Night Shift Page 16

  So we just stood on the corner a minute, in spite of the wind that was whooping up the street. "What'd he see?" Bertie asked.

  "He said he could still see his dad," Henry answered, "but he said it was like he was buried in gray jelly . . . and it was all kinda mashed together. He said his clothes were all stickin' in and out of his skin, like they was melted to his body."

  "Holy Jesus," Bertie said.

  "Then he covered right up again and started screaming at the kid to turn off the light." "Like he was a fungus," I said.

  "Yes," Henry said. "Sorta like that." "You keep that pistol handy," Bertie said.

  "Yes, I think I will." And with that, we started to trundle up Curve Street.

  The apartment house where Richie Grenadine had his flat was almost at the top of the hill, one of those big Victorian monsters that were built by the pulp an' paper barons at the turn of the century. They've just about all been turned into apartment houses now. When Bertie got his breath he told us Richie lived on the third floor under that top gable that jutted out like an eyebrow. I took the chance to ask Henry what happened to the kid after that.

  Along about the third week in November the kid came back one afternoon to find Richie had gone one further than just pulling the shades down. He'd taken and nailed blankets across every window in the place. It was starting to stink worse, too

  --kind of a mushy stink, the way fruit gets when it goes to ferment with yeast.

  A week or so after that, Richie got the kid to start heating his beer on the stove. Can you feature that? The kid all by himself in that apartment with his dad turning into . . . well, into something . . . an' heating his beer and then having to listen to him--it--drinking it with awful thick slurping sounds, the way an old man eats his chowder: Can you imagine it?

  And that's the way things went on until today, when the kid's school let out early because of the storm.

  "The boy says he went right home," Henry told us. "There's no light in the upstairs hall at all--the boy claims his dad musta snuck out some night and broke it--so he had to sort of creep down to his door.

  "Well, he heard somethin' moving around in there, and it suddenly pops into his mind that he don't know what Richie does all day through the week. He ain't seen his dad stir out of that chair for almost a month, and a man's got to sleep and go to the bathroom sometime.

  "There's a Judas hole in the middle of the door, and it's supposed to have a latch on the inside to fasten it shut, but it's been busted ever since they lived there. So the kid slides up to the door real easy and pushed it open a bit with his thumb and pokes his eye up to it."

  By now we were at the foot of the steps and the house was looming over us like a high, ugly face, with those windows on the third floor for eyes. I looked up there and sure enough those two windows were just as black as pitch. Like somebody'd put blankets over 'em or painted 'em up.

  "It took him a minute to get his eye adjusted to the gloom. An' then he seen a great big gray lump, not like a man at all, slitherin' over the floor, leavin' a gray, slimy trail behind it. An' then it sort of snaked out an arm--or something like an arm

  --and pried a board off'n the wall. And took out a cat." Henry stopped for a second. Bertie was beating his hands together and it was god-awful cold out there on the street, but none of us was ready to go up just yet. "A dead cat," Henry recommenced, "that had putrefacted. The boy said it looked all swole up stiff . . . and there was little white things crawlin' all over it . . ."

  "Stop," Bertie said. "For Christ's sake." "And then his dad ate it."

  I tried to swallow and something tasted greasy in my throat.

  "That's when Timmy closed the peephole." Henry finished softly. "And ran."

  "I don't think I can go up there," Bertie said.

  Henry didn't say nothing, just looked from Bertie to me and back again. "I guess we better," I said. "We got Richie's beer."

  Bertie didn't say anything to that, so we went up the steps and in through the front hall door. I smelled it right off.

  Do you know how a cider house smells in summer? You never get the smell of apples out, but in the fall it's all right because it smells tangy and sharp enough to ream your nose right out. But in the summer, it just smells mean, this smell was like that, but a little bit worse.

  There was one light on in the lower hall, a mean yellow thing in a frosted glass that threw a glow as thin as buttermilk. And those stairs that went up into the shadows.

  Henry bumped the cart to a stop, and while he was lifting out the case of beer, I thumbed the button at the foot of the stairs that controlled the second-floor-landing bulb. But it was busted, just as the boy said.

  Bertie quavered: "I'll lug the beer. You just take care of that pistol."

  Henry didn't argue. He handed it over and we started up, Henry first, then me, then Bertie with the case in his arms. By the time we had fetched the second-floor landing, the stink was just that much worse. Rotted apples, all fermented, and under that an even uglier stink.

  When I lived out in Levant I had a dog one time--Rex, his name was--and he was a good mutt but not very wise about cars. He got hit a lick one afternoon while I was at work and he crawled under the house and died there. My Christ, what a stink. I finally had to go under and haul him out with a pole. That other stench was like that; flyblown and putrid and just as dirty as a borin' cob.

  Up till then I had kept thinking that maybe it was some sort of joke, but I saw it wasn't. "Lord, why don't the neighbors kick up Harry?" I asked.

  "What neighbors?" Henry asked, and he was smiling that queer smile again.

