“But it seems so horrible,” Harker said in a stunned voice. He couldn’t account for the feeling of revulsion that gripped him. Not an hour before he had been pleasantly plotting Zinder’s death without the tiniest qualm of conscience. But this, somehow, seemed different. He passed a shaking hand over his forehead.
“All right,” he said, “I will get ready.”
His voice was heavy and dull and his arms seemed tired and old as he wheeled his chair toward the bedroom.
CHAPTER IV
TWENTY-FOUR hours later Silas Harker lay on an operation table in Doctor Zinder’s laboratory. A white sheet was draped over his body. His breathing was heavy and labored. Occasionally he twisted on the table and a feeble moan passed his lips.
Doctor Zinder worked swiftly and silently over him. For an hour there was no sound in the small room but the dry scraping sound of the scalpel and Harker’s rhythmic breathing. Finally Doctor Zinder laid aside his instruments and slipped his arms from the surgical dressing gown he was wearing.
An almost fanatical light of triumph was in his eyes as he studied the results of his work. He checked Harker’s pulse and then snapped out the gleaming battery of overhead lights.
When Harker awoke he stared without comprehension at the ceiling of the room. He felt sick and weak. Finally he realized that he was back at the hotel, in his own bedroom. Consciousness left him then, but he came to again in a few hours. He was able to raise his head from the pillow and glance down at his form, outlined under the thin bed covering. A quick exultation swept over him as he saw the outlines of two legs stretching toward the foot of the bed.
Zinder had done it!
That was his first deliriously happy thought. His new leg was bandaged tightly from hip to ankle and there was no sensation or feeling to it at all. It might have been a heavy bar of lead attached to his body—but Harker knew it wasn’t.
The bedroom door opened and Doctor Zinder appeared.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. “Fine,” Harker said, “fine. H—how did things go?”
“Excellent. I have every reason to believe that the operation was a complete success. Within a few weeks you should be up and walking. Do you feel anything in your recently acquired member?”
“Nothing,” Harker said.
“That is to be expected.”
“I haven’t tried to move it,” Harker said. “Would it hurt to try?”
“No, but you will not be able to move the muscles until the cast is removed. That will not be for a few days. Until then, just rest.”
A week later Zinder removed the cast from the new leg and Harker was able to sit up for the first time since the operation.
“You will not be able to walk for some time,” Zinder said. “It will take you a while to become accustomed to the leg. Have you tried to move the muscles yet?”
“No,” Harker said, “I—I’ve been afraid.”
“Nonsense, there is nothing to fear. The muscles and nerves should have mended by this time. It will not hurt to use them a little each day. In fact you must exercise this new leg to strengthen it. Try now.”
HARKER leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. His new leg was stretched straight before him on a cushioned stool. Except for the ugly red incisions above the knee it was as perfect as his own leg. In fact, it was a good deal larger and more muscular than the leg with which Nature had endowed him.
“Try!” Doctor Zinder said. His voice cracked with authority. “You must!”
“I’m trying,” Harker gasped.
Sweat stood out on his brow and ran in tiny rivulets down his cheeks. His fingers gripped the arms of the chair until his knuckles whitened. Slowly, painfully, he flexed the new leg until the knee was lifted slightly from the stool,
“There!” Doctor Zinder cried triumphantly. “You have done it.”
Harker relaxed, breathing heavily. The leg sank back to its cushioned support.
“I did it,” Harker said tremulously. “You saw it, Doctor. I really moved it, didn’t I?”
“Of course,” Doctor Zinder said. “And you must continue to use it until it is as strong as your other leg.”
For two weeks Harker exercised his new leg religiously, until he felt that it was as strong and dependable as his own leg. He had not yet tried to walk on his new leg but that day, he knew, was not far away.
And when that day arrived he would have no further use for the good Doctor Zinder. The thought of the doctor’s death was a tonic to him during his days of convalescence.
Finally the day came when he walked. At first he took a few cautious steps about the room, then, growing bolder, he advanced cautiously into the living room and from there to the kitchen and eventually back to his bedroom.
He sank into his chair, breathing hard, but tremendously excited and happy. He had walked! That was all he had been waiting for. When his strength returned he walked to the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers until he found what he wanted—a slim, razor-sharp carving knife.
When Doctor Zinder returned he was sitting in his wheel chair, swaddled in blankets.
“Well,” the doctor said, striding toward him, “how did it go today?”
“Not so well,” Harker said weakly. “Something gave way while I was taking my exercises. The knee has been hurting like the devil ever since.”
“Hmmm,” the doctor said, “we’ll have to see about that.”
He bent down beside Harker’s chair and turned back the blanket.
“It looks all right,” he said quietly, “but I’ll make a complete examination.”
Harker smiled.
“I think that would be best,” he said.
His hand closed tenderly over the hilt of the knife.
“By the way, Doctor,” he said, “do you remember how you got this leg for me? You killed a man for it, didn’t you?”
“That is a subject which is closed,” Doctor Zinder said shortly.
