It's Alive!

by Richard Woodley

  “But, Frank, you’re the father!”

  “I’m not the father! There is no father! That thing isn’t human! It isn’t mine! It’s yours, Lenore, and it’s tearing my life apart!”

  “Mine?” She sat staring at him, dumbfounded. Her eyes were dry. She blinked hard a few times, then smiled. “I’ve got to finish up in the kitchen.” She got up and smoothed her hair. “Don’t go upstairs just yet, I’ve got a little more straightening up to do—our bed’s still a mess. And then, you know what? I’ll make us a nice dinner. How about a roast? Yes.” She headed for the kitchen with a bouncy step. “Roast and baked potatoes and lima beans. And maybe I’ll whip up a fresh cabbage slaw. We haven’t had that in a long time.”

  “Lenore.”

  “And before that, just to keep you from starving, I’ll mix up an onion dip with celery sticks.”

  “Lenore!” His eyes were wet.

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  “I didn’t mean what I said.”

  “What was that, dear?”

  In the kitchen, she began pulling out pots and utensils and clanking them onto the stove. “You mean about no breadwinner? Oh, I’m not worried. I have so much confidence in you. With a month to play with, you’ll come up with something super—better than what you had.” She trotted and twirled in the kitchen, her face flushed, reaching out this way and that to accumulate meat, potatoes, vegetables, and pile them on the counter. “I never thought that Buck Clayton had a big enough operation for you, anyway—no room to grow. He’s a lecher, Buck is. Did you know that?” She began chopping up cabbage, her hand a mechanical blur. “He even said something to me once, about getting me alone, showing me a real good time. I’m glad you’re out of that place.”

  Frank came up behind her and closed her in his arms. “Please, Lenore, listen to me, slow down . . .” Her entire body was tense with kinetic energy. “I didn’t mean that, about being trapped. I love you so.”

  She spun from his grasp, then leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “And I love you. Later I’ll show you. Right now just let me put this dinner together, okay? Dip’ll be ready in a minute. Have you talked to Chris today?”

  “He’s up at the lake with Charley, you know that. Won’t be back until tomorrow.”

  “Good. Just us. Like honeymooners. You’re in my way, lover. Wait in the den, okay? I’ll bring the dip to you.”

  She stood smiling up at him. Then the smile faded, her knees buckled, she tottered backward, and slumped down into a chair. She tilted slowly over, until her head was resting on the table. She shivered.

  “What’s wrong?” He knelt beside her and put his hand on her head. “Lenore, what is it?”

  Her eyes were half closed. “I’m just so tired, Frank, and cold.”

  He hugged her. “But all of a sudden like that?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been so up and down lately. My head is spinning. I’m not dizzy, exactly. Confused. Sometimes I feel like I’m floating outside myself, like my body’s not my own.”

  “You’ve exhausted yourself. And I haven’t helped at all. Come on, let me get you into bed. I’m so sorry for the things I said, for thinking only of myself, for being such a weakling. I’ll carry you up.”

  “No, I’m okay. I’ll go up myself. This usually passes in a few minutes.”

  He took her arm and helped her up the stairs and tucked her into bed. He kissed her on the forehead and went back down to sit in the den. He poured a drink and sprawled out in the soft chair and fell asleep.

  Sometime later in the night the phone rang. Frank answered it groggily.

  “Mr. Davis? This is Lieutenant Perkins. Sorry to be bothering you so late, but it’s important. Could you meet me right away over at the Darwin School? There’s something here I’d like you to see, and ask you about. Just tell my men at the front door you’re here to see me.”

  It stemmed, in a way, from one of those minor school-board matters. Having to cut back on their budget, they had sliced out funds for the night watchman, letting the old man go, after all those years, with a Good Citizen plaque and a small pension. But then, after a series of incidents of petty vandalism, they had installed in the lower windows—at slightly higher cost than to retain the watchman—a silent alarm system hooked up directly to police headquarters.

