The Collective

by The Collective [lit]

  the senior professor in your department when you had nothing

  more aggressive in mind yourself than charting the continued

  outmigration of sandflies. "Slow down, I don't know what you're

  talking about."

  Stanley, hardly aware of what he was saying, poured out a garbled

  version of what had happened to the janitor. Charlie Gereson

  looked more and more confused and doubtful. As upset as he was,

  Dex began to realize that Charlie didn't believe a word of it. He

  thought, with a new kind of horror, that soon Charlie would ask

  him if he had been working too hard, and that when he did, Stanley

  would burst into mad cackles of laughter.

  But what Charlie said was, "That's pretty far out, Professor

  Stanley."

  "It's true. We've got to get campus security over here. We--"

  "No, that's no good. One of them would stick his hand in there,

  first thing." He saw Dex's stricken look and went on. "If I'm having

  trouble swallowing this, what are they going to think?"

  "I don't know," Dex said. "I... I never thought..."

  "They'd think you just came off a helluva toot and were seeing

  Tasmanian devils instead of pink elephants," Charlie Gereson said

  cheerfully, and pushed his glasses up on his pug nose. "Besides,

  from what you say, the responsibility has belonged with zo all

  along... like for a hundred and forty years."

  "But..." He swallowed, and there was a click in his throat as he

  prepared to voice his worst fear. "But it may be out."

  "I doubt that," Charlie said, but didn't elaborate. And in that, Dex

  saw two things: that Charlie didn't believe a word he had said, and

  that nothing he could say would dissuade Charlie from going back

  down there.

  Henry Northrup glanced at his watch. They had been sitting in the

  study for a little over an hour; Wilma wouldn't be back for another

  two. Plenty of time. Unlike Charlie Gereson, he had passed no

  judgment at all on the factual basis of Dex's story. But he had

  known Dex for a longer time than young Gereson had, and he

  didn't believe his friend exhibited the signs of a man who has

  suddenly developed a psychosis. What he exhibited was a kind of

  bug-eyed fear, no more or

  less than you'd expect to see a man who has had an extremely close

  call with... well, just an extremely close call.

  "He went down, Dex?"

  "Yes. He did."

  "You went with him?"

  "Yes."

  Henry shifted position a little. "I can understand why he didn't

  want to get campus security until he had checked the situation

  himself. But Dex, you knew you were telling the flat-out truth,

  even if he didn't. Why didn't you call?"

  "You believe me?" Dex asked. His voice trembled. "You believe

  me, don't you, Henry?"

  Henry considered briefly. The story was mad, no question about

  that. The implication that there could be something in that box big

  enough and lively enough to kill a man after some one hundred and

  forty years was mad. He didn't believe it. But this was Dex... and

  he didn't disbelieve it either.

  "Yes," he said.

  "Thank God for that," Dex said. He groped for his drink. "Thank

  God for that, Henry."

  "It doesn't answer the question, though. Why didn't you call the

  campus cops?"

  "I thought... as much as I did think... that it might not want to come

  out of the crate, into the bright light. It must have lived in the dark

  for so long... so very long... and ... grotesque as this sounds... I

  though it might be pot-bound, or something. I thought ... well, he'll

  see it... he'll see the crate... the janitor's body... he'll see the blood...

  and then we'd call security. You see?" Stanley's eyes pleaded with

  him to see, and Henry did. He thought that, considering the fact

  that it had been a snap judgment in a presure situation, that Dex

  had thought quite clearly. The blood. When the young graduate

  student saw the blood, he would have been happy to call in the

  cops.

  "But it didn't work out that way."

  "No." Dex ran a hand through his thinning hair.

  "Why not?"

  "Because when we got down there, the body was gone."

  "It was gone?"

  "That's right. And the crate was gone, too."

  When Charlie Gereson saw the blood, his round and good-natured

  face went very pale. His eyes, already magnified by his thick

  spectacles, grew even huger. Blood was puddled on the lab table. It

  had run down one of the table legs. It was pooled on the floor, and

  beads of it clung to the light globe and to the white tile wall. Yes,

  there was plenty of blood.

  But no janitor. No crate.

  Dex Stanley's jaw dropped. "What the fuck!" Charlie whispered.

  Dex saw something then, perhaps the only thing that allowed him

  to keep his sanity. Already he could feel that central axle trying to

  pull free. He grabbed Charlie's shoulder and said, "Look at the

  blood on the table!"

  "I've seen enough," Charlie said.

  His Adam's apple rose and fell like an express elevator as he

  struggled to keep his lunch down.

  "For God's sake, get hold of yourself," Dex said harshly. "You're a

  zoology major. You've seen blood before."

  It was the voice of authority, for that moment anyway. Charlie did

  get a hold of himself, and they walked a little closer. The random

  pools of blood on the table were not as random as they had first

  appeared. Each had been neatly straight-edged on one side.

