The Death Collector

by Justin Richards

  When George had hurled himself at Wilkes, Eddie had dived across the end of the workbench and ripped the fossilised egg – his lucky stone – from its metal mount. With the egg, they still had a chance. Now he emerged sheepishly from underneath the workbench. He was holding the stone defiantly, but he knew it was over. Lightning stabbed into the room, flashing off the broken glass. Thunder roared as Lorimore stretched out his hand and Eddie reluctantly, hesitantly, placed the stone in his bony palm.

  ‘I apologise for the slight delay,’ Lorimore said, though it was not at all clear whom he was addressing. Keeping the gun aimed with his right hand, he reached across with his left and replaced the stone in the metal bowl. Then he stepped back and pushed home the second of the three levers on the workbench. The hum of power was rising. Lightning again split the retreating night. Acid steam flowed over the top of the battery tank like a waterfall of fog.

  ‘Remember me, Albert,’ George pleaded to his inhuman captor. ‘You must remember me. I’m George – George Archer, remember? And you were – are – Albert Wilkes. You knew me before, at the Museum. Please remember!’

  The creature that had been Wilkes made no reply. Made no movement that might show it understood. Held him firm as Lorimore laughed and stretched out his arm triumphant.

  ‘Now we have the power. Now it happens!’

  The howl from outside might have been his monstrous creation agreeing with him.

  ‘Now what happens?’ Sir William shouted above the roar. ‘What lunacy? What madness?’

  Lorimore did not answer. Sparks showered down from the wires above, fizzing in the rain. The metal bowl was glowing white hot, the stone itself a dull red.

  ‘Now!’ Lorimore shouted. He threw the final lever.

  Chapter 24

  When the monster had lunged out of the foggy dawn, bearing down on George and Eddie, they were ready for it.

  There had been a guard patrolling just inside the main gates of the house, but George had quickly dealt with him. Even as the man fell to the ground, stunned unconscious, Eddie heard the baleful cry of the creature further off in the grounds.

  ‘Sounds like we still have company,’ George said. He checked that he had done no lasting harm to the man at his feet, then straightened up. ‘Now that I’ve had a good look at it, or as good as we can hope for without being bitten in half, I have an idea of what we can do.’

  They crept through the thinning fog towards the house. Eddie guessed that Lorimore intended to work on his fossilised dinosaur egg. But before they went searching for that, Eddie had a job of his own to do. He was carrying a wooden crate, awkward but not heavy. He held it carefully, not wanting to unbalance or damage the delicate apparatus inside. The clock that he and George had spent several hours discussing, designing and adapting.

  ‘How do I look?’ he asked George as they approached the front door.

  George nodded. ‘Fine,’ he decided, pulling down Eddie’s cap so the peak obscured his face almost completely. ‘Keep your head down. In every sense.’

  Afterwards, they crept warily round the house, keeping to the grass to avoid making a noise on the gravel driveway, making for the large room at the back. The light was on, and that seemed to be where Lorimore and Blade had come from when they went to tend their monster. George had explained what he wanted Eddie to do when the creature found them, as they were both sure it would. Strangely, George seemed to be looking forward to the moment. Eddie was less keen.

  For a while they watched through the laboratory window. They saw Lorimore and Blade examine the ship. They saw Liz and Sir William join them, and hoped their friends could guess what George’s modifications had done. Sir William had seen the clock before, and Liz had seen the mechanism George had built to hurl a ball bearing across the room, if only briefly, at the theatre. Eddie recalled how she had done little more than glance at it, but he said nothing.

  Then the monster came at them. Bathed in the full moonlight, for the first time they could clearly see the enormous creature that roared up above them. They could see the metal jaws lined with fossilised teeth; the machined claws that slashed down towards them; the steam from the engine snorting out through exhaust pipes set into its head. The creak of hydraulics and the clanking of machinery as the huge creature – part automaton, part prehistoric recreation; part metal, part bone – lumbered towards them.

