The 53rd Golden Age of Science Fiction MEGAPACK; Geoff St. Reynard

by Geoff St. Reynard

  “We’re a-going to lay an ambush for this ‘ere Slasher, sir, if you don’t mind,” said one of them.

  “Hear, hear,” I said. “Chop the blighter, what? Pip him in the early counties, right?”

  “There’s liable to be trouble, sir,” insinuated another.

  “Rather,” I yammered. “Oh, rather.”

  “We’d like to get ready now, if you please, sir.”

  “Oh, absolutely. Carry on. Lay a snare for the wretched person, lads,” said I heartily.

  “You’d better leave now, sir,” said the constable firmly. “Before there’s trouble, you know. Wouldn’t want to get hurt.”

  “Heavens, no,” said I. “I say, officer, could I just sit in that seat a mo’? Give one something to boast of, what?”

  “No, sir. There may be fingerprints in the thing.”

  * * * *

  “I won’t touch a bally thing,” I assured him, and as there was no one within six feet of me, I hopped in behind the wheel. At once they all shouted angrily; but there was no suspicion of me yet. It is the firm belief of the lower-middle classes that anyone who bleats and says “bally” and “dashed” is a regular Bertie Wooster character and as harmless as a sheep, although somewhat less attractive. “Come out o’ that, sir!” yelled the constable.

  “Just want to get the feel of it, you know,” said I reassuringly. “Want to tell old Algy I sat in what’s-his-name’s seat.”

  “I thought you said Algy was killed in a wreck.”

  “That was Algy Witherspoon, my cousin,” I told him reproachfully, secretly extracting the ignition key from my pocket. “This is young Algy Pope, my other cousin. Regular ripping chappy on murders and all that, Algy is. Tell you all about Crippen, and whoozis that did in his maiden aunt over at that little place in Sussex, and all such bloody—pardon the expression—goin’s-on. Likes birds, too. Sits about in swamps watchin’ them. Deuced rum feller.”

  Suspicion must have dawned just about then. They moved toward me, while the humans still hesitated. I slid the key in under cover of my bent body, chortling something inane about the mythical Algy, and stepped on the clutch. A hand was laid heavily on my shoulder. The Jaguar leaped backwards at the same instant, hit someone who reeled away with a scream, rocked crazily over the rubble and struck the road. I twisted her madly around, waved my hand in an appropriately cavalier-like manner, and sped off south-eastward on the great road that leads to London. Shouts of rage followed me. I patted the Jaguar’s wheel. “Everything’s all right, baby,” I said. “Old Will is back. It’ll all be all right now.”

  I devoutly hoped that it would be.

  CHAPTER XIII

  It is a hundred and fifteen or twenty miles from Birmingham to London. Having gambled the fate of the world on a silly trick, and won back my two-seater from the very hands of the law and of the usurpers, I was wonderfully bouyed up; and decided to go down to my gang’s headquarters and tell them all the new developments. I was aching to talk to someone ... preferably Marion.

  In half an hour I had left Birmingham and then Coventry far behind me, and was feeling pretty safe, as there had been no signs of pursuit. Then, just as I roared into some cursed little hamlet along the route—I don’t even know its name—a great black motor dashed out of a lane ahead of me and blocked the way. I saw it was crammed to the roof with them; knew that this was no accidental barrier, but a contingent of the enemy, either lawful or of the misbegotten underground of the beasts; and without pausing ran the Jaguar up over the curb, squeezed through between their car and the wall of a shop, rocketed on two wheels back into the road and trod the accelerator down to the floor. The black job was after me in a flash. We howled through that hamlet like a pair of greased lightning bolts.

  They gave me only a few bad minutes: when we hit the open road I drew away as though—to coin a stunning simile—they had been standing still. But even when their dust was no more than a puff on the horizon, I gnawed my lips and worried. My course was known, and the telegraphs and telephones would be crackling far in advance of me. Yet doggedly, and perhaps rather stupidly, I held to this main road until I had come nearly to St. Albans, for I could eat up the miles so swiftly on decent paving that it gave me the illusion of outrunning my enemies. At last, just before the old cathedral town, I turned off and lost myself in the network of country byways.

