by Len Wein
Thrashing, broadcasting pain into his green opponent, Sh’mballah slithered backward.
Karash!
The altar railing was broken and splintered.
“Hulk will smash!”
The green giant tore a chunk of flesh off the monster; a greenish-yellow fluid spurted out.
Sh’mballah got a tentacle hold on the green Goliath and sent an electric shock jolting into him. At the same time he succeeded in flipping the Hulk into the air.
But the Hulk had a death grip on the tentacle and the whole quivering thing ripped free of the creature’s body.
The Hulk landed against the altar itself, knocking over the golden candlesticks and setting the crisp white altar cloth afire.
Snarling, he flung aside the useless tentacle and charged at Sh’mballah.
“You are not a ruler! Hulk can beat you!”
The Hulk was unlike any of the other humans Sh’mballah had encountered. He kept trying to take over the green man’s mind, but to no avail.
I am your master!
“Nobody is Hulk’s master!”
He planted his huge green feet wide apart, grabbed at the monster, and took hold of its pulpy backside. Grunting, straining, he swung it into the air and sent it sailing smack into the altar.
The jewel-encrusted gold crucifix fell from the wall and spiked into Sh’mballah’s hide.
The creature’s silent scream of pain resounded inside the Hulk’s head. He put his green paws to his ears, but the scream went right on.
Flailing with its tentacles, the creature rumbled back away from him. It hit the church wall with all its enormous weight. A multitude of stained-glass particles cascaded up into the air as the wall smashed down into the street outside. The afternoon sunlight made kaleidoscopes out of the falling pieces.
“Hulk is not through!”
Slapping people aside with its tentacles, Sh’mballah undulated in the direction of the concrete town hall. That might be a better place to hold off the rampaging Hulk.
But the impatient green giant would have none of that. Howling, he stomped after Sh’mballah. He bent, dealt a sidehand blow to the street, and produced a huge crack. Bending, eyes narrowed and watching the retreating creature, the Hulk tore up a chunk of paving sufficient to floor a private tennis court. This he sent, like an ogre’s frisbee, sailing after the shambling monster.
Kerplop!
The weighty hunk of paving landed squarely on the creature’s back, momentarily making a sandwich out of him.
The Hulk lumbered after Sh’mballah.
I’ll destroy you!
The threats, the promises of death were still coming. But they were weaker now.
The two creatures were opposite Leiber’s Garage when the Hulk caught up with Sh’mballah again.
Sh’mballah shook the section of road from his back. It whacked into the Hulk and sent him staggering backward.
“Now Hulk is really angry!”
He hit the piece of paving with one green fist, shattering it into jigsaw pieces, then charged after Sh’mballah.
The force of his charge sent the creature tumbling into the garage yard, right against the gas pumps. They broke, and gasoline began geysering up into the air.
Sh’mballah managed to wrap a tentacle around the green giant’s broad back. The suction discs shot pain into the Hulk. Howling, he jabbed his emerald forefingers into two of Sh’mballah’s three eyes.
Tangled with each other, the two antagonists smashed into the door of the brick garage building. It fell apart like a toy.
One of the planks struck a piece of metal and there was a spark.
Wham! Blam!
A prince of an explosion, rocking the earth like a high-magnitude quake. Blowing the windows out of every building on the block, snapping the bystanders off their feet two blocks away. And bringing the entire garage, wood and brick and all, down around the two strugglers.
Then the fire spread, licking across the garage grounds and attacking the ruins of the building itself, eating at it, charring it black, turning it into a pyre.
“We’ve got to get him out of there!” Rick went running along the ruined street toward the blazing garage.
“Lad, we don’t need any more suicide missions.” Quartermain grabbed him with both arms.
Rick struggled. “He’ll die in there!”
“That may well be, my boy, but . . .”
He let go then, doubled up with pain.
So did Rick. So did everyone else within a mile.
Sh’mballah was dying. His final telepathic screams of pain were intense, ripping into everyone.
The pain reached an incredible peak. Rick bit into his lip. Quartermain shivered, his teeth chattering.