  The ground shook. Greasy vapour swirled round the creature’s monstrous head. Machine oil dripped from its jaws and the roar of its engines shattered the night. Razor-sharp metal claws split the air as an arm of overlapping steel plates hurtled mercilessly towards Eddie and steam enveloped him in a fog of terror.

  He shouted and waved, trying to draw the creature’s attention. It had seen him before, had been given his scent. He hoped it could be drawn again.

  As the monstrous beast lunged down at Eddie, George disappeared into the fog behind it. Eddie pictured him climbing on to the thing’s tail. Making his way up the slippery metallic scales of its back. Reaching for the pipes and connections and joints.

  The steam burned on Eddie’s cheeks as the creature closed in again. He rolled desperately to one side. But this time the beast anticipated him. Its metal jaws opened wider than Eddie could have believed was possible. The head slammed down, teeth thudding into the ground either side of Eddie’s head.

  Then – nothing.

  The creature seemed to sigh. The steam drifted away, as if dispelled by the shafts of dawn light that were breaking through the fog above the dew-drenched lawn.

  ‘Are you all right in there?’ George called from the other side of the creature’s head. Now it was just a mass of metal and bone, like an exhibit in the British Museum, or one of Lorimore’s dead display animals. ‘Shan’t be long,’ George called. ‘Just a few adjustments, though I confess I don’t understand the half of how this works, how it is controlled. It must have some reasoning ability of its own and we know it can see and smell. But there are a few things I can do. Then it needs to get up steam again, which will take a few minutes. I had to open the safety valve and relieve the pressure.’ He was shouting to be heard above the rumble of thunder. The first rain was starting to fall.

  Eddie ignored him, concentrating on crawling and clawing his way out from the monster’s mouth and into the pallid light. He sat shivering in the mist.

  ‘There, that should do it.’ George sounded pleased with himself, wiping his hands on his coat as he jumped down to join Eddie. ‘Ideally I’d have scuppered it completely, but all I can do now is vent the steam. Once the pressure builds up it’ll be off again. Albeit with some adjustments, a few re-routed pipes and doctored valves.’

  Eddie’s voice was trembling almost as much as his body was. ‘It’ll have to do,’ he assured George.

  Just as the shots rang out, and one of the smaller panes of glass in the laboratory shattered and fell.

  ‘Any moment now, I reckon,’ Eddie said.

  George nodded. He glanced back at the creature. ‘My modifications took longer than I had hoped. Are you ready?’ His face was grave. ‘I think we’ll have to do this without the help of our mechanical friend.’

  Things had started so well. Eddie had grabbed the egg from within Lorimore’s apparatus. George could already imagine Liz’s grateful smile. Maybe even a thankful hug.

  But then the clanking metal nightmare that housed the mortal remains of his old friend Albert Wilkes had grabbed George and held him tight. Held him so he could see Lorimore with his revolver pointed at Liz, and Eddie forced to hand over the smooth, oval-shaped stone.

  All the while George pleaded with Albert. Begged him to remember who he had once been, that George was his friend, that Lorimore had done terrible things to him.

  ‘I know you can hear me, Albert,’ he said urgently. ‘I know there’s something left. You contacted us – at the séance. Remember? Somehow you were able to move the upturned glass. You knew we were trying to help. Knew, and did something about it. Somewhere, somehow, on
some level you still have a soul – a conscience. Use it! Help us!’

  But it seemed to have no effect. There was nothing left, George realised. It was simply a machine, with enough remaining intelligence to obey Lorimore’s orders, but no more than that. The blank white eyes stared back at George, unblinking. No flicker. No recognition. Nothing.

  George finally shouted at Wilkes in frustration: ‘Let me go!’

  ‘Now!’ Lorimore shouted in victory as he pushed home the last of the three levers in front of him.

  And the metal claws that were eating into George’s upper arms suddenly relaxed their grip, and he realised he was free. Was the thing that had been Albert Wilkes confused? Did it think – in whatever way it could think – that its master had ordered it to let George go? Or had George’s pleas finally hit home? Was there somewhere deep inside the rotting cadaver a vestige of memory of who he had once been?

