The Tommyknockers Read online

  From the bottom drawer of her filing cabinet she brought out a ghetto-blaster a little smaller than the late Hank Buck's disposal unit. She put it on her desk, turned it-on, took an earphone from the Out basket of her desk-minder, and put the plug in her ear.

  Now she sat with her eyes closed, but she could see trees rush past on either side of the smoke-detector as it whizzed through the woods about six feet above the ground. Gardener would have been forcibly reminded of the sequence in The Return of the Jedi, when the good guys chase the bad guys through a seemingly endless forest at brain-numbing speeds on what appear to be air motorcycles.

  Hazel, however, had no time for metaphors--nor ever would, if they got out of this; Tommyknockers weren't much into metaphors either.

  Part of her--the smoke-detector part on the machine side of the cyborg interface she'd made--wanted to fulfill its original function and buzz, because the woods were full of smoke. It was similar to the feeling one has when a sneeze impends like a rainshower.

  The smoke-detector banked easily from side to side, slaloming around trees, popping up over knolls, and then zooming back down them like the world's smallest crop-duster.

  Hazel sat bent forward at her desk, earplug pushed firmly into her ear, concentrating fiercely. She was pushing the little smoke-detector through the woods faster than was safe, but it had been at the Haven-Newport border, fully five miles from the ship. She had to get to Gardener, and time was short.

  The smoke-detector flipped onto its side and missed a small pine tree by inches. A close call, that. But ... there he was, and there was the ship, throwing back its echoes of light, tattooing its dancing sun-dapples on the trees.

  The smoke-detector hovered motionless above the thick mat of fallen needles on the floor of the forest for a moment ... and then it arrowed directly at Gardener. Hazel prepared to turn on the ultrasound attachment that would turn Gardener's bones to smashed fragments in his body.

  35

  Hey, Gard! On your left!

  The voice was unbelievable. It was also unmistakable. It was Bobbi Anderson's voice. The old, unimproved Bobbi. But Gardener had no time to think about that. He looked left and saw something slashing out of the woods at him. It was tan. There was a red light flashing on its underside. That was all he had time to see.

  He brought the Sonic Space Blaster up, wondering how he could ever in the world hope to hit that thing, and at the same moment a wild thin shriek, like every mosquito in the world whining in perfect harmony, filled his ears ... his head ... his body. Yes, it was inside him; everything inside him was beginning to vibrate.

  Then it felt as if hands seized his wrist--first seized it, then turned it. He fired. Green fire shot across the daylight. The smoke-detector exploded. Several jagged chunks of plastic flew near Gardener's head, barely missing him.

  36

  Hazel screamed and bolted upright in her old swivel chair. A tremendous backflow of energy surged through the earplug. She clawed at it--and missed. The plug was in her left ear. From her right one came a sudden squirt of greenish, soupy liquid. It looked like radioactive oatmeal. For a moment her brains continued to hose out of her head through her ear, and then the pressure became too great. The right side of her skull pushed open like a strange flower and her brains hit her Currier & Ives wall calendar with a liquid smack.

  Hazel fell forward limply onto her desk, her hands outstretched, her glazing eyes staring unbelievingly at nothing.

  The ghetto-blaster radio buzzed for a while and then stopped.

  37

  Bobbi? Gardener thought, looking around wildly.

  Fuck you, old hoss, an amused voice returned. That's all the help you get--after all, I'm dead, remember?

  I remember, Bobbi.

  One piece of advice: watch out for rabid vacuum cleaners.

  Then she was gone, if she had ever been there. From behind him came the rending, grinding crash of a tree falling over. The woods between here and the farm had begun to sound like a big open-hearth fireplace. Now he could hear voices from behind him, both mental and shouted aloud. Tommyknocker voices.

  But Bobbi was gone.

  You imagined it, Gard. The part of you that wants Bobbi--that NEEDS Bobbi--is trying to reinvent her, that's all.

  Yeah, and what about the hand? The hand over my hand? Did I make that up? I couldn't have hit that thing all by myself. Annie Oakley couldn't have hit that thing without help.

