by Denis Hughes
“He’s dead!” the man breathed. “It wasn’t my fault!” Suddenly his face changed. “It’s him!” he cried.
The patrolman thrust him aside. “Yes,” he said tersely. “It’s him all right! You’ve saved the Courts a job, by the look of it.” He knelt beside Varden and fumbled. Varden kept his eyes on the man’s face, trying to speak. He could not move a muscle. The patrolman was holding his wrist, hunting for a pulse. But Varden couldn’t feel it now. There was no pain any more, nothing but a dreadful stillness. He could not even feel the beat of his own heart.
The patrolman shook his head. He was breathing heavily. He was saying something, but Varden could not hear now. Then a man with something white pushed his way through the crowd and unfolded a sheet. The folds of it blanked off Varden’s vision. And the dreadful stillness inside him and all round him was worse. Not even his heart… God, he thought, he was dead! He was dead!
*
Varden sat up slowly, peering round. The place was cold and bare and it took time to register on his mind that he was inside the morgue. They’d taken his clothes away and left him a sheet, nothing more. A sheet that smelt faintly of death and had covered him on a cold steel slab.
He wondered what to do about it. It was an unpleasant shock to find oneself laid out tidily in a morgue. He got up and walked about, holding the sheet round him for warmth, then he remembered what had happened and stopped in midstride. He’d been killed in a street smash escaping from the police! But he didn’t feel as if he’d been hit by anything. There wasn’t a bruise on his body, nor a stiff joint. He sat down on a chair and pondered, wondering about it. He had been killed. He knew that, and yet he wasn’t dead.
A door at the end of the room opened and a man came in, busy looking at a folder of papers, hurrying across the floor to a desk, not glancing in Varden’s direction at all.
Varden coughed loudly. “I say,” he said.
The man halted abruptly, seeing him for the first time. Then the blood drained from his face and he screamed brokenly.
“Hey, wait a minute!” shouted Varden, bounding after him as he turned to flee. “I want to talk to you!” He reached the man in a few strides, seizing him by the scruff of the neck.
“Now look here,” he began savagely. But his victim went off in a faint, collapsing in a heap on the ground. Varden swore, the door was closed and apparently no one else had heard the outcry. He waited patiently. Presently the man same round, terrified again when he caught sight of Varden.
“You—you’re dead!” he stammered.
“I’m not!”
“But—but you must be! You came in here with a broken neck and multiple fracture of the skull.”
“I don’t even have a headache right now.” He thrust his scarred face close to the man’s, terrorising him. “Tell me this, little man,” he said grimly. “Why were they chasing me?”
The man gulped violently. His eyes fled to the slab on which Varden had been lying. “You—you’re a murderer, he whispered. “You killed three women and one man last night. Every person in the country knows about you! You’ll never get away with this!”
“I did what?” demanded Varden incredulously. Then he stopped, an awful thought flooding through his mind.
“You killed three women,” the man repeated. “After the most savage assaults on record. The—the man tried to stop you in one of them, but you killed him too!” His teeth were chattering.
Varden let him go, feeling weak and sick himself. The man watched him apprehensively. Varden said, “You’re staying here, my friend. I want your clothes. Quickly!” His voice rose.
The man swallowed, but hurriedly undressed. Varden pulled the ill-fitting clothes on his own frame, then measured the distance carefully and cracked the man on the side of the jaw with the force of a pile driver. He went down without a sound.
It was night outside, for which he was grateful. The first hint of understanding was coming to him now. His other self, that ghastly entity that had sprung from his own being was evil, not just playful and mischievous as he’d thought before.
He left the morgue through a side door that opened in a narrow entrance shrouded in darkness.
“If that car didn’t kill me I can’t be killed,” he said to himself. “Is that good or bad? I’m damned if I know! But how did that other being manage to commit murder? He has no substance except to my eyes, and that can’t be real?”