  The stone glowed red hot in the metal equipment, almost too bright to look at. Across the room, George could feel the heat from it. It even warmed the rain as it splashed across his face.

  A shower of sparks joined the rain, pouring down from the fractured roof and spilling on to the workbench. A cable broke free and snaked down, the broken end of it spouting flames that guttered and died as it fell.

  Lorimore’s gun wavered, but it was still pointing at Liz. His face was a mask of fury and confusion. The egg faded from red back to the pale colour of stone. Nothing happened.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Lorimore demanded. He looked round, as if accusing Sir William and Liz of interfering. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘You know we have done nothing,’ Sir William replied. ‘How could we?’

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Eddie asked. He was grinning, and George could guess why.

  ‘It hasn’t worked,’ Lorimore said frantically. ‘Why hasn’t it worked? The egg should have been reanimated. It should have hastened the process of life. This egg should be hatching!’ he yelled, reaching out for it.

  His hand stopped short, feeling the heat, and he snatched it back. Instead he held the gun in both hands thrusting it towards Sir William.

  But it was Eddie who spoke. ‘It’s just an old stone,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘It is not a stone,’ Lorimore hissed. ‘It is life itself. The earliest life. Fossilised and preserved, and waiting for me to reawaken it.’

  ‘It’s just an old stone,’ Eddie repeated. ‘I should know. I found it.’

  ‘Where Glick left it, inside the iguanodon statue,’ Lorimore insisted.

  ‘No,’ Eddie told him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I didn’t find that stone inside any statue,’ Eddie said. ‘I found it out in your garden. Near the gates. Took me a while, though.’ He pulled something from his pocket and held it up – a stone all but identical to the smooth pebble he had returned to Lorimore. ‘This is the one I found in the statue. I took it out of your contraption just a minute ago.’

  Lorimore’s face was as red as the stone had been. ‘Give it to me!’

  Eddie laughed at that. ‘No chance.’

  ‘Give it to me, or I will shoot your friends.’

  Eddie did not reply. Instead he tossed the egg across the workbench. Lorimore lunged forwards, arm out, desperate to catch it. The gun fell from his hand and clattered to the wet floor falling amongst the broken glass.

  The egg lazily spun in the air, falling into the outstretched hand of Liz.

  Lorimore was climbing rapidly across the workbench towards her. A glass tank filled with murky liquid slid away from him and crashed to the floor. Something flopped out as the viscous liquid spilled from the shattered glassware. George stepped forward quickly, aware of the hiss of gears and pistons as Wilkes followed him.

  Just as Lorimore reached for her, Liz quickly tossed the egg to George. He caught it easily. Lorimore was already scrambling towards him as George pushed the metal plate on the top of the ship back into place. He put the egg on it, and stepped back.

  With a cry of relief, Lorimore leapt down from the workbench and reached for the ship.

  At that moment, the internal mechanism clicked. The metal plate again flew upwards. The fossil was hurled up into the air. With an anguished cry, Lorimore watched it fly high above him.

  He only had a moment, but George was already diving to the floor, sliding through the broken glass and reaching for the gun. Eddie was there ahead of him, his hands cut and bleeding from the razor-sharp shards, his hair plastered to his head with rain.

  The egg was falling again. George grabbed the gun from Eddie and spun round to see. Lorimore was standing under the egg, waiting. But another figure thrust him aside, and caught the stone as it fell.

  Albert Wilkes.

  George raised the gun.

  The thunder sounded as if it was there inside the laboratory with them. And it was. The huge dinosaur-like creature stamped in through the broken wall, ripping apart what was left of the fabric, sending more glass and masonry flying. Its claws lashed out, uncontrolled. Its head was swinging desperately back and forth as steam poured out of its joints.

  A massive foot crashed down heavily next to George. Steam exploded from it, burning George’s hand. He dropped the gun with a cry, and it rolled away under the belly of the creature.

  Lorimore stared up at his creation, smiling thinly. He reached out towards the grotesque automaton that had been Albert Wilkes.