  I looked around and saw that the hall had a sort of dusty, unused look and the door of all three second-floor apartments was closed and locked up.

  "Who's the landlord, I wonder?" Bertie asked, resting the case on the newel post and getting his breath. "Gaiteau? Surprised he don't kick 'im out."

  "Who'd go up there and evict him?" Henry asked. "You?" Bertie didn't say nothing.

  Presently we started up the next flight, which was even narrower and steeper than the last. It was getting hotter, too. It sounded like every radiator in the place was clanking and hissing. The smell was awful, and I started to feel like someone was stirring my guts with a stick.

  At the top was a short hall, and one door with a little Judas hole in the middle of it. Bertie made a soft little cry an' whispered out: "Look what we're walkin' in!"

  I looked down and saw all this slimy stuff on the hall floor, in little puddles. It looked like there'd been a carpet once, but the gray stuff had eaten it all away.

  Henry walked down to the door, and we went after him. I don't know about Bertie, but I was shaking in my shoes. Henry never hesitated, though; he raised up that gun and beat on the door with the butt of it.

  "Richie?" he called, and his voice didn't sound a bit scared, although his face was deadly pale. "This is Henry Parmalee from down at the Nite-Owl. I brought your beer."

  There wasn't any answer for p'raps a full minute, and then a voice said, "Where's Timmy? Where's my boy?"

  I almost ran right then. That voice wasn't human at all. It was queer an' low an' bubbly, like someone talking through a mouthful of suet.

  "He's at my store," Henry said, "havin' a decent meal. He's just as skinny as a slat cat, Richie."

  There wasn't nothing for a while, and then some horrible squishing noises, like a man in rubber boots walking through mud. Then that decayed voice spoke right through the other side of the door.

  "Open the door an' shove that beer through," it said. "Only you got to pull all the ring tabs first. I can't." "In a minute," Henry said. "What kind of shape you in, Richie?"

  "Never mind that," the voice said, and it was horribly eager. "Just push in the beer and go!"

  "It ain't just dead cats anymore, is it?" Henry said, and he sounded sad. He wasn't holdin' the gun butt-up anymore; now it was business end first.

  And suddenly, in a flash of light, I made the mental conne
ction Henry had already made, perhaps even as Timmy was telling his story. The smell of decay and rot seemed to double in my nostrils when I remembered. Two young girls and some old Salvation Army wino had disappeared in town during the last three weeks or so--all after dark.

  "Send it in or I'll come out an' get it," the voice said. Henry gestured us back, and we went.

  "I guess you better, Richie." He cocked his piece.

  There was nothing then, not for a long time. To tell the truth, I began to feel as if it was all over. Then that door burst open, so sudden and so hard that it actually bulged before slamming out against the wall. And out came Richie.

  It was just a second, just a second before Bertie and me was down those stairs like schoolkids, four an' five at a time, and out the door into the snow, slipping an' sliding.

  Going down we heard Henry fire three times, the reports loud as grenades in the closed hallways of that empty, cursed house.

  What we saw in that one or two seconds will last me a lifetime--or whatever's left of it. It was like a huge gray wave of jelly, jelly that looked like a man, and leaving a trail of slime behind it.

  But that wasn't the worst. Its eyes were flat and yellow and wild, with no human soul in 'em. Only there wasn't two. There were four, an' right down the center of the thing, betwixt the two pairs of eyes, was a white, fibrous line with a kind of

  pulsing pink flesh showing through like a slit in a hog's belly. It was dividing, you see. Dividing in two.

  Bertie and I didn't say nothing to each other going back to the store. I don't know what was going through his mind, but I know well enough what was in mine: the multiplication table. Two times two is four, four times two is eight, eight times two is sixteen, sixteen times two is--

  We got back. Carl and Bill Pelham jumped up and started asking questions right off. We wouldn't answer, neither of us. We just turned around and waited to see if Henry was gonna walk in outta the snow. I was up to 32,768 times two is the end of the human race and so we sat there cozied up to all that beer and waited to see which one was going to finally come back; and here we still sit.

  I hope it's Henry. I surely do.

  BATTLEGROUND

  "Mr. Renshaw?"

  The desk clerk's voice caught him halfway to the elevator, and Renshaw turned back impatiently, shifting his flight bag from one hand to the other. The envelope in his coat pocket, stuffed with twenties and fifties, crackled heavily. The job had gone well and the pay had been excellent--even after the Organization's 15 percent finder's fee had been skimmed off the top. Now all he wanted was a hot shower and a gin and tonic and sleep.

  "What is it?"

  "Package, sir. Would you sign the slip?"

  Renshaw signed and looked thoughtfully at the rectangular package. His name and the building's address were written on the gummed label in a spiky backhand script that seemed familiar. He rocked the package on the imitation-marble surface of the desk, and something clanked faintly inside.

  "Should I have that sent up, Mr. Renshaw?"