  * * * *

  Evening was closing in when at last I rolled the black lass to a halt at a garage in the south of London. The owner was an old mate of mine with whom I’d seen a lot of action in the war. What lies I told him don’t matter: suffice it that in three minutes the Jaguar was stowed in a dark corner of his big shed, and he had contracted to paint her a deep red hue by next afternoon ... and to keep quiet about her. Gladstone in hand, I then set out for The Gray Gander. I told myself that (a) I would be less conspicuous there than at the toney Gloucester Club or the exclusive Albany, (b) although three of my men were billeted at the latter place, Alec Talbot was the most able of the whole band, despite his single arm, and he was at the inn, (c) I did not want to be seen by any of the aliens who knew me—I hardly realized why, but I had the creepy feeling that they would somehow penetrate my secret—and on the single occasion when I had visited the Gander, I had seen none of the beast-folk. Finally I admitted to myself that these reasons were so much rot, and actually (d) Marion Black was drawing me like an irresistible whirlpool draws a chip of flotsam.

  I went up to Alec’s room, closed the door behind me, and fell on his bosom. He beat me on the back and gurgled wordlessly. I beat him on the back and sputtered idiotically. It was a grand reunion.

  “Where’s Marion?” I asked.

  “I’ll get her.” He dashed out and brought her back. When she came into the room, lighting it up like a sunburst in a cavern, I took her in my arms and kissed her long and well.

  “Marion, will you marry a poor devil who loves you in a humble but most passionate manner?”

  “After one kiss?” asked Alec blankly. “Just one kiss?”

  “Certainly,” she said. “That can be remedied.”

  “Oh, Lord, not immediately,” groaned Alec, as we began to do so. “Let him tell us where in hell he’s been for seventeen years. Let him relieve my mind.”

  I ended the second kiss with a splutter. “Good God! I can’t ask you to marry me, dearest. I—come and sit down—I’m a murderer.”

  “You can’t call it murder, son, to chop an inhuman monster,” said Alec.

  “But I’m wanted by every policeman in the Kingdom. You see, I’m the Manchester Slasher.”

  * * * *

  I don’t know what reaction I expected of Marion ... the pale cheek, the indrawn gasp, the expression of loathing and fear ... as a matter of fact, she clapped her hands and laughed.

  “You owe Geoff ten bob, Alec!” she cried.

  “Huh?” said I.

  “Geoff bet Alec ten shillings that you were the Mad Ghoul. He said—” she became serious—“he said that one just couldn’t give a man the power to see such nightmares as you’ve been seeing, and expect him to keep a cool head and not strike at them. He said he had wild bursts of fury himself when he thought of them, and knew if he could see them, he’d start a reign of terror.”

  “I thought you’d draw back with abhorrence,” I said.

  She threw her arms around me. “Oh, Will, poor old Will! My Uncle Geordie was a big game hunter, and I think he was a much more reprehensible character than you. After all, darling, the beasts you’re stalking are far worse than any innocent old family-man of a lion.”

  “Say,” put in Alec, “something’s been puzzling me. Why haven’t the coppers spotted the license of your Jaguar? It’s famous, you know—on the wireless every hour these days.”

  “Oh, my dear chap! I stole a set of plates off a big Daimler before I ever left London. You’re dealin’ with a hardened crook.” I told them how I had rescued her from the hands of the enemy in Birmingham. “It was the serial numbers on her
innards that worried me. Except for them, though, she couldn’t be traced to me.” I kissed my girl again. Her lips were like a drug, that drew me back again and again for larger doses.

  Alec clucked his tongue. “Most un-English!”

  “See here, chum: you trot out and collect the lads. Have ‘em come here unobtrusively by ones and twos, and we’ll have a council of war.”

  “Oh, all right, if you don’t want an appreciative audience to make funny remarks at appropriate places.” He slapped on his hat and went out, while I returned to Marion’s embrace. For a little while I could forget the whole abominable race of beast-people, the dire venture before me, and everything else except the incredible fact that she returned what I had always considered my hopeless love.

