he forgot the “Sir.”

  “NASA. They want younger men, even new graduates, rather than seasoned officers, to train for a special flight. The Mars Mission.”

  Kurt’s jaw dropped. “Mars?”

  “Yes. They’ve been doing preliminary work for over twenty years, ever since the first President Bush proposed it back in nineteen ninety. Now, they’re getting ready to really staff up. So, Behrman, do you want it?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Kurt fit right into the work at Canaveral, and he loved it. But even here he wasn’t immune from the effects of death. He was on the second day of a week-long orbital training mission when he got word of his mother’s death, and he couldn’t get back down until after the funeral.

  When he finally did land, he requested and got leave, and bummed a ride on an Air Force plane back to his home. He managed to phone his sister to tell her when he would arrive, and she met him at the airport.

  “Cheryl, I’m sorry, there was just no way down. It happened so suddenly, I never even knew what killed her.”

  “Pneumonia. That ‘bronchitis’ of hers, she would never see a doctor about it. Somewhere along the line, it turned into pneumonia, but it was three or four days before I realized it was something worse than usual and dragged her to the emergency room. By then it was too late, it killed her.”

  Kurt stayed with his sister as long as his leave allowed, then went back to his training. He worked hard, and it paid off. He was selected for the Mars flight.

  Why does this hillock look familiar? It can’t be the one near camp. I would be able to see the tip of the lander over it. Someone is dying. I have to get busy and do something about it. I wish I could remember. I keep coming back to this hill. Maybe I should climb up and look? Somehow, I’m afraid to…

  The Mars expedition was a great success. The six-man lander came down perfectly. The men got out in their pressure suits and set up the ring of bubble tents that would let them live for a while outside the cramped confines of the ship. Kurt and the captain did most of this work because the four scientists were already off on cloud nine performing experiments and making theories.

  When all the setting up was finished, the captain sent Kurt out to check the area around the camp. He had been out a half hour or so and was checking out the area behind a small hillock when he felt the quake. In the low gravity it was easy to run up the hill to see if the camp had suffered any damage.

  When he came in sight of the camp, he stopped, aghast. The “quake” had been the explosion of the lander. The middle section was simply gone, and the tip was lying across one of the bubble tents. The bottom section was almost intact, just a few dents in the metal, but there wasn’t enough left to lift off.

  The other bubble tents were all collapsed, punctured by flying shrapnel. He couldn’t tell where the men were, except for one pressure-suited figure lying near the lander. He was starting down the hill to see if anyone was alive when a ticking noise forced its way into his consciousness. He paused at the unfamiliar sound, then realized it was the Geiger counter. He grabbed it, not noticing that he knocked the compass loose from the adjacent clip as he did so, and looked at it. The meter was way up in the red.

  My God, he thought, the r
eactor blew up. He looked at the Geiger again and decided that everyone down in the camp was dead anyway. He beat a hasty retreat over the brow of the hill, then looked at his suit readouts. Not more than an hour of oxygen left, and all the supplies were down in that radioactive hell around the ship. If, indeed, there were any intact supplies. No real choice, oxygen starvation or radiation poisoning. He would be dead soon either way. No choice, but he decided he wanted to die somewhere alone, away from the ruins of the camp. He turned his back on the camp and started walking.

  Someone is dying. I wish I could remember who, or why. Perhaps if I climb up on this little hill and look? Somehow, I want to and I don’t want to. I guess I’d better—Oh, my God! Now I remember! The camp, the explosion, everyone else dead. Nothing I can do for them, why do I keep worrying that someone is dying?

  It’s awfully quiet here. I don’t hear anything, not even the hiss of the oxygen. Why don’t I hear that? That never stops. Oh. The tank’s empty. I’m out of oxygen. May as well just sit down here and wait. It won’t be too long. The air is already getting stuffy. But I was right. Someone is dying.