  And so, when entry was made tonight through one of the first-floor windows, the police had been instantly alerted, and cars arrived on the scene within minutes.

  Before the cars arrived, one of the many foot patrolmen assigned to each block of Westwood and vicinity during the several days’ search for the monster-baby responded to a message on his walkie-talkie and ran around the corner to the dark, square, two-story brick school. Following instructions, he didn’t go in, but scouted the windows from the outside. He quickly found one open and heard noises inside: the tinkling of a music box, the rattling of blocks, the rolling of plastic wheels across the floor.

  Eight cars quickly converged on the scene, their sirens silent. Three were locals, and five State Troopers.

  Most of the men fanned out to encircle the building. Detective Perkins took a small unit to the front door, followed closely by Captain Sanford and a handful of Troopers.

  “Step aside, lieutenant,” the captain said, “my men’ll blow that door right off its hinges.”

  “No need.” Perkins nodded to one of his men, who stooped at the door with a tiny tool, quickly slipped the lock, and shoved the door open.

  “Okay,” Perkins said quietly, “stay together until I tell you to split up. Keep your mouths shut and easy on your trigger fingers.”

  They entered the building, the local policemen holding their revolvers at their shoulders pointed up, the Troopers cradling their shotguns. They spread out along the main hallway.

  “Where the hell’s the lights?” came a whisper. “Wall switches don’t work.”

  “Must be turned off by some master switch, automatically timed. Use your flashlights.”

  Beams from a dozen flashlights sprayed around the yellow walls, into open classrooms; heavy breathing from a dozen men filled the hall.

  “Brunt. Where’s Patrolman Brunt?”

  “Right here, lieutenant,” he whispered back.

  “What room was it where you heard the noise?”

  “I think it must be right down here, third door on the right.”

  The door was closed. Detective Perkins slowly turned the knob and eased it open. Lights played around the room, covering every corner. Nothing moved.

  Perkins and three of his men edged inside. Toys were strewn all over the room. A hand-painted poster that said, “Darwin Kindergarten,” with flowers and a sun on it, lay on the floor. Perkins stumbled over a tiny merry-go-round that responded with a few dying notes of its song.

  “That’s it, lieutenant, that’s what I heard.”

  With his foot, Perkins sent a fire engine rolling across the wooden floor.

  “That too.”

  Again with his foot, he pushed over a pile of blocks.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Somebody was in here, all right.”

  “Or thing.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Not here now.”

  “If it was,” came the hoarse growl of Captain Sanford, “we’d have it plastered all over the wall before it could say A-B-C.”

  “You stayed right outside the window, Brunt?” Perkins asked.

  “Yes sir, just like you said, all the time until the men had the building surrounded.”

  “So maybe it’s still in here.”

  “I sure hope so,” muttered Sanford.

  “You got all your men together, captain?”

  “Sent ’em on ahead, spread ’em to reconnoiter the ground floor.”

  “I thought I said to—”

  “Every one of my men is like a guerrilla fighter, lieutenant, handle himself in any situation.”

  Detective Perkins gritted his teeth. “Okay, let’s seal off this room. We’ll take the rooms one by on
e, check ’em, seal ’em off.”

  “Lieutenant, look at this!”

  Perkins aimed his light. The patrolman was on one knee beside the poster. Next to him several small bottles of paints were tipped over. And from these blobs of paint, which the patrolman now pointed at, were several tracks of drying color, tracks resembling the spoor of a very large bird.

  “It musta walked in this stuff, lieutenant! It left a trail!”

  Several flashlight beams converged on the tracks and moved slowly along them, toward the men themselves. The tracks—mixtures of faint blue, gold, and red—passed directly under them. The men stepped aside, their lights tracing the tracks out the door and down the hallway.

  The men stood where they were, allowing their flashlight beams to move farther and farther along the hallway away from them, toward the broad stairway at the end.

