by Len Wein
“It’s all we had in our files on this dimwitted backwash of a town. Now shut up and set us a course.”
“The boardinghouse we seek is to be reached by passing alongside this pastoral square you see before you, my general, and then—”
“You gab too much!” With a snort, Thunderbolt Ross snatched back the map, scowled at it, flung it aside, and started the Jeep bounding along one of Crater Falls’s seemingly placid streets.
“Are you sure Houdini started this way?” Rick said to himself.
He was sprawled next to the battered tool chest, attempting to use a rusty hacksaw blade on the ropes which bound his hands behind him.
It was not one of the easier tasks he’d ever attempted.
Painful, too. So far he felt as if he’d done as much damage to his flesh as he had to the rope. Still, he was making progress, albeit slowly.
After several more minutes of hacking away at his unseen bonds, Rick felt the rope weakening.
“Of course, a little more of this and I’ll be weakening, too, from loss of blood.”
Suspending sawing operations, Rick tugged, striving to break apart what was left of the rope.
No luck.
Back to sawing.
Another few minutes and he tugged again.
Success this time. The rope parted, and he swung his hands around in front of him. Not as much damage as he’d expected—only a few bloody scratches on his wrists and the backs of his hands.
Using his freed hands, he untaped the cloth which had been corking his mouth. After spitting out dust and lint, he tried out his voice. “Testing, one, two, three.”
No use in hollering for help. Everybody in town was on the enemy side, making for very discouraging odds.
Rick flexed his fingers and massaged them. Then he went to work on his ankles and got the wire unwound and off.
He swayed some when he first stood up. The unsteadiness soon passed, and he was able to walk across the basement floor and climb the wooden stairs.
He had no idea what might be awaiting him upstairs in the boardinghouse. So far the citizens of Crater Falls worked their mischief only after dark, and it was broad daylight now—a few hours beyond breakfast, judging by his stomach.
“Be cautious, anyway,” he warned himself. He reached out for the door knob.
Before he could touch it, the knob began to turn.
Nineteen
It was nearly time.
Freedom was very close; the long imprisonment was about to end. After centuries, he would finally leave the spacecraft which entombed him.
He was waiting now, his mind given over to controlling the townspeople. This was much more difficult by day, since at night their defenses were down. When they slept he could use them with no trouble at all.
There was no avoiding this, however. This new intruder, this Hulk, had to be stopped. Thus, he must risk using the townsfolk in the daylight hours.
They really were almost too fragile for his purposes, but again he had no choice. When he’d first started utilizing them, he hadn’t been aware of just how weak they were. Nothing like his own kind, nothing like the dwellers of his own planet. Therefore, he’d made mistakes, working them all night after night. He’d worn out three or four of them the first month, the older ones mostly. But the fools never suspected; they wrote the deaths off to heart trouble and old age.
Trapped as he had been, he’d learned to control his impatience. He worked out a plan for them, for his slaves. With his probing mind he found out which were the hardiest, and these he put to work four or five nights each week. The weaker he worked only a night or two. All of them, however, had to have nights off; otherwise, they seemed to sicken, and they might become worth nothing at all to him.
Once he’d figured out a sensible schedule for them, the work moved along rapidly. There were no more deaths from overwork, not even much serious illness. They made admirable progress in digging him out of his premature grave.
Keeping all this secret put some strain on him. Controlling the workers was no problem at all. But getting strangers to stay away at night so that no one would accidentally learn what was going on—that required his far-reaching mind to function for long periods at the limits of its capacity.
The Hulk, whoever and whatever he was, had been able to break through the barrier of thought-inflicted pain. His mind couldn’t be controlled, nor could the dangerous knowledge he had be erased. He would have to be killed—killed at once, by day, with all the risks that that entailed.
After the Hulk was gone, then everything would move forward. This planet Earth, with its weak-minded populace, would be an easy one to control. Once free of his ruined spacecraft, once he was out of the crater, he would begin his plan of conquest.
That would be good, to have power again, to rule again.
Once, long centuries ago, he had ruled an entire planet. He had ruled wisely and well, no matter what his opponents had claimed. True, he had killed many of his subjects, but only those who represented a threat. To rule wisely and well, you must destroy all who try to hinder you. A simple enough concept, yet how few creatures truly understood it and were able to act upon it!
His people had learned early, unlike the weak creatures he found himself among now, who were only haltingly starting to move into space, how to travel across the universe. They explored planet after planet, system after system, and studied the most remote of the galaxies.
That sort of thing had bored him. His own planet, his exalted position as absolute ruler, satisfied him completely. Why, then, depart from such a situation to visit less-interesting planets?
Why, indeed.
They had plotted against him, contrived to betray him. Since many of their mental powers were equal to his, they were able to mask their intentions. That night when they had come stealing into his chambers, so many hundreds of years ago, he had truly been surprised.
He had barely had time to flee from his throne and rush to his private spaceport.
A stand against them was impossible. They allowed him to read their thoughts again for a moment so that he might learn how strong the force amassed against him was.