  ‘Give me the egg, my friend.’ He sounded calm, almost soothing.

  Wilkes held up the fossilised egg in a trembling metal fist.

  When he spoke, Albert’s voice was a husky, tortured rasp. ‘I know who I am,’ the fragile voice said. ‘And what you are.’ A jet of steam blew out from between the metal fingers as they gripped the egg more tightly. Gears and pistons whirred and strained. Lorimore’s face was etched stone as he watched, realising what was happening. His mouth was a silent ‘no’.

  The egg shattered under the pressure. Fragments of stone exploded outwards. One of them whipped by George’s cheek. Liz and Sir William reeled back, away from the blasting shards. Eddie dived under the workbench.

  Lorimore caught several pieces of sharp stone in his face. He dropped to his knees, looking up at Wilkes’s dead face, shaking his head in numbed disbelief. Then he seemed to notice the huge metallicised leg of the dinosaur creature beside him.

  ‘Kill them!’ Lorimore screamed in fury. ‘Kill them all!’

  The monstrous creature towering above George hissed and wheezed into uncertain life. In an effort to obey its master one last time, hydraulics strained and steam pressure built up. But George had rerouted the pipes, he had stripped the gears and moved the cables, so it was barely able to control itself. George and Eddie had planned to send the creature into the laboratory when the powder keg exploded – to let it run riot and out of control while they rescued Liz and Sir William. But the pressure had not built up again sufficiently after George vented it.

  Now it had.

  Unable to control itself, but knowing that its master – its creator – needed it, the enormous creature tried to move. Claws flailed, feet stamped, steam spat through the air. The creature’s desperate roars echoed off the broken glass.

  George hauled himself to his feet, trying to avoid the creature as it spun and thrashed. A scaly arm lashed out towards him – about to connect, to knock him lifeless across the room.

  But with a frantic hiss of steaming motion, Albert Wilkes moved to intercept the blow. The metallic dinosaur’s claws raked across the metal exoframe, sending Wilkes crashing across the room. He slammed into the workbench. Metal struts detached, fell away, clattered to the floor. Liz screamed. George dived out of the way as the dinosaur continued its stampede.

  Equipment and cables were shattered and ripped apart. Slivers of glass were stamped to dust. George ran to Wilkes, but a glance was enough to tell him the man was completely dead. Again. Perhaps there was a faint smile on his face, or perhaps it was the way the morning
light cut across him. Perhaps his lips moved and he tried to say farewell one last time to his friend, or perhaps it was just an illusion caused by the moisture George blinked from his eyes.

  Behind him Lorimore was shouting and screaming at his creation – begging it to stop as it ripped apart his life’s work. He stood before it, arms outstretched in supplication, paying homage to the life he had created, worshipping his own achievement. As the creature’s heavy claws slashed uncontrollably through the steaming air. As the feet slammed down. As Lorimore screamed for the last time and his bones joined the powdered glass strewn across the floor.

  The metal brute stared down at the broken figure through mechanical eyes. Steam poured from its face, its neck, its every joint. An irregular clanking came from somewhere deep inside. Then with a final eruption of steam and a grinding of the broken mechanisms, the creature’s head fell heavily forwards on its neck. It stood there dejected and defeated for a moment, wreathed with the fading steam. Then its legs buckled under its own weight and the creature crashed down on top of its creator. A broken lifeless mass of metal and bone.

  There was a trace of mist in the chilly air. The cold of first light was refreshing after the oily steam of the laboratory. Eddie shuddered as they walked slowly down the driveway, shuddered at the memory of the cold dead eyes watching him from the display cases in the hallway. What sort of person, he wondered, collected dead things? What sort of person wanted to create life where there was none?

  He frowned, wondering where the fascination he had himself felt in helping bring a clock to mechanical life strayed into the unacceptable dream that Lorimore had pursued.

  In front of him, George was walking with Liz, carrying the intricate ship that they had spent so long adapting to rescue them.

  ‘Well,’ Sir William said to Eddie as they followed their friends, ‘it’s been quite a night.’