The Wrong Stuff td-125

by Warren Murphy

  "It's altogether ookey," Remo suggested. "Wanna take the whole wall down?"

  Chiun shook his head. A look of strange puzzlement had taken root on his face. His ears were trained on the rooms around them as they walked out into the big foyer.

  Though only an anteroom, the foyer was larger than an average living room. A warped wooden rail stretched to the second-floor landing, balusters missing at irregular points. A big vase filled with dead flowers sat on an old oak stand thick with dust. The lace doily that hung in tatters from beneath the vase was yellow with age. A ratty Oriental runner stretched across the floor from the sealed front door to the hallway that lay adjacent to the main foyer.

  They had barely reached the staircase when they felt the surge of displaced air above their heads. Their senses tripping alert, instinct took over. Remo jumped left, Chiun leaped right.

  They had barely bounded to safety before the big crystal chandelier that had been hanging from the foyer's vaulted ceiling crashed to the floor.

  The heavy weight tore through the lower section of the bannister, ripping wood to pulp and screaming into the bottom steps. Glass cracked and scattered into dank corners.

  A cloud of dust rose into the musty air.

  As the sound was swallowed up by the darkest reaches of the big old house, Remo turned a level eye on the Master of Sinanju. "Now, that was not right," he said evenly.

  By the look on Chiun's face, the old man agreed. Ordinarily, Remo and Chum would have detected the faint grinding of mechanical parts that would have warned them a trigger or release had been activated. But in this case there was no such sign. It was as if the chandelier itself had made a decision entirely on its own to drop on their heads.

  "Do not become distracted," Chiun cautioned. "All is not as it appears here."

  "If you're saying it's not looking and acting like a creepy haunted house, then I've gotta disagree," Remo said. He looked down at the twisted chandelier. It blocked the route to the staircase. "Looks like someone doesn't want us going upstairs."

  "Or else that is precisely where they wish us to go," the old Korean pointed out.

  Remo considered his words. Given what they'd seen so far, it was possible that the house was using reverse psychology on them.

  "I don't know about you," Remo grumbled, annoyed, "but I'm not about to start trying to figure out what some wrecking ball reject wants me to do."

  And curling his toes he launched himself up over the broken chandelier.

  Chiun followed suit. The two men landed lightly, side by side on the fifth broad step.

  Ever cautious, they began climbing the stairs.

  To their right as they ascended, portraits lined the broad, curving staircase. Though not antiques, they had been carefully treated to look as old as the house itself. Each was of a single man made out to look like a famous character from horror fiction. There was the Wolfman, the Mummy, Frankenstein's monster and a dozen more that Remo didn't recognize. He noted that the face on each of the paintings looked the same. When they reached the Dracula painting at the first landing, it finally struck him.

  "That's the guy, Little Father," he said, snapping his fingers. "Stewart McQueen. I'd know those teeth anywhere."

  Pausing, Chiun glanced at the Dracula painting with thin disgust. "I do not know why you in the West revere this Walachian so," he said unhappily. "He was a stingy tyrant and not even a true vampire. It was a happy day when Sultan Mehmed hired Master Foo to remove his miserly head."

  "You talking McQueen or Dracula?"

  "He was known as Vlad the Impaler," Chiun said dryly. "And before you ask, I am not a walking history lesson. If you are interested, look it up in the scrolls yourself."

  He spun on his heel.

  As Remo was turning from the painting, something suddenly caught his attention. A flash of movement. When he snapped his head back around, he saw that the black eyes of the Walachian ruler had twitched to one side.

  Remo took a startled step back. The movement came as a shock to his highly trained senses, for he had not perceived any living thing behind the wall.

  He wheeled to the Master of Sinanju, stabbing a finger at the portrait. "Chiun, did you see what I-" He didn't get a chance to finish his question. The old man's face was a mirror of his own shock. As he jumped forward, the Master of Sinanju's long nails unfurled like deadly knives of vengeance. Slashing left then right, he reduced Dracula's face to a mass of canvas tatters.

  Behind was nothing more than an oak-paneled wall.

  No. More than that. As Remo listened, he heard the distinct creaking of floorboards. The sound seemed to be coming from a hollow behind the wall.

  A secret passage.

  "Okay, Remo's had enough fun at the wacky shack," Remo muttered angrily.

  Grabbing the portrait, he flung it to the stairs. Pulverizing fists shot into hard wood. It cracked and splintered. Grabbing at the edges of the new formed hole, Remo yanked. An entire panel tore away.

  Beyond was a narrow hallway, just wide enough for a man to walk along. Without a glance at his teacher, Remo slipped through the two-foot-wide opening. The Master of Sinanju came in behind.

  The passage was illuminated by a few bare bulbs. It appeared to loop around the second story of the house. The far ends disappeared around sharp corners in both directions.

  "You get a sense of which way he went?" Remo asked.

