The Collective

by The Collective [lit]

  Two hours later we had a clean bill of health from the patrolman

  and the doctors and we were requested to be witnesses at the

  inquest set for the next week.

  I saw my car at the curb. It was a little worse for wear, but the flats

  had been replaced. There was a witnessed bill on the dash for a

  wrecker, tires, and clean-up squad! It came to about $250.00 half

  of the last night's pay-check.

  "You look preoccupied," the girl said.

  I turned to her. "Um, yeah. Well, we almost got killed together this

  morning, how about telling me your name and having lunch

  together?"

  "Okay," she said. "The name's Vicki Pickford. Yours?"

  "Danny," I said unemotionally as we pulled away from the curb. I

  switched the subject rapidly. "What was going on this morning?

  Did I hear that guy say that he was your legal guardian?"

  "Yes" she replied.

  I laughed. "The name is Danny Gerad. You'll get that out of the

  afternoon papers."

  She smiled gravely. "All right. He was my guardian. He was also a

  drunkard and an all-around crumb."

  Her cheeks flamed red. The smile was gone. "I hated him and I'm

  glad he's dead."

  She gave me a sharp glance and for a moment I saw fear shine

  wetly in her eyes; then she recovered her self-control. We parked

  and ate lunch.

  Forty minutes later I paid the check out of my newly acquired cash

  and walked back out to the car.

  "Where to?" I asked.

  "Bonaventure Motel," she said. "That's where I'm staying."

  She saw curiosity jump into my eyes and sighed, "All right, I was

  running away. My Uncle David caught up with me and tried to

  drag me back to the house. When I told him I wouldn't go, he

  dragged me out to the truck. We were going around that curve

  when I wrenched the wheel out of his hands. Then you came

  along."

  She closed up like a clam and I didn't try to get any more out of

  her. There was something wrong about her story. I didn't press her.

  I drove her into the parking lot and killed the engine.

  "When can I see you again?" I asked. "A movie tomorrow?"

  "Sure ," she replied.

  "I'll pick you up at 7.30," I said and drove out, thoughtfully

  pondering the events that had befallen me in the last twenty-four

  hours.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When I entered the apartment the phone was ringing. I picked it up

  and Vicki, accident and the bright workaday world of suburban

  California faded into the half-world of phantom-people shadows.

  The voice that whispered coldly out of the receiver was

  Weinbaum's

  "Troubles?" He spoke softly, but there was an ominous tone in his

  voice.

  "I had an accident," I replied.

  "I read about it in the paper ..." Weinbaum's voice trailed off.

  Silence hung between us for a moment and then I said, "Does this

  mean you're canning me?"

  I hoped that he would say yes; I didn't have the guts to resign.

  "No," he said softly, "I just wanted to make sure that you didn't

  reveal anything about the work you're doing for me."

  "Well, I didn't" I told him curtly.

  "The night after this," he reminded me, "At eight."

  There was a click and then the dial tone. I shivered and hung up

  the receiver. I had the oddest feeling that I had just broken

  connection with the grave.

  The next morning at 7.30 sharp, I picked up Vicki at the

  Bonaventure Motel. She was all decked out in an outfit that made

  her look stunning. I made a low whistle; she flushed prettily. We

  didn't talk about the accident.

  The movie was good and we held hands part of the time, ate

  popcorn part of the time and kissed once or twice. All in all, a

  pleasant evening.

  The second feature was just drawing to the climax when an usher

  came down the aisle.

  He was stopping at every row and looked peeved. Finally, he

  stopped at ours. He swept the flashlight down the row and asked*

  "Mr. Gerad? Daniel Gerad?"

  "Yes" I asked, feeling guilt and fear run through me. "There's a

  gentleman on the phone, sir. He says it's a matter of life or death."

  Vicki gave me a startled look and I followed the usher hurriedly.

  That let out the police. I mentally took stock of my only remaining

  relatives. Aunt Polly, Grandma Phibbs and my great-uncle Charlie.

  They were all healthy as far as I knew.

  You could have knocked me over with a feather when I picked up

  the telephone and heard Rankin's voice.

  He spoke rapidly and a raw note of fear was in his voice. "Get out

  here, right now! We need "

  There were sounds of a a scuffle, a muffled scream, then a click

  and the empty dial tone.

  I hung, up and hurried back for Vicki. "Come on," I said.

  She followed without questioning me. At first I wanted to drive her

  back to the motel but the muffled scream made me decide that this

  was an emergency. I didn't like either Rankin or Weinbaum, but I

  knew I would have to help them.

  We took off.

  "What is it?" Vicki asked anxiously as I stamped on the go-pedal

  and let the car unwind.

  "Look," I said, "something tells me that you've got your secrets

  about your guardian. I've got some of my own. Please, don't ask."

  She didn't say another word.