Then it was over and Sh’mballah was dead, burned away.
Only the terrible memory of his final cries remained, but that was more than enough to last them all a lifetime.
“Hulk is hot.” The great green behemoth came lumbering clumsily out of the fire, his emerald skin stained black with soot, his brutish face a mask of confusion and annoyance.
Rick wanted very much to run to the giant’s side, to embrace his monstrous friend, but he knew better than to try. He had lived in the shadow of the Hulk long enough to know what must happen next.
The Hulk’s muscular arms stretched heavenward, thick veins lining the emerald flesh like a road map. His bestial face contorted in anger.
“No! Not Again! Do not let it happen to Hulk again! Hulk does not want to change! Hulk hates puny Banner! Hulk is . . . Hulk is . . .”
The man-brute’s voice trailed off as he stumbled forward. His jade eyes, which a moment before had blazed with primitive fury, were now soft, fragile, almost pathetic.
Each step he took was less certain than the last, less steady. The Hulk stretched a wavering hand out toward Rick Jones, his emerald lips moving as if imploring the youth to help him.
Then the Hulk keeled over, sprawling awkwardly to the sidewalk.
By the time Rick Jones and Clay Quartermain reached him, it was the frail Bruce Banner who lay unconscious at their feet.
Twenty-Seven
Silence swallowed the night. Not even the drone of crickets disturbed the utter stillness. No one spoke, no one dared to.
There was a clamminess in the air, like the hour before a summer storm. Sensing the unnatural stillness, Rick Jones craned his head in every direction, hoping to discover the cause. There wasn’t even a breeze.
Yet something was moving. Something was heading their way. Quartermain sensed it as well, though all he could discern was a faint mist rolling in ominously from the distant plain.
General Ross swallowed hard. He felt strangely uneasy, the kind of uneasiness he’d felt only once before—back in 1945, on an airdrop into Berlin—on a mission that had come precariously close to ending his life.
Rick knelt by the prostrate form of Bruce Banner, who moaned softly as his eyes fluttered open. He was struggling to recognize the concerned faces which peered down at him. Rick . . . ? Ross . . . ? Quartermain . . . ? What in hell was going on around here?
“Something’s wrong, Quartermain—something’s damned wrong. I can feel it in my bones.” Ross spat out the stub of his cigar, then lit another.
“So tell me something I don’t know, General. The air around here is so thick that you could have it carpeted.” Quartermain suppressed the beginning of a smile—not exactly the time to feign high spirits, he decided.
“Rick . . . what’s happened? Wh-where am I? It’s so hard for me to remember.” Banner strained to shake the cobwebs from his head.
“Your big green alter-ego just went fifteen rounds with a certain shambling mound of putrescent Jell-O called Sh’mballah. The Hulk took the match on a TKO—but I’m not completely sure it’s over yet.
“You okay, Doc?” Rick Was concerned.
Banner cradled the back of his head with his right hand and grimaced. “I’ll be nursing a lump the size of a small elephant for
the next few months . . . but I think I’ll live.” The edge was off that last word. Banner hadn’t truly lived in years . . .
. . . not since that damned gamma bomb catastrophe.
His legs creaked as he rose, but he worked out the kinks as he stood beside Linda. “You saw? You know?” Banner asked her.
Linda nodded. “Uh-huh. And the amazing part of it is—it doesn’t really bother me. So there’s something big and green and monstrous inside you. God help us, but I think there’s probably a little of the Hulk in everyone.
“Maybe you’re the lucky one, Bruce . . . you can set that demon free now and again. You can face your emotions and deal with them.”
“If you call devastating large portions of this country dealing with my emotions, you’re right. But that doesn’t make it any easier.” There was a quality in Linda that Banner appreciated. He deeply wished he could take the time to know her better. But so long as the Hulk still shared his life, he did not dare to share his life with anyone else.
The one thing Bruce Banner feared more than anything else was accidentally causing harm to someone he loved. No, until the day the angry voice of the Hulk could be stilled forever, Bruce Banner would have to walk alone.