“I’VE often wondered how you did it,” Harker said musingly. His eyes were measuring the exact spot on the doctor’s thin neck where he would plunge the knife. He derived an ironic satisfaction from talking about the man the doctor had murdered, while preparing to end the doctor’s own life. It was the perfect touch. His smile widened.
“Did you use a knife?” he asked.
“No. I stunned the man with a blow from behind.”
“Then,” Harker said softly, “you borrowed his leg.”
“Yes.”
“But the body?”
“It was a deserted section of the city. No remains will ever be found.” The doctor went on talking but Harker was not listening. He was not interested in what the doctor had done with the body. The time had come to strike.
“Does it still hurt?” Doctor Zinder asked.
“Very much,” Harker said.
Frowning, the doctor bent over the leg and his back was to Harker. Unhurriedly Harker drew the knife from the folds of the blanket and plunged it through the back of the doctor’s neck.
It was all over very quickly. The doctor lurched forward, a strangling, gurgling cry bursting from his throat. As he struck the floor he rolled over and for an instant Harker stared into the dying man’s hate-filled, impotently blazing eyes—and then the spark in those eyes went out forever.
There was quite a lot of blood and it took Harker several hours to clean up the mess. But when he finished he congratulated himself. The doctor’s body was in an asbestos lined trunk which was securely locked and bolted. The express company would pick the trunk up that afternoon and cart it to a river warehouse. Harker had made these arrangements in advance. The bloodstains had been removed from the carpeting and floor, the butcher knife was back in the kitchen drawer where it belonged.
Everything was perfect. It took him only a few moments to pack his bags and then he left the hotel. He did not intend to return. He was leaving the city that night. As he rode down in the elevator he felt magnificent. True he was a little weak from his exertions,
but his new leg was strong and buoyant beneath him and he felt fine.
And Zinder was out of the way forever. That was another reason for his ebullient feelings. He was safe now from exposure. His life was his own, to live as he deemed.
Whistling, he strode through the lobby of the hotel and into the bright sunlight of Michigan Boulevard. He hailed a cab and directed the driver to take him to a downtown hotel. As long as he had the entire afternoon to kill he decided to get a little rest. With a contented sigh he leaned back and lighted a cigarette. His eye chanced to fall on an army recruiting poster as he was driven along and he smiled cynically.
“Suckers,” he thought.
CHAPTER V
HE was tired when he got to his hotel room. His breath was short and he was perspiring freely. The new leg was the only part of his body that seemed fresh and strong. The muscles of his own leg were trembling with weariness. He sank gratefully onto the soft bed and stretched out, closing his eyes.
For several minutes he lay there, resting comfortably and musing on the delights of the existence that he would be soon enjoying. And then he noticed that his new leg was twitching strangely. He sat up, perplexed, and as he did, the leg swung off the bed and pulled him up to a standing position.
He stood beside the bed frowning bewilderedly. One instant he had been comfortably lying down, with no immediate intention of getting up; but now, here he was, on his feet. Perhaps he had imagined the entire thing. Maybe he only imagined that the leg, for an instant, had acted independently of his will.
The thought that it might not have been just imagination; had, in fact, actually happened, brought a chill sweat to his forehead.
For several seconds he pondered the happening uneasily, and he had just decided that it was an accidental reflex when the leg moved again, in a long step toward the door. Harker’s own leg moved automatically to keep him from his losing his balance and the other leg continued walking. Powerless to stop, Harker found himself striding across the room to the door.
He would have have crashed into the solid wood of the door if he hadn’t, at the last instant, jerked it open. He was in the hallway then, striding helplessly toward the emergency stairway that led to the street.
He was so confused and bewildered that he was unable to think coherently. The leg started determinedly down the steps and Harker could do nothing but follow. When he reached the street the leg turned sharply and headed for the downtown district with long swinging strides.
Harker fought down the panic mounting in his breast. Obviously there was some rational explanation for the leg’s conduct. Maybe the nerves and muscles of the leg were not as yet coordinated to his thinking processes and were acting with independent, automatic reflexes, like the twitching halves of a severed snake.
There was little comfort in this rationalization. The long strides of the leg forced his own leg to unaccustomed exertion to keep him from falling to the ground with each step. His breath was coming hard and he was perspiring freely after six or seven blocks, but stilt the leg gave no indication of slowing or stopping. When they reached the downtown area the leg apparently lost its determined purposefulness for it led Harker on an aimless, wandering tour of the Loop that lasted until darkness had come and lights were winking on from windows of the office buildings.
HARKER was becoming dizzy with fatigue. His body ached and his mouth was parched and dry. Each breath was an effort that became increasingly hard to make. Hunger and thirst were gnawing at him but he was powerless to stop, even for a quick swallow of water. The leg was tireless. It marched along block after block, crossing streets, turning down alleys, retracing its pathway aimlessly and endlessly.
Finally, as the evening was wearing on toward midnight, the leg left the Loop and headed southward. Now there seemed to be a new purpose and direction in its movements and its strides grew longer, more determined.