  I took possession of the passing lane. The speedometer climbed

  from seventy-five to eighty-five, kept rising and trembled on the

  verge of ninety. I pulled into the turnoff on two wheels and the car

  bounced, clung and exploded up the road.

  Grim and gaunt against the overcast sky, I could see the house. I

  pulled the car to a stop and was out in a second.

  "Wait here," I cried over my shoulder to Vicki.

  There was a light on in the laboratory and I flung the door open. It

  was empty but ransacked. The place was a mess of broken test

  tubes, smashed apparatus, and, yes, bloodstains that trailed through

  the half-open door that led to the darkened garage. Then I noticed

  the green liquid that was flowing over the floor in sticky rivulets.

  For the first time I noticed that one of the several sheeted tanks had

  been broken. I walked over to the other three. The lights inside

  them were off and the sheets that draped them let by no hint of

  what might have been under them - or, for that matter, what was

  under them.

  I had no time to see. I didn't like the looks of blood, still fresh and

  uncoagulated, that led out of the front door into the garage. I

  swung open the door and entered the garage. It was dark and I

  didn't know where the light switch was. I cursed myself for not

  bringing the flashlight that was in the glove compartment. I

  advanced a few steps and realized that there was a cold draft

  blowing against my face. I advanced toward it.

  The light from the lab threw a golden shaft of light along the

  garage floor, but it was next to nothing, in the Styngan blackness

  of the garage. All my childish fears of the dark returned. Once

  again I entered the realms of terror that only a child can know.
I

  realized that the shadow that leered at me from out of the dark

  might not be dispelled by bright light.

  Suddenly, my right foot went down. I realized that the draft was

  coming from a stairway I had almost fallen down. For a moment I

  debated, then turned and hurried back through the lab and out to

  the car.

  Chapter Six

  Vicki pounced on me as soon as I opened the door. "Danny, what

  are you doing here?"

  Her tone of voice made me look at her. In the sickly yellow glow

  of the light her face was terrified.

  "I'm working here," I said shortly.

  ''At first I didn't realize where we were," she said softly. I was only

  here once before.

  "You've been here?" I exclaimed. "When? '"Why?"

  "One night," she said quietly "I brought Uncle David his lunch. He

  forgot it."

  The name rang a bell. She saw me grasping for it. "My guardian,"

  she said. "Perhaps I'd better tell you the whole story. Probably,

  you know that people don't get appointed guardians when they

  drink. Well, Uncle David didn't always do those things. When my

  mother and father were killed in a train-wreck four years ago, my

  Uncle David was the kindest person you could imgine. The court

  appointed him my guardian until I came of ago, with my complete

  support."

  For a moment she was quiet, living in memories and the expression

  that flitted rapidly through her eyes was not pretty. Then she went

  on.

  "Two years ago the company be was working for as a night

  watchman folded up and my uncle was out of a job. He was out of

  work for almost half a year. We were getting desperate, with

  only unemployment checks to feed us and college looming up for

  me. Then he got a job. It was a good paying one and it brought in

  fabulous sums. I used to joke with him about the banks be robbed.

  One night he looked at me and said, 'Not banks.'"

  I felt fear and guilt tap me on the shoulder with cold fingers. Vicki

  went on.

  "He started to get mean. He started bringing home whisky and

  getting drunk. The times I asked him about his job he evaded me.

  One night he told me point-blank to mind my own business."

  "I watched him decay before my very eyes. Then one night he let a

  name slip - Weinbaum, Steffen Weinbaum. A couple of weeks

  later he forgot his midnight lunch. I looked up the name in the

  telephone book and took it out to him. He flew into the most

  terrible rage I have ever seen."

  "In the weeks that followed he was away more and more at this

  terrible house. One night, when he came home he beat me. I

  decided to run away. To me, the Uncle David I knew was dead. He

  caught me - and you came along." She fell silent.

  I was shaken right down to my boots. I had a very good idea what

  Vicki's uncle did for a living. The time Rankin had signed me up

  coincided with the time Vicki's guardian would have been cracking

  up. I almost drove away then, despite the wild shambles the lab

  was in, despite the secret stairway, despite the blood trail on the

  floor. But then a faraway, thin scream reached us. I thumbed the

  glove compartment button, and reached in, fumbled around and got

  the flashlight.

  Vicki's hand went to my arm "No, Danny. Please, Don't. l know

  that there's something terrible going on here. Drive away from it!"

  The scream sounded again, this time fainter, and I made up my

  mind. I grabbed the flashlight. Vicki saw my intention. "All right,

  I'm coming with you."

  "Uh-uh," I said. "You stay here. I've got a feeling that there's

  something ... loose out there. You stay here."

  She unwillingly sat back. I shut the door and ran back to the lab. I

  didn't pause, but went back into the garage. The flashlight

  illuminated the dark hole where the wall had slid away to reveal

  the staircase. My blood pounding thickly in my temples, I ventured

  down into it. I counted the steps, shining the flashlight at the

  featureless walls, at the impenetrable darkness below. "Twenty,

  twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three "

  At thirty, the stairway suddenly became a short passage. I started

  cautiously along it, wishing that I had a revolver, or even a knife to

  make me feel a little less naked and vulnerable.