“Thunderation! Look! Look there, at the edge of town!” Ross was jabbing a blunt finger toward a small speck off in the distance. “You see it? It’s a man, I think—coming this way!”
Ross turned as Linda gasped. “There’s nothing in that direction except the falls . . . nothing but the falls!”
Banner grasped Linda by the upper arms. “That’s not all, is it? I can hear it in your voice. What is it, Linda? Tell us!”
“No. You . . . you’d think I was crazy. I mean, he’s too far off for me to see clearly. But his walk, the way he holds his head. It just can’t be who I think it is.” Her voice softened to a cold whisper. “Can it?”
“It can’t be who, damn it?” Ross almost bit through his cigar in his fury. “Is everything in this halfwit town a puzzle? If you’ve got something to say, sister—spit it out!”
There were shadows around Linda’s eyes now, as if she’d suddenly aged five years. “Look at the way he walks, that slight limp. I know that limp. After all, I worked with the man for five years. It isn’t possible, but that can only be Rudolf Stern—the late Rudolf Stern. Now you can tell me I’m crazy.
“Please . . . tell me I’m crazy.”
The distant figure had ambled closer now, and those who stood watching could now see the emerald glow which surrounded him, a glow almost as green as the flesh of the monstrous Hulk.
Ross stood there impatiently, with fully two inches of ash on the end of his cigar. Quartermain squinted, hoping to get a better view of the approaching figure, then remembered the binoculars slung around his neck.
He put them to his eyes, focused, and his breath caught in his throat. “Fair lady, you’ve got sharper eyes than a nest full of eagles. That is Stern—and he’s coming straight toward us!” Linda choked audibly.
Ross reached for his radio. “We need help over here—and we need it now! No, I haven’t got time to explain right now, damn it. You’ll do what I tell you, Mister, because I’m a general and you’re not. That enough reason for you? Then move it!”
Several hurried strides brought the general to Banner’s side. “Look, I know we’ve never gotten along, Banner—and I don’t intend to apologize for it—but something tells me that if this two-bit town is ever going to see another sunrise, you and I are going to have to work together.”
Banner shook his head in confusion. “I appreciate the overture, General, but I don’t know what you’re talking about. So what if it is Stern? Obviously, he isn’t dead. It’s possible he was merely unconscious when Rick saw him in the woods.”
“Believe me, Bruce, he wasn’t. I know a dead man when I see one—and Stern was about as dead as they come!” Rick’s voice was almost shrill as he shouted.
“Rick, you simply didn’t know Dr. Stern as well as I did. The man was an epileptic. He must have been suffering a seizure when you saw him.”
Rick was astonished. “Epilepsy? I—I never knew.”
“Nobody knew—except me. Stern believed gamma radiation, working in conjunction with various other forms of radiation, might be able to prevent epilepsy if discovered early. That’s why he was always so fanatical about the subject and why, when Gamma Base seemed to drop most other research to concentrate solely on capturing the Hulk . . .”—Banner glanced meaningfully at Ross, who merely snorted contemptuously in reply—“. . . well, that’s when he finally decided to leave and continue his research up here.
“Look, I’m not saying that’s how Stern’s supposed death actually happened, but it’s certainly a logical assumption, isn’t it? Rudolf Stern is walking, isn’t he? And dead men don’t walk!”
The figure was closer now, easily seen. It was definitely Rudy Stern, walking almost too slowly toward them, the green glow surrounding him like the aura around a full moon.
Stern’s eyes were dead white; no pupil could be distinguished, even through Quartermain’s binoculars. His face was like powdered chalk, his lips unmoving. He walked a straight line unerringly through the center of town, toward the ruined garage and Ross’s party.
“All right Stern, just hold it right where you are. We’ve got a few questions that need answering here,” Ross snarled at the aging doctor. But his expression turned to one of shock as Stern began to speak, with a voice that came from nowhere and everywhere all at the same time.
The voice was unearthly, inhuman. And it was a voice they all had heard before—the voice of Sh’mballah, the stalker from the stars.