  "No, I've got it." It was about eighteen inches on a side and fitted clumsily under his arm. He put it on the plush carpet that covered the elevator floor and twisted his key in the penthouse slot above the regular rack of buttons. The car rose smoothly and silently. He closed his eyes and let the job replay itself on the dark screen of his mind.

  First, as always, a call from Cal Bates: "You available, Johnny?"

  He was available twice a year, minimum fee $10,000. He was very good, very reliable, but what his customers really paid for was the infallible predator's talent. John Renshaw was a human hawk, constructed by both genetics and environment to do two things superbly: kill and survive.

  After Bates's call, a buff-colored envelope appeared in Renshaw's box. A name, an address, a photograph. All committed to memory; then down the garbage disposal with the ashes of envelope and contents.

  This time the face had been that of a sallow Miami businessman named Hans Morris, founder and owner of the Morris Toy Company. Someone had wanted Morris out of the way and had gone to the Organization. The Organization, in the person of Calvin Bates, had talked to John Renshaw. Pow. Mourners please omit flowers.

  The doors slid open, he picked up his package and stepped out. He unlocked the suite and stepped in. At this time of day, just after 3 P.M., the spacious living room was splashed with April sunshine. He paused for a moment, enjoying it, then put the package on the end table by the door and loosened his tie. He dropped the envelope on top of it and walked over to the terrace.

  He pushed open the sliding glass door and stepped out. It was cold, and the wind knifed through his thin topcoat. Yet he paused a moment, looking over the city the way a general might survey a captured country. Traffic crawled beetlelike in the streets. Far away, almost buried in the golden afternoon haze, the Bay Bridge glittered like a madman's mirage. To the east, all but lost behind the downtown high rises, the crammed and dirty tenements with their stainless-steel forests of TV aerials. It was better up here. Better than in the gutters.

  He went back inside, slid the door closed, and went into the bathroom for a long, hot shower.

  When he sat down forty minutes later to regard his package, drink in hand, the shadows had marched halfway across the wine-colored carpet and the best of the afternoon was past.

  It was a bomb.

  Of course it wasn't, but one proceeded as if it were. That was why one had remained upright and taking nourishment while so many others had gone to that great unemployment office in the sky.

  If it was a bomb, it was clockless. It sat utterly silent; bland and enigmatic. Plastique was more likely these days, anyway. Less temperamental than the clocksprings manufactured by Westclox and Big Ben.

  Renshaw looked at the postmark. Miami, April 15. Five days ago. So the bomb was not time-set. It would have gone off in the hotel safe in that case.

  Miami. Yes. And that spiky backhand writing. There had been a framed photograph on the sallow businessman's desk. The photo had been of an even sallower old crone wearing a babushka. The script slanted across the bottom had read: "Best from your number-one idea girl--Mom."

  What kind of a number-one idea is this, Mom? A do-it-yourself extermination kit?

  He regarded the package with complete concentration, not moving, his hands folded. Extraneous questions, such as how Morris' number-one idea girl might have discovered his address, did not occur to him. They were for later, for Cal Bates. Unimportant now.

  With a sudden, almost absent move, he took a small celluloid calendar out of his wallet and inserted it deftly under the twine that crisscrossed the brown paper. He slid it under the Scotch tape that held one end flap. The flap came loose, relaxing against the twine.

  He paused for a time, observing, then leaned close and sniffed. Cardboard, paper, string. Nothing more. He walked around the box, squatted easily on his haunches, and repeated the process. Twilight was invading his apartment with gray, shadowy fingers.

  One of the flaps popped free of the restraining twine, showing a dull green box beneath. Metal. Hinged. He produced a pocket knife and cut the twine. It fell away, and a few helping prods with the tip of the knife revealed the box.

  It was green with black markings, and stenciled on the front in white letters were the words: G.I. JOE VIETNAM

  FOOTLOCKER. Below that: 20 Infantrymen, 10 Helicopters, 2 BAR Men, 2 Bazooka Men, 2 Medics, 4 Jeeps. Below that: a flag decal. Below that, in the corner: Morris Toy Company, Miami, Fla.

  He reached out to touch it, then withdrew his hand. Something inside the footlocker had moved.

  Renshaw stood up, not hurrying, and backed across the room toward the kitchen and the hall. He snapped on the lights.

  The Vietnam Footlocker was rocking, making the brown paper beneath it rattle. It suddenly overbalanced and fell to the carpet with a soft thud, landing on one end. The hinged top opened a crack of perhaps two inches.

  Tiny foot soldiers, about an inch and a half tall,
began to crawl out. Renshaw watched them, unblinking. His mind made no effort to cope with the real or unreal aspect of what he was seeing--only with the possible consequences for his survival.

  The soldiers were wearing minuscule army fatigues, helmets, and field packs. Tiny carbines were slung across their shoulders. Two of them looked briefly across the room at Renshaw. Their eyes, no bigger than pencil points, glittered.

  Five, ten, twelve, then all twenty. One of them was gesturing, ordering the others. They lined themselves up along the crack that the fall had produced and began to push. The crack began to widen.