  Suddenly a scream, terrible and thick with fear soon sounded in the

  darkness ahead of me. It was the sound of terror, the sound of a

  man confronted with something out of the deepest pits of horror. I

  broke into a run. As I ran I realized that the draft was blowing

  coldly against my face. I reasoned that the tunnel must come out in

  the outdoors. I stumbled over something.

  It was Rankin, lying in a pool of his own blood, his eyes staring in

  glazed horror at the ceiling. The back of his head was bashed in.

  Ahead of me I heard a pistol shot, a curse, and another scream. I

  ran on and almost fell on my face as I stumbled over more stairs. I

  climbed and saw stairs framed vaguely in an opening screened

  with underbrush above me. I pushed it aside and came upon a

  startling tableau: a tall figure silhouetted against the sky that could

  only be Weinbaum, a revolver hanging in his hand, looking down

  at the shadowed ground. Even the starlight was blotted out as the

  hanging clouds that had parted briefly, closed together again.

  He heard me and wheeled quickly, his eyes glazing like red

  lanterns in the dark.

  "Oh, it you Gerad."

  "Rankin's dead." I told him.

  "I know." he said, "You could have prevented it if you had come a

  little quicker"

  "Now just hold on," I said, becoming angry. "I hurried "

  I was cut off by a sound that has hounded me through nightmares

  ever since, a hideous mewing sound, like that of some gigantic rat

  in pain. I saw calculation, fear, and finally decision flicker across

  Weinbaum's face in a matter of seconds. I fell back in terror.

  "What is it?" I choked.

  He casually shone the light down into the pit, for all his affected

  casualness, I noticed that his eyes were averted by something.

  The thing mewed again and I felt another spasm of fear. I craned to

  see what horror lay in that pit, the horror that made even

  Weinbaum scream in abject terror. And just before I saw, a

  horrible wall of terror rose and fell from the vague outline of the

  house.

  Weinbaum jerked his flashlight from the pit and shone it in my

  face.

  "Who was that? Whom did you bring up here?"

  But I had my own flashlight trained as I ran through the passage

  way, Weinbaum close behind. I had recognized the scream. I had

  heard it before, when a frightened girl almost ran into my car as

  she fled her maniac of a guardian.

  Vicki!

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I heard Weinbaum gasp as we entered the lab. The place was

  swimming in the green, liquid. The other two cases were broken!. I

  didn't pause, but ran past the shattered, empty cases and out the

  door. Weinbaum did not follow me.

  The car was empty, the door on the passengers s
ide open. I shone

  my light over the ground. Here and there were footprints of a girl

  wearing high heels, a girl who had to be Vicki. The rest of the

  tracks were blotted out by a monstrous something I hesitate to

  call it a track. It was more as if something huge had dragged itself

  into the woods. Its hugeness was testified, too, as I noticed the

  broken saplings and crushed underbrush.

  I ran back into the lab where Weinbaum was sitting, face pale and

  drawn, regarding the three shattered empty tanks. The revolver was

  on the table and I grabbed it and made for the door.

  "Where do you think you're going with that?" he demanded, rising.

  "Out to hunt for Vicki," I snarled. "And if she's hurt or " I didn't

  finish.

  I hurried out into the velvet darkness of the night. Gun in hand,

  flashlight in the other, I plunged into the woods, following the trail

  blazed by something that I didn't want to think about. The vital

  question that burned in my mind was whether it had Vicki or was

  still trailing her. If it had her...

  My question was answered by a piercing scream not too far away

  from me.

  Faster now, I ran and suddenly burst into a clearing.

  Perhaps it is because I want to forget, or perhaps it is only because

  the nigh was dark and beginning to become foggy, but I can only

  remember how Vicki caught sight of my flashlight, ran to me,

  buried her head against my shoulder and sobbed.

  A huge shadow moved toward me, mewing horribly, driving me

  almost mad with terror. Stumblingly, we fled from the horror in the

  dark, back toward the comforting lights of the lab, away from the

  unseen terror that lurked in the dark. My fear-crazed brain was

  putting two and two together and coming up with five.

  The three cases had contained three something from the darkest

  pits of a twisted mind. One had broken loose. Rankin and

  Weinbaum had been after it. It had killed Rankin, but Weinbaum

  had trapped it in the concealed pit. The second one was

  floundering in the woods now and I suddenly remembered that

  whatever-it-was, was huge and that it had a hard time lifting itself

  along. Then I realized that it had trapped Vicki in a gully. It had

  started down easy enough! But getting up? I was almost positive

  that it couldn't.

  Two were out of commission. But where was the third? My

  question was answered very suddenly but a scream from the lab.

  And ... mewing.

  CHAPTER EIGHT