  Bloodbank Encounter

  [Vampires have to get their blood somewhere…]

  POLICE SERGEANT LOU KELLY HATED STAKEOUTS. He got bored and irritable, and often ended up fighting with his partner, Sergeant Thad Myers. Myers didn’t really mind the stakeouts, but he got upset when Kelly griped too much. Tonight, when they arrived at the stakeout site at the Midtown Blood Bank, Kelly was already grumbling.

  “Why do we have to pull a stakeout at a creepy place like a blood bank?”

  “’Cause this is where the robberies are, Lou, this is where the robberies are,” replied his partner. “If the crooks were heisting Scotch, we’d stake out a bar. But they’re stealing blood, so we’re at the blood bank.”

  “Sorry, I know, you’re right. I just don’t like it, that’s all. I wish there was some other way.”

  The briefing that morning had gone over it in detail. Blood was being stolen, but there was no apparent black market activity, no clues, nothing from the regular stoolies. So the Commissioner had called a mass stakeout on all the blood banks in the city.

  Kelly and Myers found places out of sight, where they could watch the refrigerators, and settled down. After an hour, Kelly was fighting to remain awake, but he perked up at a sudden strange noise.

  “Hey, Thad, you hear something?” called Kelly softly.

  “Yeah, I think a bird got in through the skylight. Look up at the ceiling.”

  Kelly looked up and saw what Myers referred to. As it slowly circled toward the floor, Kelly realized it wasn’t a bird, it was a bat. He was about to say something when suddenly the bat touched the floor and changed into a beautiful girl. Kelly stared. In the dim light her dark hair appeared black, except for a silvery white forelock. Her canines were large, almost fangs, and, except for a small pouch strapped around her waist, she was totally nude.

  With a great deal of effort, Kelly ripped his eyes away from her and signaled to Myers to stay quiet. The two of them watched her walk to the refrigerator and open it. She pulled out a plastic bag of blood, punctured it with her teeth, and drank it. She followed this with a second and a third. Then, her thirst apparently slaked, she proceeded to stuff bags of blood into her pouch.

  Kelly snapped on the lights and pointed his gun at the girl, yelling “Freeze!”

  Myers had his gun out and was also covering the girl. She looked back and forth between the two and started to laugh. As if the two weren’t even there, she placed one last container of blood in the pouch, zipped the pouch closed, and turned to leave.

  Kelly yelled “Freeze!” again.

  The girl showed no sign that she heard him. She just kept walking toward the exit.

  Kelly fired at her. The bullet hit her leg, passed through it, and slammed into the far wall. There was a brief spurt of blood, then the wound closed up and disappeared. The girl made no sound, she just gave Kelly a look of pure hatred. Then she changed back into a bat, now a bat large enough to carry the filled pouch. Kelly and Myers stood there aghast as their suspect flew up into the air and vanished out the skylight.

  Kelly asked, “Did you see that? Do you believe it?”

  “What I believe ain’t important. What’s important is what in hell are we gonna tell the Lieutenant? And what’s he gonna believe?”

  The Lieutenant didn’t believe what they told him. “She must have climbed up a rope, right? And it was dim, you couldn’t see, your bullet just grazed her, right?”

  “Lieutenant,” said Kelly, “if that’s what you want to believe happened, fine. But how do you explain her drinking the blood?”

  “I don’t have to. There’s all sorts of sickos out there, and she was one of ’em. What I want is, next time, you two to be ready for her Indian rope trick or whatever. I want her brought in, and I want you two to be good little boy scouts and be prepared.”

  Kelly interpreted the Lieutenant’s advice to be prepared in his own way and went out and got several items of his own choosing. He refused to explain to Myers, saying, “Just wait and see. These’ll get her.”

  The next stakeout at a blood bank came several days later. This time, Kelly arrived alert and ready, looking as if he were actually anxious for the job. He and Myers took their places in the dimly lit room and waited. This time they weren’t surprised at the bat entering the skylight, or at the transformation of the bat into the girl with the white forelock.