  "He who?" the Master of Sinanju said thinly. "I sensed no life signs from this chamber."

  "Yeah, but you heard the floor creak," Remo pointed out. He glanced around. The electrical hum was stronger in here. He felt the short hairs rise on the back of his neck. "Maybe all this electric junk is some sort of force field or something. Could have kept us from getting a bead on him."

  "Or it," Chiun cautioned.

  "No bogeyman living here, Little Father," Remo said firmly. "Just some nutcase writer. Let's try this way."

  He struck off to the right.

  Unlike whoever had preceded them through here, neither man made a sound on the warped boards as they slid stealthily down the long corridor.

  They had traveled only a few yards along the passage when the strange electrical charge that filled the dank air around them abruptly grew in pitch.

  Remo stopped dead.

  "Maybe this wasn't such a hot idea after all," he said, his voice thick with foreboding. "What say we amscray?"

  His answer was a shocked intake of air, then nothing.

  And in the moment of that single gasping breath, the distinctive beat of the Master of Sinanju's heart vanished.

  Remo wheeled around. Chiun was gone.

  He was vaguely aware of a panel closing in the floor. But even his supersensitive eyes had difficulty adjusting to the speed with which it snapped shut.

  His heart knotting in his chest, Remo fell to his knees, attacking the floor.

  He soon discovered that this wood was not like the paneling he had just broken through. Each pummeling fist was absorbed by the floor. Although the wood appeared solid, it was like punching marshmallow. Though his hand fired down with punishing force, he failed to make a single dent.

  Worse than that, there was no longer any hint of a trapdoor. As though one had never existed.

  The first hint of panic began to ring in Remo's ears. As concern for his teacher grew, he was vaguely aware that his hands were slick with some wet substance. At the same time Remo heard a soft gurgle in either direction.

  He snapped his head left.

  The walls were excreting some slippery liquid. At first glance it looked like blood. But the smell was wrong.

  It was oil. It seeped out invisible pores above the trapdoor.

  Somehow the house had known that Chiun would attempt to grab on to something when the passage opened beneath him. It had prevented him from doing so by greasing everything within reach.

  Remo hopped to his feet. Thoughts only on Chiun, he raced for the opening they had used to enter the passage.

  He'd s
tart his search on the first floor and move to the basement if necessary. To find Chiun, he would tear the entire house down brick by brick.

  When he reached the spot where the opening had been, Remo froze.

  It was gone. Somehow the jagged hole he'd torn in the paneling had healed itself.

  And on either side of the narrow passage, the walls began to thrum, as if with a pulsing life force all their own.

  Whatever was happening, it wasn't good. Remo slashed out a hand at the wood. It absorbed the blow.

  He tried again. Still nothing. The paneling that had shattered so easily two minutes before now seemed impervious to his attacks.

  A click and a whir behind him, followed by a low rumble.

  Remo didn't turn. He didn't need to look to know that the walls were closing in.

  There wasn't a sense of hydraulics. Just the inexorable move of the wall toward his back.

  And as the passage constricted, threatening to crush Remo to paste, a single camera winked on at the far end of the corridor, its somber lens focused on the dramatic final moments of life of the younger Master of Sinanju.

  Chapter 22

  At first he had an impossible time orienting himself. All around him the world was shaded in black.

  But after a time, shapes began to form. Angled shadows rose right or left, indicating where walls and ceiling were.

  Mark Howard was at Folcroft. As usual. That much he knew. But he couldn't quite place exactly where. He started walking.

  As he headed down the long hallway, each footfall was thunder only he could hear.

  When he felt the first kiss from the icy rush of air, he knew what it preceded.

  Come for me....

  The disembodied voice echoed forlornly off the shadowy walls. It seemed to be inside his head, as well.

  He had heard the voice before. In this same place. But as far as he knew, it wasn't a voice he recognized. The hallway grew longer with each step. He passed a window. In the tree beyond, an owl blinked inquisitively, its eyes washed in purple from the strangely deformed moon.

  Release me....

  A door. Mark had seen it before. Each time he visited this hallway, he managed to get this far. With growing dread he knew that it would soon be over.

  It was a patient's door. Crisscrossing wires were buried in the small Plexiglas rectangle.

  Mark crept forward. The thudding of his shoes faded, overwhelmed by the pounding of his own heart.

  The door was solid, unbreakable.

  He touched the handle. As usual, no sense of cold or warmth. For a moment he considered turning it. Some unexplainable inner dread held him back. He released the knob.

  The instant he let go, there issued a timid scratching from inside, as from a dying animal. Whatever it was, it gave the sense that captivity was sapping its vitality.

  Holding his breath, Mark moved to the window. Though it was dark inside, he could still glimpse a few familiar shapes. A bed. A dresser.

  The rustle of movement.

  He leaned in close, his heart beating a chorus in his ears.