  CHAPTER XIV

  It was grand to see my half-dozen sub rosa crusaders gathered together again, sitting expectantly on sofas and chairs in Alec’s room, watching me with friendship and love. What a tonic those comradely faces were! I drank a silent, sentimental toast to them, and began my yarn.

  First I told them of Arold Smiff, the cheap, crooked, gin-soaked little man, who had taken his last bath in 1922; the man who could see the usurpers as well as I could. That roused them to gleeful vociferance, which I squashed with a bark. “Quiet, will you! I’m half starved—haven’t had a bite since breakfast. I want to get this done, so I can go and eat a good dinner.

  “You know that when I left you I could see just one dismal possibility—a long campaign of slaughter, slaughter, slaughter. But when I met Arold, a plan grew up in my mind—”

  “Like a lovely flower in a swamp,” murmured Geoff. “Sorry. Pray continue.”

  “The whole plan,” I growled, “is about nine-tenths sheer bluff; but I think it may work. Here it is: first, I travel around the country and collect a hundred names; the names of usurpers whose human shells have had more or less spectacular careers. Not those born to the purple, but those who’ve come up like rockets, self-made men who’ve climbed to posts of importance in politics, the law, and elsewhere. I’ve seen a number of big shots of that sort who are nothing really but robots moved by slimy misshapen blobs ... and I’ve deduced (pardon the Holmesian expression) that the important members of their loathsome breed are probably those who rise to take over important positions in this world. That allows ‘em to protect and to advance their secret cause.”

  “How?”

  “By passing certain laws, and—well, here’s an example. One of them commits some crime, perhaps inadvertently. They don’t want him to get chucked into prison, where he’d be no use to them in furthering the birth rate. So a were-policeman, to coin a name, will let him escape; or a were-judge will set him free. Get the poisonous subtlety of it? They work themselves into posts where they can help each other to the top of their bent. Even on the lower levels, they’re often bartenders and hotel-keepers, who can pass quick word of developments, and so forth. It’s as if a lot of Nazis had become lawyers and judges and M.P.s here during the late fracas, and from their exalted seats had protected whole battalions of lesser spies when they ran afoul of the cops.”

  “I see,” said the Colonel. “That’s logic.”

  * * * *

  “So it stands to reason that, if I want to put a great big crimp in their plans, I have to chop a slice off the top of their organization, rather than out of the bottom. I slew a score of ‘em while I was the Manchester Slasher, but those were common low folk whom I can’t see as especially important to the general plan of the usurpers. They got very peeved about me, but it was nothing to the way they’d have acted had I murdered twenty judicial were-people, or twenty husks of Members of Parliament. My score of twenty lower-case aliens might have been accidental, but twenty upper-crusters wouldn’t be. And a hundred will make them sit up and scream like hell.

  “You can’t hire decent men to commit pointless assassinations, so of course I was handicapped until I met Arold Smiff. In fact, I never even thought of hiring killers, until that night when I found that he could see ‘em too. Then the dawn flashed up. You can pay professional rogues to commit murders, and no questions asked. So I deputized Arold to go out and collect a hundred scoundrels for me: the most reliable riffraff available, men who would, as he says, do in their old mothers for a chew of tobacco. He’s to pay them ten pounds apiece in advance, with a promise of ten more when the business is done. Then, on a certain night, and within a period of a few hours, they’re to strike all over England—and slay these usurpers I’ll have collected in my little black book. I understand that the underworld looks with disfavor on a gentleman who collects a fee from a brother crook and then doesn’t deliver the goods, so I believe that most of these cutthroats will keep faith and comply with his instructions.”

  “How do you know this Smith won’t do a bunk with your money?” asked Doctor Baringer cynically. “After all, a common thief—”

  “Not common,” said I loyally. “He was Manny Jarman’s right-hand man.”

  “Who in blazes is, or was, Manny Jarman?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest, John ... anyhow, Arold’s been promised a lot of cash if he comes through; he’s enthralled with the scheme, for after all he’s been seeing these pink and crimson cacodemons since the early ‘40s; lastly, and maybe most important, he knows I’m the Manchester Slasher, and in his heart of hearts he’s scared white of me. I felt no qualms at all about giving him eleven hundred quid.”

  Alec whistled. “What a wad!”