  Before the girl could get into the refrigerator, Kelly turned on the lights and stepped forward, pulling something from his pocket. He waved it at the girl and started reciting, “Pater noster—”

  The girl looked at him and laughed. “A crucifix and a prayer, how quaint!” she said in a spine-chillingly beautiful voice that reeked of sex. “But those are just old wives’ tales, gentlemen. They have no effect on me.”

  As she spoke, both men discovered that her voice had aroused them sexually. Then she raised the pitch of her voice to something no merely human throat could produce, and the officers collapsed on the floor, close to blacking out.

  Kelly recovered the use of his arms as the girl packed the last bag of blood into her pouch. Moving carefully so she wouldn’t see him and knock him out again, he slid out his gun and fired at her. Again the bullet passed through her with a brief spurt of blood and hit the wall. Again the wound closed almost immediately.

  As he looked at her helplessly, the girl turned and said, “I do wish you’d stop that. Those bullets sting!”

  “But, but,” stammered Kelly, “it was silver. A silver bullet. Why didn’t it—?”

  “A silver bullet! Are you the Lone Ranger, now? No, that a silver bullet will stop me is just another old wives’ tale, Sergeant Kelly. Almost all of them are, you know.”

  She changed into her bat form and flew up and out, leaving Kelly and Myers lying on the floor.

  It was Kelly’s day off, and he had chosen to indulge in his favorite vice, dinner at Mama Magnifico’s. Antipasto, linguine with white clam sauce, shrimp scampi, and an entire bottle of Pinot Grigio. Fortunately the restaurant was close enough to his apartment that he could walk home, since he was far too drunk to drive. He had just entered the apartment when the phone rang. It was the Lieutenant.

  “Kelly, the Commissioner has just ordered an all-hands stakeout and canceled all leaves. Get yourself over here to the Midtown Blood Bank.”

  “Lieutenant, you’ve got to be kidding. I’m not in any shape to go on duty.”

  “Look, the Commissioner says all hands, she means all hands. She has a burr up her butt about this, and you know what a bitch she can be with screwups. One guy over at the sixth precinct said he had the flu, they told him go to the stakeout or go to the hospital.”

  “Yeah, but I’m not shick, sick, I’m drunk. Lit. Plashtered. A whole damn bottle of wine. I was off duty, remember?”

  “Oh, shit! Well, get your butt over here anyway, I’ll stick you somewhere
out of the way. And take a cab, I don’t want you driving.”

  When Kelly arrived, the Lieutenant sent him to the furnace room “to check on break-ins through the chimney.” The room was as far from the refrigerators as one could get. It was also hot, stuffy, and smelly. Kelly found his head swimming. He sat down on the floor and leaned back against a pile of newspapers. After a few minutes he passed out. When he woke—he had no idea how much later—there was someone standing there looking down at him. He managed to focus his eyes and discovered it was the girl with the white forelock, nude as always. He tried to speak, but only a low moan emerged.

  “Hello, Sergeant Kelly. Sorry to see you feeling so sick. But I’m going to help you.”

  “Huh?”

  “Yes, I’m going to help you. You know, of course, if you are bitten by a vampire, you’ll become one yourself? That old story is true. And vampires have very few health problems. Stay out of sunlight, drink a little blood from time to time, and for all practical purposes, you’re immortal.”

  As sick as he was, Kelly felt the same sexual arousal from her voice he had felt the other times. As she moved nearer, he felt an almost irresistible desire for her, and reached out for her.

  “Ah, you want the treatment? Or you want me? Yes, I can see how anxious you are. Fine, I won’t keep you waiting.” She knelt on the floor beside him and lowered her mouth toward his throat. Then she paused and said, “Oh, by the way, my name is Venetia. We wouldn’t want to do this without a proper introduction, would we?”

  She lowered her mouth the rest of the way, and Kelly felt two small pricks in his throat from her fangs. They didn’t hurt, they burned with a most incredible feeling of pleasure, and Kelly had an intense orgasm as she sucked his blood.

  As she drank, he wondered dimly how much she would take and if there would be any left for him. But the pleasure was so great he didn’t care, and he just lay on the floor enjoying himself.