I have not died, fools! That which is eternal can never die!
Stern stood unmoving, his head cocked slightly to the side, giving him a bizarre, outré appearance. It was then that Banner realized what Stern most resembled. He looked like a cadaver at a medical school, hanging limply from a hook.
My body has perished; I can no longer return to my home. I have lost my final battle, but I will not lose the war. This host body is completely under my control, and its gamma-radiation level increases with every passing second. Soon it will attain critical mass, and then—
Banner completed the sentence. “—You’ll become a working gamma bomb, like the one that affected me!”
The living intelligence that is Sh’mballah will perish, but you will all die with me. Sh’mballah shall have his revenge!
Banner stared in mute horror at what remained of the man he had all but worshipped during his days as an apprentice physicist, a man whose keen insights had inspired Banner into making discovery after discovery. Now Rudolf Stern was no more than a mindless marionette, its strings controlled by a ruthless creature from another world.
Banner felt helpless and, worse, useless.
“Get over here, Banner—behind the lines. You’re a civilian, damn it!” Ross’s order echoed through the night, momentarily breaking the silence.
“You’re not my boss, Ross. You can’t order me around like one of your flunkies.” Banner was getting angry now, and he hated that damned emotion. Hated it because a scientist is supposed to be calm and collected at all times. Hated it because it interfered with a logical approach to research.
But, most of all, he hated anger because it robbed him of his most valuable possession—it stole away his humanity.
“No, not now, not again.” Banner’s eyes began to glow green as his voice deepened to a growl. “Keep back. Keep away from me. I can’t control it, can’t be responsible for what happens.” The words came harder now as his mind began to muddle.
Rick Jones bolted from the crowd. He grabbed Banner even as the scientist doubled over in pain. “Doc, listen to me. You’ve got to control yourself. Don’t give in to it. Don’t!”
But it was already far too late, and Rick Jones knew it. He stepped away from his friend as Banner’s back began to broaden, growing wider and wider, until a massive emerald figure seemed to
fill the shattered street.
His legs had grown thick and powerful, and his dusky brown hair shimmered green in the moonlight.
Linda Connelly stepped back in horror. It was one thing to see a wounded behemoth become a helpless man, but to witness the opposite transformation, that of man to monster, was another thing entirely.
Bruce Banner no longer existed now.
In his place stood a snarling, savage creature known only as the Hulk!
Twenty-Eight
“Soldiers! Ross! Hulk hates puny soldiers! And Hulk hates Ross more! Why do puny soldiers always bother Hulk? Why won’t they leave Hulk alone? Why? Why??” The man-brute’s growling voice thundered through the darkness, his emerald eyes blazing with anger.
With one incredible leap, he stood at Ross’s side, and a moment later he held the general aloft in one powerful hand. “Ross has always tried to hurt Hulk with puny guns! But now Hulk will hurt Ross! Now Hulk will smash!”
Ross was genuinely frightened. Never before had he felt the monster’s rage this closely. He stared deep into the jade giant’s smoldering eyes, trying desperately to find some trace of Bruce Banner there. He found nothing. At the moment, Banner simply did not exist.
What that meant to Ross was this—he was a helpless captive of a raging madman who possessed the power to snap the general’s spine like a twig, without the slightest forethought or the slightest regret.
“Hulk, don’t! You mustn’t hurt him. He isn’t trying to hurt you.” The voice came from behind the Hulk, soft, compelling. The man-brute turned to see Linda stepping toward him. “Please, don’t hurt him, Hulk. He means you no harm.”
“Bah! Ross hates Hulk. And Hulk hates Ross. Ross tries to kill Hulk with guns and bigger guns. Ross wants Hulk dead.”
“No, Hulk, that isn’t true. The general wants to help you, not hurt you. Please—you’ve got to believe me.” Linda laid a slender hand on the Hulk’s massive arm, urging him to put Ross down. The behemoth’s arm did not move. He stared curiously at the small figure before him. Women never bothered Hulk, only the puny soldiers and their annoying guns.