Harker’s breath sounded like the rasping of dry paper; his body trembled with weariness, but he stumbled on helplessly. He tried to throw himself to the ground to gain a moment’s respite but the leg held him to its course with frightening strength.
Hysteria was plucking at him now, torturing his thoughts with a thousand mad possibilities. He didn’t dare ask himself the questions that hammered at his brain.
The Loop was now far behind. Harker’s hysterically gleaming eyes saw that he was passing through the city’s industrial district. The streets were deserted and the occasional lights cast a ghostly illumination against the crude, squat factory buildings.
The leg’s determined strides slackened noticeably as it turned and started up a dark side street. Halfway down the darkened street it stopped.
A sobbing cry of relief broke from Harker’s parched lips. This hellish business had finally come to an end. He leaned against the wall of a building until his giddy weakness passed and some of his strength returned.
But when he tried to move he found it impossible. The leg was firmly attached to the ground as if it had been rooted there. Harker made a dozen attempts to walk away but they were hopelessly futile. Sobbing, he sank back against the wall of the building. His wild staring eyes tried to pierce the gloomy darkness of the side street. There was no one in sight. The street was deserted.
Fear swept over him in shuddering shocks. What would happen to him? Was he doomed to remain rooted here until he died of thirst? He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. What madness had prompted him to enter into this terrible, inhuman situation? He cursed Doctor Zinder until he was weak and spent.
SUDDENLY he heard a footstep on the sidewalk. He jerked his head up and saw a bulky dark form moving slowly toward him. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and a shuddering hysteria swept over him.
The approaching figure stopped. “All right, buddy,” a voice from the darkness said. “What’s the idea? This ain’t a public park. Get moving?” Harker almost fainted with relief as he recognized the tone of authority and saw, as the man stepped closer, the uniform and badge he was wearing.
A light flashed in the darkness and a stab of illumination leaped into Harker’s face. He blinked in the glare.
“What’s the matter with you?” the officer demanded. “I ought to run you in for loitering here. This is a defense area, you know.”
Fear was again hammering at Harker. In the terror of his immediate predicament he had forgotten that he had the blood of Doctor Zinder on his hands. And the man holding the light in his face was an officer of the law, the law which Harker had brazenly flouted. He couldn’t afford to be arrested now.
“I—I just stopped to rest a minute,” he said weakly. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, get movin’ then.”
Sweat poured out of Harker’s pores as he tried frantically to walk away from the spot. But the leg was as firmly attached to the sidewalk as a stone post.
“What’s the matter with you?” the officer demanded suspiciously. “I told you to get movin’ didn’t I? What are you waiting for? A little help from my club?”
“N—no,” gasped Harker, “it’s just—”
Suddenly the leg came to life again. With a single stride it turned Harker around and started back toward the cross-street. Now it moved more rapidly, more determinedly than ever.
And Harker realized then that the leg had been looking for something. And now it seemed to have found the trail for which it had been seeking; for its strides were sure and steady.
His heart trembled with this realization. A sobbing cry choked in his throat and his eyes were wild and mad with horror.
What was the leg searching for?
He didn’t dare answer this question; his mind recoiled from it in sharp terror.
The leg strode with inevitable sureness and strength through the darkened factory district and headed west toward the deserted waste areas of Chicago’s sprawling southwest side. Saliva drooled from Harker’s slack lips. His face was stiff with blind, unreasoning fear.
FOR an hour the leg carried him stra
ight west until it reached a vast deserted lot, used by the city as a refuse heap. There it swung sharply and entered the lot, striding heedlessly, blindly, over the heaps of rusted cans, bottles and filth dumped in squat ugly piles over the face of the lot.
Ahead in the darkness Harker could see the bulky outlines of a crumbling wall, sagging with the weight of its years. The leg was carrying him toward the lowest section of the wall, which was hardly two feet high. Harker sank to his ankles in the slime and ooze of the refuse and he staggered blindly with weariness.
Babbling, hysterical words poured from his lips and the sound of the sobbing voice was a weird cacophony that roared inside his head like maniacal thunder.
Something was plucking at his mind. A blind, frantic thought was hammering through the maze of panic that clouded his brain. It was something that had been said to him, but he couldn’t remember what it was or who had said it.
HIS wild eyes swung over the deserted lot with its piles of dirt and refuse and then to the broken, crumbling wall that loomed closer with each of the leg’s powerful, determined strides.
The wall enclosed a pit. And in that pit something gleamed whitely.
A sobbing scream tore from Harker’s throat.
He knew of this place. Doctor Zinder had told him of this place. And that was the thought that had been flickering on the border of his consciousness.
Doctor Zinder had told of this place!
This was the spot where Doctor Zinder had committed murder and stolen a leg. The leg which was now drawing him irresistibly toward the gleaming whiteness at the bottom of the pit.
Doctor Zinder had told him this, but he had been preparing to kill him at the time and the words had hardly registered.
Doctor Zinder had said: “No remains will ever be found!”
Harker screamed madly as the leg stepped up to the crumbling wall. With every atom of his strength he fought against the leg, but his frantic efforts were unavailing.
Collected Fiction (1940-1963) Page 139