Before leaving the morgue he had found an old hat, which he kept pulled low on his face. No one gave him a second glance. The four-times murderer was dead, killed on the street. They weren’t looking for him now, therefore they didn’t see him. But he went cautiously for all that. And getting to his room in the hotel was likely to prove difficult.
He chose the fire escape at the back as being safest.
“Hello there!” he was greeted on entering via the window. “I hear you’ve been having adventures.” The words were said cynically, with a dry sense of humour that maddened Varden further.
He halted in front of the other man; standing over him, eyes blazing.
“You…!” he said between his teeth. “What did you do, damn you?” He thrust out a hand and gripped the other by the throat.
Varden Two laughed. “You can’t do that,” he protested. “They can’t kill me any more than they can you! Don’t you realise that, Bob? We’re immortal. We aren’t living in 2034 any more than we’re living in 2017. We’re footloose in Time, if you can comprehend. I’ve been working it out.”
Varden still retained his grip. There was too much cold anger inside him to let go yet. “You killed four innocent people,” he grated. “Three of them women. And what’s more I get the blame and get killed for it!”
His own eyes stared back at him, mockingly. “It was fun,” came the answer. “It’s enlightening to know you can kill and not be killed, Bob. Power over life and death! I called on Viki, too. She was glad to see you, Bob,” He smiled. “She still has her points, I might add, and when I’d finished I told her about the others that night. But I didn’t kill her, even if she thought I meant to.” He giggled wildly. “Shook her a bit, I must say, because I made her believe it was true. I gave her all the authentic details, you know!”
“You sadistic swine! And Merrick wanted me to work for him so that millions of people would die in a futile war just to please his own vanity! If you were killable I’d kill you!”
Varden Two laughed harshly, pushed his arm away and walked up and down the room for a spell.
Varden got a much-needed drink for himself. There was very little left in the bottle. “How did you do it?” he said, at last. “Make yourself solid, I mean. You aren’t usually.”
“When you sleep, brother, I live. I’ve told you that before.” He lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. “You’ve got to remember that we only have one body between us.”
Varden rubbed a hand across his eyes. “Then I can’t ever sleep again!” he muttered tiredly. “Oh, God, why did that plane ever crash?”
The other man regarded him thoughtfully. “What are you going to do now?” he said presently.
“That’s the last thing I’d tell you!”
“Please yourself!”
Varden walked across to the video cabinet, hesitated, then changed his mind. He couldn’t show himself to the Smile now. He went out through the fire escape again, leaving the other man sitting comfortably in a chair, drinking.
In one of the many street booths he called up Viki’s flat.
She was weary and frightened looking when he saw her face. All the voluptuous seduction had gone from her eyes. “What do you want?” she asked, startled at seeing him. “I thought you’d been killed in a road accident. You deserve to be!”
Varden shook his head. “Not me,” he said flatly. “That was another part of me. Not me.”
Her eyes flashed fire for a moment. “It was you who nearly slaughtered me last night!” she told him. “What do you take me for? A fool?”
“St
op making me mad,” he said. “I need your help badly. I’m coming round and coming up by the fire escape, understand? Don’t try any tricks, Viki.”
“You can’t come here!” she gasped. “Not after…”
“I only want your help,” he cut in. “See you in a few minutes. Be waiting for me.”
Merrick was there as well when he arrived. Varden did not attempt to explain about the second entity; he knew it would be a hopeless task. They were wary of him, but put on a front of apparent friendliness that made him smile secretly.
“Have you been on to the Blake girl yet?” asked Merrick.
Varden shook his head. “I was killed this morning just after leaving you,” he said thinly. “I didn’t have a chance.”
Merrick tried to chuckle. Viki went a little paler.
“If I was recognised they’d get me again,” said Varden. “I want Viki to treat my face with cosmetics and greasepaint and blot out these cursed scars enough to cover my identity. And I want fresh clothes. And my hair dyed another colour. Now get moving, please. I have a job to do.”