Retreat was the only answer, the only way to save his life. Thus, he went into exile in the wilderness, the infinite wilderness of space.
He went rocketing off in the special craft he’d long had ready for exactly such an emergency.
His travels had been extensive; he rambled through the void in search of a new place to settle, another planet where his power would allow him to rule. Naturally, he missed his own kind, even though they had seen fit to depose him. But he would settle for reigning over lesser creatures on a lesser planet.
Earth he had not even considered. Yet somehow his ship had malfunctioned and he’d been pulled into an orbit around the insignificant sphere. In struggling to break free, his craft had been further damaged, causing it to go plummeting earthward.
The ship had hurtled to Earth like an enormous meteor, slamming into the ground and burrowing to a depth of several hundred feet. The ground closed over him, leaving him and his space vehicle in the pit of the crater which the ship had dug.
The country around the crater was very different then; there were few people. He had sensed that as he passed off into unconsciousness.
He slept. There, his ship forming a metal cocoon, he remained. Centuries passed, people filled the land, and still he slept. He was in some state of suspended animation, not dead and hardly alive.
Gradually—it had taken centuries—he started to awaken. Perhaps the thoughts of all the people who now lived around his resting place had eventually had an effect on him, as well.
He became fully awake—at last he was fully aware of himself and knew where he was.
And his primary concern was to regain his freedom.
His metabolism was such that he could survive beneath the ground, with little or no nourishment, for many more years. Once awake, though, he didn’t want to put up with that.
He must be free. He must once again rule. And on Earth, with his infinitely superior mind and his abilities, such a task would be simple.
He shifted his considerable weight. Very unsatisfying news was coming to him. His slaves had not been able to destroy the Hulk or even subdue him. The creature was on his way to the crater.
He stirred. The time had arrived. He would go out to meet his approaching visitor.
And this time, Sh’mballah would emerge triumphant.
Twenty
“What in blue blazes are you doing here?”
“Just what I was asking myself a while ago, General. Which is why I spent the last couple of hours escaping.”
Pulling the basement door open wider, General Thunderbolt Ross inquired, “Who stashed you in the cellar, Jones?”
“Really don’t know.” Rick crossed the threshold into the boardinghouse hallway. “Morning, Mr. Quartermain.”
The SHIELD agent was leaning, arms folded, against the wall. “You appear to be the sole inhabitant of this establishment at the moment, my boy,” he said. “Any notion why?”
“Well, there are some strange things going on in this town,” began Rick. “That’s why I called you last night.”
“What about your buddy Banner? Where’s he hiding?”
“I didn’t even know Bruce was in town. Where is he?”
“That’s what I’m asking you, Jones.”
“Generalissimo,” put in Quartermain, “what say we control the steamroller effects? Rick, my lad, fill us in on what’s been occurring here in cozy Crater Falls.”
Rick made his way to the stairs, then sat on the second step up. “Could you tell me first why you expect Bruce to be here?”
“Because he broke out of Gamma Base last night to come here and pull your burning chestnuts out of the fire.”
“I didn’t even know he was your guest again, General. Still, I thought your gamma set-up was next to impossible to—”
“Brother Banner used a clever ruse to effect his escape,” interrupted Quartermain. “Now, get on with the details of the situation that prevails.”
Resting on the step, Rick told the calm SHIELD agent and the impatient general all about what had happened since he’d come trudging into town a few days ago.
When he had concluded, Quartermain remarked, “Lord love a duck. Crater Falls is a good deal livelier than one would guess.”
“We’ve got to find out what killed Rudy Stern,” said General Ross. “And we damned well better find out what it is that’s got the citizenry acting like halfwits.”
“It all has to go with the crater,” said Rick. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this, and—”
“I’d also like to know where that milksop Banner got to.”
Rick stood up. “Bruce would have tried to find me here first, I know,” he said. “Then he’d most likely have gone to Dr. Stern’s to see if he could pick up a clue there.” He glanced around, frowning. “You say nobody’s home here?”
“Nary a soul, my boy.”
“Can’t figure where Linda went. She’s usually—”
“Forget your schoolboy crushes on the local belles,” the general advised. “Come on and hop in the damned Jeep. We’ll see if we can trace Banner.”
People were strewn about, awkwardly.
They were spilled on the lawn, groaning and moaning. They were tumbled in the street, draped over curbstones. Some of them were still on their feet, but wandering in aimless, nowhere circles.
“Three guesses as to who did this,” said General Ross, stopping the Jeep and jumping into the street.
“I note certain telltale signs that friend Hulk may have been in the neighborhood.”
“He never hurts anybody unless they try to hurt him first,” defended Rick.
An old woman in a blue terry-cloth robe wandered by, a wooden meat mallet swinging from one hand. “Kill him . . . kill him,” she burbled before falling over into a hedge.
“Programmed to kill,” observed Quartermain.
“This is odd,” said Rick.
“You bet your candy-striped fanny it’s odd,” said General Ross. “Bunch of halfwitted zombies moping around like—”
“No, I mean the fact they’re out in the daytime.” Rick scanned the doctor’s house and grounds. “My experience has been that whatever it is that controls these people works only at night.”