  “Nearly all I had with me. It’s a lucky thing some of us are loaded with the ready, for this affair will cost like sin.

  “Then, after our pogrom, I call one of their bigwigs and tell him to meet me somewhere, with as many of his pals as he wants to bring. I say to ‘em, ’Gents, you’ve just seen a sample of my power. I’ve reached out and obliterated a hundred of you, and they weren’t any small potatoes either, but some o’ your finest. You realize I didn’t snag ‘em all by myself; you’re no village idiots. Those killings were done by a hundred chaps who can see you. We struck at you all over England. In a few days, another hundred of you get it—and some of you here now are on that list. Couple days later, a hundred and fifty. Then two hundred. And we’ll go on knocking you over regularly, working from the top down, till there aren’t any of your breed left here, and damned good riddance to filthy bad rubbish, too.’

  * * * *

  “Then I make my point. ‘The nub of the thing is this: we want you to go home. Pick up your kilts and vamoose. Beat it. This world isn’t your world, and by heavens you’d better leave it while the leaving is good. Otherwise you’re sunk. You can murder me now,’ I tell ‘em generously, ’but there’s plenty more where I came from. We’ve perfected a system of warping our vision, and every day there are more of us who can see you in all your ugliness. You can’t beat us, because we’re the best underground organization that ever existed; and last night’s massacre proves it. Till now you had no idea we even existed. Did you?’ And they have to admit they didn’t, because we don’t.”

  “How’s that again, Will?”

  “Never mind. Anyway, then they think it over, and if we’re in luck, they decide the hell with it, and go home.”

  “Leaving thousands of suddenly dead bodies, and incredible misery and sorrow among the friends of their puppets,” said Geoff. “Oh, I’m with you. That’s our whole objective, to rid ourselves of them. But it just hit me: what a lot of tears will be shed because we stepped into this matter.”

  “Shall we turn back now?”

  “Don’t drivel. Only ... great merciful powers!” He drank from his glass, his hand shaking. “What will we wreak!”

  “Do you think it’ll work, Will?” asked Marion quietly.

  “It’s the biggest bluff of all time, darling. But it must work!” I paused. “There’s one big factor. I’ve hinted at it—here it is. We’ve always taken it for granted that when the human body dies, the usurper simply goes back to his own world and begins again by getting himself born
into a new husk here. Jerry Wolfe figured that out originally, and we’ve accepted his theory as gospel. But I submit that it needn’t be true. I don’t know why I ever thought it was. How do we know what happens to the monster when its hull of human flesh dies? How do we know that it’s only the puppet which perishes? Echo answers: we don’t know. Maybe the aliens are so bound to their false humans in this dimension that when the bodies die, the aliens must die too. What’s so impossible about that? After all, I’ve told you that they haven’t any powers here except those of the bodies they inhabit. God knows what they can do in their own never-never land—but here, they’re little better than so many natural-born people. And if they’re that restricted, that much identified with these puppets, maybe even their death is mutual.”

  * * * *

  I cleared my throat and took a drink of Scotch. “What happened when I killed my first ogre? I went to a pub with Geoff and watched. Pretty soon all the beasts sittin’ there started to flap their arms at one another and turn different colors, and then a lot of them got up and left. Aha, yes, I said to myself, the gorgon who got his has gone around behind the dimension-screen telling his chums about it. But I was arguing from a false premise. I was basing my ideas on what I believed to be a fact—yet that fact hadn’t been proven at all, and probably couldn’t be proven this side of the silver land!”

  “Nor disproven,” put in Alec.

  “But I can show you more to disprove it than you can dig up to prove it! What happens when I assassinate an alien? His human vehicle croaks, while he himself swells up, turns a vivid horrid hue, and goes pop. I submit that that looks more like the death of the alien itself than a simple relegation to another region.

  “But I think they can leave this world voluntarily, in which case they go on living in their own. Lord knows how long a life expectancy they’ve got, over there. Maybe their time is different from ours, so that the life of a man occupies no more than a fraction of a day in the silver land; the theft of a body and the puppeteering of it from womb to tomb may be no more than an hour’s vicious pastime for an alien.”