For a wonder neither of them raised any objection. Viki went so far as to suggest that maybe Varden could do with a snatch of sleep while she was getting what he needed. But Varden only laughed. Sleep was the one thing he dared not indulge in.
While he was waiting he talked with Merrick, probing with all the cunning he could command in an effort to find out how the man intended to start the war.
“You don’t need to know, Bob,” he was told. “It’s better that you don’t. You do your part, and I’ll do mine.”
Varden pretended disappointment. “But how do I know I’m not risking my neck for nothing?” he protested. “How do I know you can actually start this thing and get away with it?”
Merrick smiled knowingly. “I can do it,” he insisted. “At a few hours’ notice I can plunge the world into war! But it will be our side that starts and does the most damage first. We’ll bring ’em to their knees, Bob.” His eyes narrowed. “And we’ll make money from it.” .
“That’s all you really want from it, isn’t it?”
Merrick tut-tutted indignantly. But although he denied the accusation stoutly there was little conviction in his words.
Viki returned soon afterwards with everything he needed. How she managed to get the stuff at that time of night he didn’t know, but apparently she had ways and means. She even had a suit of clothes that fitted him passably well.
When he looked in the mirror he could hardly recognise his own features, so skilfully had the woman made him up.
“You look almost handsome,” she said, with a trace of the old accent. But he noticed that she kept well out of his way when he moved towards her.
“Thanks, Viki,” he said. “I’m going now, and I’m really grateful for what you’ve done. I shan’t trouble you, but if that other man who looks like me does happen to come around you’ll know him by the fact that he looks like I did a while ago. Bear that in mind, and be careful.”
She nodded dumbly, afraid of him, yet trying to be fair.
Dawn was breaking when he left the block of flats, tired and sick at heart, but filled by a new determination. He could not even die; there were two of him; and he was living in a time dimension to which he did not belong. Those factors were enough to make any man worried, especially with the knowledge that he was wanted for multiple murder as well.
CHAPTER 6
VARDEN STRIKES
Confident that his disguised features would conceal his identity, Varden walked boldly through the half-light of breaking day. He was faced by a number of problems, to none of which did there seem to be any quick solution.
He was halfway up the fire escape when he became aware that the naked figure of his other self was sitting languidly on the metal steps outside the apartment window. Cursing under his breath, he came to a halt. Suppose he pitched the creature down the escape? Would it die?
“You can’t go back in there, Bob,” said Varden Two, grinning. “Someone else just moved in. Late arrival at the hotel, and they gave ’em our room because you’re on the run. They know you aren’t dead, by the way. The morgue broke the news.”
Varden sat down thoughtfully. Now what? He must get in touch with Rhonna, tell her what Merrick planned. But would she even see him, let alone listen to the word of a supposed killer?
He got up and glanced in through the room window. A large man was asleep in bed, his stomach rising and falling as he snored. It was true then. And it meant that he must find somewhere else to hide up till he contacted Rhonna.
“What are you worrying about, brother?”
“Lots of things, damn you! They’ll still be looking for me, I suppose.”
The other man chuckled. “You’re in quite a spot, aren’t you? But listen, I’m on your side. As soon as I was more or less evicted from in there I thought: ‘Poor old Bob, he must have somewhere to lie up for a while.’ So I went and found a spot quite handy. Come on, I’ll show you.” He stood up and started down the fire escape ahead of Varden.
Varden felt a hot rush of anger coursing through his body. He placed his shoe flat in the middle of Varden Two’s back and thrust him out and down. For a moment he thought he’d succeeded, then the man came floating back at him, a sneering laugh on his lips.
“Don’t you ever learn?” he demanded. “That’s no way to act when I’m trying to help you. Come on, for Pete’s sake!”
Varden stared with loathing at the face that was his own, at the sinewy body that was his, and the cold, sadistic eyes that were his and yet not his. He knew he was beaten.