  “Any of your men upstairs, captain?”

  Sanford flashed his light around behind him, at the men herded together. “Nope. All here again, as ordered.”

  “Except Darcey, captain,” came a voice from the rear. “Trooper Darcey maybe went up.”

  Perkins snapped his head around to the captain. “Jesus!”

  “He’ll be all right. Top man. Anything’s up there, he’ll get it.”

  The two leaders moved slowly down the hallway, the others bunched up behind them, all tilting their lights to see the poster paint, bird-like tracks reaching out ahead of them, but growing fainter, on the floor.

  They reached the foot of the stairs and stopped to shine their lights up. The tracks had disappeared; the paint was gone. Halfway up was a landing, and the stairs doubled back over their heads.

  “Darcey?” Perkins called softly. “Trooper Darcey?”

  “If he’s on the job, lieutenant, stalking something up there, he won’t answer.”

  “Maybe he didn’t go up there, captain,” somebody said. “Maybe he went outside. He said he needed to take a leak.”

  Detective Perkins started upward, the others pressed behind him. They reached the landing and stopped. Perkins held up his hand. There wasn’t a sound. They then made the turn and went up the last section of stairs to the top. The men gathered and all shined their lights down the long hall.

  Nothing.

  Captain Sanford leaned back into the group. “Couple you Troopers go on back down. Go outside, see if Darcey’s out there. Ask our men out there if they saw anybody go out.”

  “Yes sir.”

  Two Troopers trotted down the stairs.

  “Okay. Room by room,” Perkins commanded. “Captain, take your Troopers down the left side. We’ll take the right.”

  The captain nodded and motioned his men forward to the first room on the left.

  Detective Perkins panned his light down the hall, then flashed in at the first room on the right. The door was open. All the classroom doors were open. He started toward the first room. He stopped and flashed his light down the hall again.

  Except one room. Fourth down on the right. The door was closed.

  Perkins held up his hand, then just one finger, and slowly brought it down to point at that closed door. His men fell in beside him, walking softly, heel-and-toe.

  Perkins spread his arms and stopped them. “Everybody got their safeties off?” he whispered.

  He heard one click, and scowled.

  He began moving forward again.

  From outside came a hoarse, whispered call, “Troopers!” followed by the thudding steps of running boots, then more whispers.

  “What the hell they doing out there?” Perkins murmured.

  They listened.

  “He’s asking them if they seen Darcey, lieutenant.”

  Perkins snatched a cigar from his jacket pocket and stuck it in his mouth.

  They were at the closed door. Perkins put his hand on the knob, then took his hand off and stepped back. He slowly brought his right foot up to the level of his belly, then smashed it against the door, breaking the latch and slamming the door open against the wall, the crash echoing through the school.

  Lights shined straight ahead.

  “Window’s open.”

  He edged in along the shattered door, running his light quickly around the room. Then down, under the window, on the floor.

  No more caution. His men burst into the room and dropped to the side of the uniformed body whose fresh blood was spilling from the gouge in his throat and oozing along the baseboard.

  “He ain’t ours, lieutenant,” one of Perkins’s men called out.

  Captain Sanford and his men poured into the room and dashed to the fallen figure. “No, he ain’t yours. Ours. Darcey.”

  Perkins lunged for the window and leaned out. Drainpipe just to his left, half pulled away from the brick. Tracks on it, sliding, red. Not paint, blood. He looked down at the ground. “Where the hell’s the Troopers was supposed to be on this side of the building?” he roared.

  They came running over the grass from the front. “We’re here, sir, just checking on one of our men.”

  Sanford leaned out the window beside Perkins. “So it went out the window and down the pipe.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And my men weren’t covering the ground.”

  “Nope.”

  “I’ll have to take responsibility for that.”

  “Don’t tell me about it, captain, goddam it! Tell your men about their buddy!”

  State and local policemen stood staring down where the beams of their flashlights covered the body of their slaughtered comrade.