“Perhaps our unknown villain has added a day shift, my boy.”
“Something’s happened,” said Rick, “to break the pattern.”
“Enough chin music,” growled Thunderbolt Ross as he went marching across the lawn and into the house. The other two followed.
“Your buddy’s been busy inside, too,” said the general from the study. “Threw things around, bruised little old ladies’ fannies, kicked defenseless—”
“I tell you he never harms anyone unless—”
“Rick, save your wind,” said Quartermain. “A man in Ross’s position isn’t obliged to listen to reason.”
Ignoring the three unconscious people decorating the office floor, General Ross stalked over to the broken desk. “The Hulk had a field day with this joint, huh? He must have . . . Ha!”
“Find a clue, old boy?”
The general had found the journal steepled on the rug. He gathered it up and began studying its pages. “Blue blazes!” he commented finally. “Give a listen to this.” He proceeded to read to them all that the late Dr. Stern had written about the crater and his suspicions as to what dwelled in it.
“Very spooky,” said Quartermain when General Ross closed the book. “Explains a great deal, though. We can make a pretty good guess as to what killed Rudy Stern.”
“Yeah, but at the moment I’d rather know where the damned Hulk went.”
“Isn’t that obvious?” Rick asked.
“Apparently not, my lad.”
“He must have headed for the crater,” explained Rick, “to face the creature.”
Twenty-One
Go back!
The words came blazing into his brain.
Go back!
Pain came with the telepathic commands, pain which would have felled an ordinary man, thrown him to the ground to writhe and yowl.
The Hulk, however, was no ordinary man. He ignored the creature’s orders and threats, ignored the pain.
Steadily, doggedly, the green giant slogged through the woods. Impatient with trails and pathways, the Hulk followed a more direct route, one he cut for himself as he thoomed along. Trees toppled; brush was uprooted. A multitude of woodland birds went flurrying up into the midday sky.
You will die!
“Hulk will never die!” he bellowed, slapping a tree out of his way.
The Hulk clumped ahead, cutting a wide swath through the once peaceful forest.
I am powerful! I can destroy you!
“Nobody can destroy Hulk!”
He felt as though he could almost see the creature’s angry words come snarling through the woodland to lodge in his skull.
Turn back!
“Nothing can stop Hulk!”
He was drawing nearer to the crater. The going became more difficult—the creature’s power seemed to grow stronger the closer he got.
Like a weary marathon runner, the Hulk kept lifting one giant foot and putting the other down. He slowed, but kept on moving.
I will destroy you! I will rule the world!
“You will not rule Hulk!”
Perspiration glowed on his chest and back, the beads flashing green in the slants of sunlight.
“Hulk will fight you! Stop you!”
There was the crater, looming ahead—a wide, jagged cone of earth and rock thrusting up above the dead gray land.
You are finished!
“Hulk has not even started yet!”
A hollow drumming was filling the Hulk’s head, his massive bones throbbed with pain, and his emerald skin felt as if it were burning away.
Yet he kept on,
fighting up the side of the slanting crater, his footfalls echoing.
All at once the crater shook; wrenching and rumbling sounds came shooting up out of the pit. There was an awesome odor in the air, sulfurous and rank. Huge cracks were forming in the outer wall, growing, zigzagging, multiplying. Great chunks of earth and rock came spurting up out of the hole. Mud whooshed out, gurgling through the new cracks. A ripping and rending followed.
The Hulk held his mighty green arms out at his sides to help him keep his balance on the bumping, cracking crater’s side.
“Earthquake won’t hurt Hulk!”
It wasn’t a quake; it was Sh’mballah breaking free of his centuries-old prison. The people of the town, working many long hard weeks, had done most of the work, and now the imprisoned being, impelled by the impending approach of the Hulk, had completed it.
The green giant scrambled up to the rim of the pit. It was from there that he got his first look at his foe.
“You can’t do that,” asserted Rick Jones.
“Can’t, my Aunt Tillie!” General Thunderbolt Ross was sitting half inside the parked Jeep, the mike of his radio clutched tightly in his hand. “I’ve just called in the choppers that came with us this morning.”
“But you told them to capture the Hulk and . . . whatever else is out at the crater,” said Rick, who stood on the sidewalk, fists clenched in anger. “That’s not fair. The Hulk hasn’t—”
“This isn’t the high-school debating society, sonny boy,” the general told him. “I went easy on the Hulk before, but those days are gone forever. I want him caught. And I want that . . . that thing out there caught, too.”
“We don’t actually, old boy, know what this celebrated entity is,” Quartermain, who was perched on the Jeep hood, mentioned. “It might turn out to be the sort of beastie which gobbles up choppers for snacks. Or it could hypnotize the crews in the same manner in which it’s been hoodooing the denizens of this little community.”
“We’ll just risk that, Mr. Quartermain!”
Shrugging, Quartermain spread his hands wide apart. “Saints preserve us, he’s calling me Mister.” He shook his head at Rick. “There’s no reasoning with him once he’s in this mood, my boy.”