Varden Two led him down the fire escape and through an alley to a gloomy entrance that gave on to a storage yard. Varden Two was carrying a bottle of Scotch, a full one—or almost full. Inside the yard was a shed, partly cluttered with odds and ends.
“Cosy, isn’t it?” He waved his free hand possessively. “Have a drink, Bob. Make yourself at home; it’s yours for as long as you like, with the compliments of the management!”
Varden peered round uncertainly. The rubbish and litter ranged from an ancient bicycle to a pile of ragged clothes. He sat down wearily on a broken backed chair and stared morosely at his companion.
“Well?” he grunted.
Varden Two opened the bottle of Scotch and held it out with an inviting gesture. Varden took it and drank. The spirit stilled some of the confusion in his mind, but his weariness only increased. He sat leaning forward on the chair, head in his hands as he struggled to think clearly. Varden Two squatted on the floor, watching him with cynical amusement.
“Tired?” he inquired lightly.
“Shut up!” snarled Varden savagely. “If I have to walk about for the rest of my life I shan’t sleep again!”
“Not unless you can’t help it, brother!” There was a note of craftiness in the words that made Varden sit up sharply. He found it difficult to keep his eyes open now; his vision was blurring.
“You devil!” he got out. “That whiskey…”
“Was doped, Bob. Sorry, but I have to get around in the flesh at times. Just take it easy and relax.” He laughed “I rifled a chemist’s shop for that stuff, and I know it’s good!”
Varden struggled to rise to his feet, but lead weights were round his neck now. He saw only dimly, and the dimmer he saw the more helpless he felt. The other man was putting on clothes from the pile on the ground now. He grinned at Varden, then raised his hand in farewell as he made for the door of the shed.
“You’ll murder again!” Varden croaked. “You’ll kill!”
Varden Two paused, looking back. “I’m going to see Viki,” he said. “Strictly business, brother! Sleep well: you’ve drunk enough to keep you quiet till midday!”
Varden tried to speak again, but instead he flopped on the chair and slid off it to the ground. Varden Two chuckled and covered him with an old coat. Then he was gone.
*
Sunlight seeped in through cracks in the wall and roof. Va
rden opened his eyes and sat up with a jerk, to sink back instantly as stabbing pain wracked his skull. He groaned then remembered with the full force of horror what had happened. That other entity was loose again, had been solid flesh and blood during the whole of the time he slept in a stupor! He stood up painfully, shaking his head. But the other man would not be solid now, he realised. There was only one body between them, he remembered. God, what an abomination this was!
He moved cautiously to the door of the store shed and peered out anxiously. There was no one in sight, but he could hear voices nearby drifting through an open window in the block that formed one side of the yard.
It was then that he saw his other self coming towards him across the yard. Seeing Varden, the now naked entity waved a hand in sarcastic greeting.
He opened the door and came in. ‘‘News, Bob,” he drawled.
Varden gripped him by the arm, blind hate surging inside him. “Have you killed anyone?” he said between his teeth. “Answer me that! Have you made me a murderer again?”
The other looked at him reproachfully. “Take the weight off your feet,” he sneered. “Didn’t I say I was out strictly on business when I left you? No, Bob, no murders, no fun and games at all. Even Viki wouldn’t co-operate this time!”
Varden relaxed a little, not knowing whether to believe him or not. He sat down on the broken backed chair and studied the man with sour gaze. “Well?” he demanded. “What have you been doing then?”
Varden Two took his time, lighting a cigarette from Varden’s case with exaggerated care. At length: “It’s a pity in a way that I played such havoc among the women, the other night,” he said. “Viki was really difficult when I walked in on her. She gave a yelp and tried to call the police!” He laughed. “The police of all things!”
Varden said nothing. He was suddenly sorry for Viki. She meant nothing to him now, but he was sorry for her all the same. “What happened?” he asked bitterly. “Did you force her to play your games after all?”