  “Okay,” Detective Perkins chomped down hard on his cigar, “somebody find me a phone. I can’t wait no longer. I gotta get Davis up here and ask him some things.”

  Frank arrived at the school to see flashlight beams waving around the playground and in nearby lawns and shrubbery. He went to the front door, where he was confronted by two policemen standing with legs apart and nightsticks in front of them.

  “I’m Frank Davis, here to see Detective Perkins. What’s going on out there?”

  “Afraid you’ll have to ask Lieutenant Perkins about that, sir. We aren’t allowed to answer any questions.”

  “I passed an ambulance on the way here. Anything to do with this?”

  “I’ll show you to Lieutenant Perkins, sir, he’s right inside.”

  Perkins was seated at the principal’s desk, surrounded by several aides manning communications equipment. Captain Sanford slumped on a chair in the corner.

  Perkins nodded to Frank and motioned to a chair.

  “What’s going on around here, lieutenant? What was that ambulance doing?”

  “I’m afraid the school had a visitor, Mr. Davis. I’m afraid it was your kid.”

  Frank squirmed. “I wish you wouldn’t refer to it that way.”

  “I know you don’t like it, Mr. Davis, but it’s time we all faced up to a few things. I didn’t call you over here because you were just an interested bystander, you know.”

  “I know. You got it, then? It was in the ambulance?”

  “No. We ain’t got it. Close, but no cigar.” Which reminded him to take out a fresh one and jam it between his teeth. “It was a cop in the ambulance. Trooper. One of Captain Sanford’s men there.”

  “I’m sorry, captain. Was he hurt bad?”

  Captain Sanford turned his face to the wall.

  “Dead like the others,” Perkins said. “Throat carved out. Killed him upstairs, slid down a drainpipe, and got away across the grounds somewhere.”

  Frank stared at him, stunned. “So it’s still out there.”

  “Tell me about it, Davis. Look, I haven’t brought you into this much before now, because I didn’t want to upset you any more than you are, and also because frankly I didn’t think you could help us that much. Maybe you can’t. But I want to go over a few things with you, just between us.”

  “Okay. Could you make it quick, lieutenant? I left my wife at home alone, you know.”

  “I know. We’re keeping an e
ye on the place.”

  “I hope your men aren’t stomping around outside. It’ll scare her to death. And you better not have sent them inside either, because we don’t want anybody—”

  “I know all that. They’re keeping an eye on it, that’s all. She won’t even know they’re there. Let’s take a little walk, you and me.”

  They left the office and walked down the hall. Detective Perkins nodded at his man stationed outside the kindergarten room, and he and Frank went inside and closed the door behind them.

  Lights were now on in the school. Perkins just stood and let Frank’s eyes wander over the room.

  “Well, what about it, lieutenant? What am I supposed to see?”

  “This the room where your wife taught?”

  “Yeah. Not full-time. Substitute. But when she was at the school, this is where she worked.”

  “How often?”

  “Maybe once a week, or less. Until the regular teacher got sick. She’s been here quite a bit lately. She changed it a lot, improved it. She cared a lot about—”

  “How changed it?”

  “Well, the toys, for example. She’s responsible for most of the stuff you see here. They used to have a lot of junk for the kids to play with: old metal toys, broken stuff, dirty things that had been here for years. There never seemed to be enough money for modern toys, good ones. But, see, I have this account in my public-relations business—or had the account. It was a toy company. And we were able to have the school get a whole bunch of new toys at discount. It’s just like what we have at home. My boy’s eleven now, but he used to play with stuff just like this. In fact, seeing all these things is like walking into his old room at home.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Something wrong with that?”

  “Nope. But this is the room that thing came to. This is where my man first heard it. Like it was playing with this stuff.” Detective Perkins knelt and shoved some of the blocks and trucks around. He picked up the merry-go-round and wound it up. He held it while it played its song.