  But the voices--those in the air and those inside his head--were getting closer. So was the fire. Gardener drew in a throatful of smoke, put the Tomcat in gear again, and got going. There was no time for debate right now.

  Gard headed for the ship. Five minutes later he came out in the clearing.

  38

  "Hazel?" Newt cried in a kind of religious terror. "Hazel? Hazel?"

  Yes, Hazel! Dick Allison shouted back at him furiously, and could restrain himself no longer. He threw himself upon Newt. Stupid bastard!

  Whoreboy! Newt spat back, and the two of them rolled about on the ground, green eyes glaring, grabbing for each other's throats. This was not at all logical under the circumstances, but any resemblance between the Tommyknockers and the likes of Mr. Spock was purely coincidental.

  Dick's hands found the wattled folds of Newt's throat and began to squeeze. His fingers punched through the flesh and green blood bubbled up over Dick's fingers. He began to raise Newt up and slam him back down. Newt's struggles lessened ... lessened ... lessened. Dick choked him until he was quite dead.

  With that done, Dick discovered that he felt a little better.

  39

  Gard dismounted the Tomcat, staggered, lost his balance, fell down. At that same instant, a buzzing, snarling projectile blasted through the air where he had been a moment before. Gardener stared stupidly at the Electrolux vacuum cleaner which had nearly torn his head off.

  It bulleted across the clearing like a torpedo, banked, and came back at him. There was something on one end that distorted the air into a silvery ripple--something like a propeller.

  Gardener thought of that round, chewed hole in the bottom of the shed door and all the spittle in his mouth dried up.

  Watch out for--

  It dive-bombed him, the cutter attachment whining and buzzing like the motor of a kid's gas-powered fighter plane. The little wheels, which were supposed to make the weary housewife's work easier as she trundled her faithful vacuum cleaner along behind her from room to room, spun lazily in the air. The hole where one was supposed to clip various attachment hoses gaped like an open mouth.

  Gardener made as if to dive to the right, then held position a moment longer--if he jumped too soon, the vacuum cleaner would jog with him and chew through his guts as easily as it had chewed through the shed door when Bobbi called it.

  He waited, feinted left this time, then threw himself to the right at the last moment. He thudded painfully into the dirt. The bones in his shattered ankle ground together. Gardener screamed miserably.

  The Electrolux crashed. The propeller ate dirt. Then it bounced, like a plane rising into the air again after touching down too hard on a runway. It whistled off toward the great canted dish of the ship and then banked around for another run at Gardener. Now the cable it had used to run the buttons was emerging from the hose-attachment hole. The cable whistled in the air--a dry, snakelike sound that Gardener could just hear under the rumble-roar of the fire. The cable whickered, and for a moment Gardener was reminded of a Wild West rodeo his mother had taken him to once (in that rootin, tootin trail-drive town of Portland, Maine). There had been a cowboy in a tall white hat who had done rope-tricks. In one of the tricks, he had floated a big lasso at ankle height, dancing in and out of its circle while playing "My Gal Sal" on a harmonica. The cable whirling out from the attachment hole looked like that rope.

  Fucker'll cut your head off just as slick as shit through a goose, if you let it, Gard ole Gard.

  The Electrolux whistled at him, shadow tracking beneath.r />
  On his knees, Gardener held out the Sonic Space Blaster and fired. The vacuum cleaner sheared off as he aimed, but Gardener winged it just the same. A chunk of chrome above a rear wheel blew off. The cable drew a wavering line through the dirt.

  get him

  yes get him before

  before he can hurt the ship

  Closer. The voices were closer. He had to end this.

  The vacuum cleaner skirted a tree and circled back. It tilted upward, climbed, then dropped in a kamikaze power dive, its chopping blade turning faster and faster.

  Gardener steadied himself by thinking of Ted the Power Man.

  You oughta take a look at this shit, Teddy-boy, he thought crazily. You'd go ape for it! Better living through electricity!