  "The crate sat there," Dex said. He felt a little better. The fact that

  the crate really had been there steadied him a good deal. "And look

  there." He pointed at the floor. Here the blood had been smeared

  into a wide, thin trail. It swept toward where the two of them stood,

  a few paces inside the double doors. It faded and faded, petering

  out altogether about halfway between the lab table and the doors. It

  was crystal clear to Dex Stanley, and the nervous sweat on his skin

  went cold and clammy.

  It had gotten out.

  It had gotten out and pushed the crate off the table. And then it had

  pushed the crate... where? Under the stairs, of course. Back under

  the stairs. Where it had been safe for so long.

  "Where's the... the..." Charlie couldn't finish.

  "Under the stairs," Dex said numbly. "It's gone back to where it

  came from."

  "No. The..." He jerked it out finally. "The body."

  "I don't know," Dex said. But he thought he did know. His mind

  would simply not admit the truth.

  Charlie turned abruptly and walked back through the doors.

  "Where are you going?" Dex called shrilly, and ran after him.

  Charlie stopped opposite the stairs. The triangular black hole

  beneath them gaped. The janitor's big four-cell flashlight still sat

  on the floor. And beside it was a bloody scrap of gray cloth, and

  one of the pens that had been clipped to the man's breast pocket.

  "Don't go under there, Charlie! Don't." His heartbeat whammed

  savagely in his ears, frightening him even more.

  "No," Charlie said.
"But the body..."

  Charlie hunkered down, grabbed the flashlight, and shone it under

  the stairs. And the crate was there, shoved up against the far wall,

  just as it had been before, squat and mute. Except that now it was

  free of dust and three boards had been pried off the top.

  The light moved and centered on one of the janitor's big, sensible

  work shoes. Charlie drew breath in a low, harsh gasp. The thick

  leather of the shoe had been savagely gnawed and chewed. The

  laces hung, broken, from the eyelets. "It looks like somebody put it

  through a hay baler," he said hoarsely.

  "Now do you believe me?" Dex asked.

  Charlie didn't answer. Holding onto the stairs lightly with one

  hand, he leaned under the overhang--presumably to get the shoe.

  Later, sitting in Henry's study, Dex said he could think of only one

  reason why Charlie would have done that--to measure and perhaps

  categorize the bite of the thing in the crate. He was, after all, a

  zoologist, and a damned good one.

  "Don't!" Dex screamed, and grabbed the back of Charlie's shirt.

  Suddenly there were two green gold eyes glaring over the top of

  the crate. They were almost exactly the color of owls' eyes, but

  smaller. There was a harsh, chattering growl of anger. Charlie

  recoiled, startled, and slammed the back of his head on the

  underside of the stairs. A shadow moved from the crate toward him

  at projectile speed. Charlie howled. Dex heard the dry purr of his

  shirt as it ripped open, the click as Charlie's glasses struck the floor

  and spun away. Once more Charlie tried to back away. The thing

  began to snarl--then the snarls suddenly stopped. And Charlie

  Gereson began to scream in agony.

  Dex pulled on the back of his white tee shirt with all his might. For

  a moment Charlie came backwards and he caught a glimpse of a

  furry, writhing shape spread-eagled on the young man's chest, a

  shape that appeared to have not four but six legs and the flat bullet

  head of a young lynx. The front of Charlie Gereson's shirt had been

  so quickly and completely tattered that it now looked like so many

  crepe streamers hung around his neck.

  Then the thing raised its head and those small green gold eyes

  stared balefully into Dex's own. He had never seen or dreamed

  such savagery. His strength failed. His grip on the back of Charlie's

  shirt loosened momentarily.

  A moment was all it took. Charlie Gereson's body was snapped

  under the stairs with grotesque, cartoonish speed. Silence for a

  moment. Then the growling, smacking sounds began again.

  Charlie screamed once more, a long sound of terror and pain that

  was abruptly cut off... as if something had been clapped over his

  mouth.

  Or stuffed into it.

  Dex fell silent. The moon was high in the sky. Half of his third

  drink--an almost unheard-of phenomenon--was gone, and he felt

  the reaction setting in as sleepiness and extreme lassitude.

  "What did you do then?" Henry asked. What he hadn't done, he

  knew, was to go to campus security; they wouldn't have listened to

  such a story and then released him so he could go and tell it again

  to his friend Henry.

  "I just walked around, in utter shock, I suppose. I ran up the stairs

  again, just as I had after... after it took the janitor, only this time

  there was no Charlie Gereson to run into. I walked... miles, I

  suppose. I think I was mad. I kept thinking about Ryder's Quarry.

  You know that place?"

  "Yes," Henry said.

  "I kept thinking that would be deep enough. If... if there would be a

  way to get that crate out there. I kept... kept thinking..." He put his

  hands to his face. "I don't know. I don't know anymore. I think I'm

  going crazy."

  "If the story you just told is true, I can understand that," Henry said

  quietly. He stood up suddenly. "Come on. I'm taking you home."

  "Home?" Dex looked at this friend vacantly. "But--"

  "I'll leave a note for Wilma telling her where we've gone and then

  we'll call... who do you suggest, Dex? Campus security or the state

  police?"