  He pulled the trigger on the toy gun, saw the green pencil-beam splash off the vacuum cleaner's snout, and then shoved himself forward, digging with both feet, and never mind the shattered ankle. The Electrolux struck the ground beside the Tomcat and buried itself three feet deep in the dirt. Black smoke jetted from the protruding end in a tight, compact little cloud. It made a thick farting noise and died.

  Gardener got to his feet, holding onto the Tomcat for support, the Sonic Space Blaster dangling from his right hand. The plastic barrel, he saw, was partially melted. It wasn't going to be any good much longer. The same was undoubtedly true of himself.

  The vacuum cleaner was dead--dead and sticking out of the ground like a dud bomb. But there were plenty of other gadgets on their way, some flying, some trundling enthusiastically through the woods on makeshift wheels. He couldn't wait around.

  What was it the old man had been thinking at the end? The last thing ... and ... Deliverance.

  "Good word," Gardener said hoarsely. "Dee-liverance. Great word."

  Also, he realized, the name of a novel. A novel by a poet. James Dickey. A novel about city men who had to get slugged, mugged, and buggered before discovering they were good ole boys after all. But there was a line in that book ... one of the men looking at one of the others and telling him calmly, "Machines are gonna fail, Lewis."

  Gardener certainly hoped so.

  He hopped over to the lean-to, then pushed the button which started the sling's descent. He was going to have to go down the cable hand over hand. It was stupid, but that was Tommyknocker technology for you. The motor began to whine. The cable began to descend. Gardener hopped over to the cut and stared down. If he could actually work his way down there, he would be safe.

  Safe among the Tommyknocker dead.

  The motor stopped. He could faintly see the useless sling at the bottom. The voices were closer, the fire was closer, and he sensed a rogue's gallery of gadgets closing in. Didn't matter. He had shot the chutes, climbed the ladders, and somehow got to the finish line before the others.

  Congratulations, Mr. Gardener! You've won a flying saucer! Do you want to quit or go for the all-expenses-paid vacation in deep space?

  "Fuck," Gardener croaked, tossing the half-melted toy gun aside. "Let's do it."

  That also had reverberations.

  He seized the cable and swung out over the cut. As he did, it came to him. Sure. Gary Gilmore. It was what Gary Gilmore said just before stepping in front of the firing squad in Utah.

  40

  He was halfway down when he realized the last of his physical strength had run out. If he didn't do something quick, he would fall.

  He began to descend more quickly, cursing their thoughtless decision to put the motor controls so far from the trench. Hot, stinging sweat ran into his eyes. His muscles jumped and fluttered. His stomach was beginning to do long, lazy flips again. His hands slipped ... held ... slipped again. Then, suddenly, the cable was running through his hands like hot butter. He squeezed it, screaming in pain as the friction built. A steel thread which had popped up from one of the cable's steel pigtails punched through his palm.

  "God!" Gardener screamed. "Oh dear God!"

  He thudded neatly into the sling on his bad foot. Pain roared up his leg, through his stomach, through his neck. It seemed to rip off the top of his head. His knee buckled and struck the side of the ship. The kneecap popped like a bottlecap.

  Gardener felt himself graying out and fought it. He saw the hatch. It was still open. The air-exchangers still droning.

  His left leg was a frozen wall of pain. He looked down at it and saw it had become magically shorter than his right leg. And it looked ... well, it looked croggled, like an old stogie that has been carried around too long in someone's pocket.

  "Christ, I'm falling apart," he whispered, and then, amazing himself, he laughed. It did have this to recommend it: it was a hell of a lot more interesting than just stepping off a breakwater with a hangover would have been.

  There was a high, sweet buzzing sound from overhead. Something else had arrived. Gardener didn't wait to see what it was. Instead, he pushed himself into the hatch and began to crawl up the round corridor. The light from the walls glowed softly on the planes of his haggard face, and that light--white, not green--was kind. Someone seeing Gardener in that light might almost have believed he was not dying. Almost.

  41

  Late last night and the night before,

  (over the river and through the woods)

  Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, knocking at the door.

  (to grandmother's house we go)

  They look so quiet, but they ain't quite dead,

  (the horse knows the way to carry the sleigh)

  You get that Tommyknocker flu inside your head!

  (over the frozen fields of snow)

  Doggerel chiming in his head, Gardener crawled up the corridor, pausing once to turn his head and vomit. The air in here was still pretty fucking rank. He thought a miner's canary would already be lying at the bottom of its cage, alive but only by an inch or so.

  But the machinery, Gard ... do you hear it? Do you hear how much louder it's gotten just since you came in?

  Yes. Louder, more confident. Nor was it just the air-exchangers. Deeper in the ship, other machinery was humming into life. The lights were brightening. The ship was feeding off whatever was left of him. Let it.

  He reached the first interior hatchway. He looked back. Frowned at the hatch giving on the trench. They would be arriving in the clearing very soon now; perhaps already had. They might try to follow him in. Judging by the awed reactions of his "helpers" (even hardheaded Freeman Moss hadn't been completely immune), he didn't think they would ... but it wouldn't do to forget how desperate they were. He wanted to be sure the loonies were out of his life once and for all. God knew he hadn't much left; he didn't need those assholes fucking up what little there was.

  Fresh pain blossomed in his head, making his eyes water, tugging at his brain like a fishhook. Bad, but nothing compared to the pain in his ankle and leg. He was not surprised to see the main hatchway had irised closed. Could he open it again, if he wanted to? He somehow doubted it. He was locked in now ... locked in with the dead Tommyknockers.

  Dead? Are you sure they're dead?

  No; to the contrary. He was sure they were not. They had been lively enough to start it all up again. Lively enough to turn Haven into one weird munitions factory. Dead?

  "Un-fucking-likely," Gardener croaked, and pulled himself through another hatchway and into the corridor beyond. Machinery pounded and hummed in the guts of the ship; when he touched the glowing curved wall, he could feel the vibration.

  Dead? Oh, no. You're crawling around inside the oldest haunted house in the universe, Gard ole Gard.

  He thought he heard a noise and turned around quickly, heart speeding up, saliva glands squirting bitter juice into his mouth. Nothing there, of course. Except there was. I had a perfectly good reason to raise this fuss; I met the Tommyknockers, and they were us.

  "Help me, God," Gardener said. He flicked his stinking hair out of his eyes. Over him was the spidery-thin ladder with its wide-spaced rungs ... each with that deep, disquieting dip in the m
iddle. That ladder would rotate to the vertical when ... if ... the ship ever heeled over to its proper horizontal flight position.

  There's a smell in here now. Air exchangers or not, a smell, it's the smell of death, I think. Long death. And insanity.

  "Please help me, God, just a little help, okay? Just a few breaks for the kid is all I'm asking for, 'kay?"

  Still conversing with God, Gardener pressed onward. Shortly he reached the control room and lowered himself into it.

  42

  The Tommyknockers stood at the edge of the clearing, looking at Dick. More arrived each minute. They arrived--then just stopped, like simple computer devices whose few programmed operations had all been performed.

  They stood looking from the canted plane of the ship ... to Dick ... back to the ship ... to Dick again. They were like a crowd of sleepwalkers at a tennis match. Dick could sense the others, who had gone back to the village to run the border defenses, also simply waiting ... looking through the eyes of those who were actually here.

  Behind them, growing closer, gaining strength, came the fire. Already the clearing had begun to fill with tendrils of smoke. A few people coughed ... but no one moved.

  Dick looked back at them, puzzled--what, exactly, did they want from him? Then he understood. He was the last of the Shed People. The rest of them were gone, and directly or indirectly, the death of each had been Gardener's fault. It was really inexplicable, and more than a little frightening. Dick became more and more convinced that nothing quite like this had happened in all of the Tommyknockers' long, long experience.

  They're looking at me because I'm the last, I'm supposed to tell them what to do next.

  But there was nothing they could do. There had been a race, and Gardener should have lost, but somehow he hadn't, and now there was nothing to do but wait. Watch and wait and hope that the ship would kill him somehow before he could do anything. Before--