  "You believe me, don't you? You believe me? Just say you do."

  "Yes, I believe you," Henry said, and it was the truth. "I don't

  know what that thing could be or where it came from, but I believe

  you." Dex Stanley began to weep.

  "Finish your drink while I write my wife," Henry said, apparently

  not noticing the tears. He even grinned a little. "And for Christ's

  sake, let's get out of here before she gets back."

  Dex clutched at Henry's sleeve. "But we won't go anywhere near

  Amberson Hall, will we? Promise me, Henry! We'll stay away

  from there, won't we?"

  "Does a bear shit in the woods?" Henry Northrup asked. It was a

  three-mile drive to Dex's house on the outskirts of town, and

  before they got there, he was half-asleep in the passenger seat.

  "The state cops, I think," Henry said. His words seemed to come

  from a great distance. "I think Charlie Gereson's assessment of the

  campus cops was pretty accurate. The first one there would happily

  stick his arm into that box."

  "Yes. All right." Through the drifting, lassitudinous aftermath of

  shock, Dex felt a dim but great gratitude that his friend had taken

  over with such efficiency. Yet a deeper part of him believed that

  Henry could not have done it if he had seen the things he had seen.

  "Just... the importance of caution ..."

  "I'll see to that," Henry said grimly, and that was when Dex fell

  asleep.

  He awoke the next morning with August sunshine making crisp

  patterns on the sheets of his bed. Just a dream, he thought with

  indescribable relief. All some crazy dream.

  But there was a taste of Scotch in his mouth--Scotch and

  something else. He sat up, and a lance of pain bolted through his

  head. Not the sort of pain you got from a hangover, though; not

  even if you were the type to get a hangover from three Scotches,

  and he wasn't.

  He sat up, and there was Henry, sitting across the room. His first

  thought was that Henry needed a shave. His second was that there

  was something in Henry's eyes that he had never seen before--

  something like chips of ice. A ridiculous thought came to Dex; it

  passed through his mind and was gone. Sniper's eyes. Henry

  Northrup, whose specialty is the earlier English poets, has got

  sniper's eyes.

  "How are you feeling, Dex?"

  "A slight headache," Dex said. "Henry... the police... what

  happened?"

  "The police aren't coming," Northrup said calmly. "As for your

  head, I'm very sorry. I put one of Wilma's sleeping powders in

  your third drink. Be assured that it will pass."

  "Henry, what are you saying?"

  Henry took a sheet of notepaper from his breast pocket. "This is

  the note I left my wife. It will explain a lot, I think. I got it back

  after everything was over. I took a chance that she'd leave it on the

  table, and I got away with it."

  "I don't know what you're--"

  He took the note from
Henry's fingers and read it, eyes widening.

  Dear Billie,

  I've just had a call from Dex Stanley. He's hysterical.

  Seems to have committed some sort of indiscretion with

  one of his female grad students. He's at Amberson Hall.

  So is the girl. For God's sake, come quickly. I'm not

  sure exactly what the situation is, but a woman's

  presence may be imperative, and under the

  circumstances, a nurse from the infirmary just won't do.

  I know you don't like Dex much, but a scandal like this

  could ruin his career. Please come.

  Henry.

  "What in God's name have you done?" Dex asked hoarsely.

  Henry plucked the note from Dex's nerveless fingers, produced his

  Zippo, and set flame to the corner. When it was burning well, he

  dropped the charring sheet of paper into an ashtray on the

  windowsill.

  "I've killed Wilma," he said in the same calm voice. "Ding-dong,

  the wicked bitch is dead." Dex tried to speak and could not. That

  central axle was trying to tear loose again.The abyss of utter

  insanity was below. "I've killed my wife, and now I've put myself

  into your hands."

  Now Dex did find his voice. It had a sound that was rusty yet

  shrill. "The crate," he said. "What have you done with the crate?"

  "That's the beauty of it," Henry said. "You put the final piece in the

  jigsaw yourself. The crate is at the bottom of Ryder's Quarry."

  Dex groped at that while he looked into Henry's eyes. The eyes of

  his friend. Sniper's eyes. You can't knock off your own queen,

  that's not in anyone's rules of chess, he thought, and restrained an

  urge to roar out gales of rancid laughter. The quarry, he had said.

  Ryder's Quarry. It was over four hundred feet deep, some said. It

  was perhaps twelve miles east of the university. Over the thirty

  years that Dex had been here, a dozen people had drowned there,

  and three years ago the town had posted the place.

  "I put you to bed," Henry said. "Had to carry you into your room.

  You were out like a light. Scotch, sleeping powder, shock. But you

  were breathing normally and well. Strong heart action. I checked

  those things. Whatever else you believe, never think I had any

  intention of hurting you, Dex."

  "It was fifteen minutes before Wilma's last class ended, and it

  would take her another fifteen minutes to drive home and another

  fifteen minutes to get over to Amberson Hall. That gave me forty-