  Movement no more. For an instant he thought it might have been imagined.

  And in that moment of doubt, it sprang at him. When it shot up from the shadows, Mark fell back. It pounded the window, cracking the reinforced mesh. "Release me!" the beast shrieked.

  The features were feral. Not human, not animal. It was all hatred and rage.

  Howard skittered back on all fours, slamming the wall. He blinked. The instant he did, the darkness turned to gray, quickly fading up to white. And even as the light returned, the beast continued to slam the door, demanding release.

  Pounding, pounding, pounding...

  KNOCK, knock knock.

  Mark opened his eyes.

  It took him a moment to realize where he was. Four walls. Close enough to touch.

  Folcroft. This was where he worked now. A dream. The dream. Again.

  He rubbed his head where he had bumped it against the wall. His office was so small that his chair barely fit behind his desk. During his first month here, he had hit his head against the wall at least twice every day.

  Knock, knock knock.

  "Mr. Howard?" a timid voice called from the hall. Okay. He was back. The dream was rapidly becoming nothing more than a disturbing memory.

  In the battered oaken desk before him was a raised computer screen. Howard felt near his knee, depressing a hidden stud beneath the desk. The monitor whirred obediently down below the surface.

  "Come in," he called, clearing the gravelly sleep from his throat.

  The wide face of Eileen Mikulka, Harold Smith's secretary, peeked into the small room. "Good evening, Mr. Howard," she said cheerily. "I was just passing by on my way home and I thought I'd remind you about your meeting with Dr. Smith."

  Mark smiled. "I know. Thanks, Mrs. M."

  She warmed to the familiarity. Assistant Director Howard was such a nice young man. Not that her employer, Dr. Smith, didn't have his good qualities. It was just that it was nice to have such a pleasant young fellow at Folcroft.

  "He's a stickler for punctuality," she said. "Which isn't a bad thing. It's just the way he is. Anyway, I wouldn't want you to get in trouble."

  "You're a little late for that," Mark said quietly, sitting up. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Standing in the doorway, Smith's secretary smiled.

  "You'll do fine here," Mrs. Mikulka promised. She cast a glance at Howard's desk. "It seems funny to see that again after all these years," she commented. "That was Dr. Smith's desk for such a long time. I was surprised when he had me send workers to bring it up from the cellar for you. I didn't know he'd kept it. It isn't like Dr. Smith to be sentimental over something like a dirty old desk. I guess it just shows that you can never know everything there is to know about a person. Good night, Mr. Howard." She backed from the small office and shut the door. After she was gone, Mark Howard nodded silent agreement.

  "Not if you want to live to tell about it," he said softly.

  Shaking the cobwebs from his brain, Mark got to his feet, struggling around the desk that was far too big for the cramped room.

  THE SUN HAD SET over Folcroft. Outside the sanitarium windows it was almost dark as Mark made his way through the administrative wing of the building. He met only one other employee, an elderly janitor with a bucket and a mop.

  As far as staff was concerned, night wasn't much different than day. Dr. Smith limited the staff in this wing of the facility to a skeleton crew. The fewer eyes to see what was going on, the better.

  The way Smith told it, either he or his secretary could handle Folcroft's affairs virtually alone. When he had mentioned this fact to Howard, it was the only time Mark had seen the old man express real pride in his work.

  So while the doctors and nurses and orderlies worked in the medical wing, Mark Howard generally walked alone through the empty second-floor hallways.

  This night, the emptiness was unnerving.

  As he made his way up the hall, he tried to soften his own footfalls in an attempt to keep from reminding himself of his disturbing recurring dream. He was grateful for the muffling effect of Smith's drab reception-room carpeting.

  On his way to the office door, Mark glanced at his wristwatch.

  "Uh-oh," he said when he saw that it was four minutes after six.

  Expecting to be chewed out for his tardiness, he rapped a gentle knuckle on the door even as he pushed it open.

  As usual Smith sat behind his broad desk. Through the one-way picture window behind the CURE director, the thinning black trees of Folcroft's back lawn surrendered their burden of dark leaves to dusk. Beyond the trees the choppy waves of Long Island Sound were gray and cold. At the same time in a few short days, the end of daylight savings time would bring nightfall an hour sooner.

  Smith's face was stern.

  "I'm sorry I'm late," Mark said as he clicked the door shut. "It won't happen again."

  He was surprised when Smith did
not so much as raise a disapproving eyebrow. His hard expression never wavering, the CURE director beckoned the young man forward.

  "Is something wrong?" Mark asked as he slipped into his usual straight-backed chair.

  "The report you got this afternoon on the metal fragment Remo found in Florida," Smith said, not answering the question. "The results were conclusive?"

  It was an odd question. They had discussed the lab report only an hour before. Afterward Smith had said that he was going to do some research. By the sounds of it, he had found something that was not to his liking.

  "Yes," Mark replied. "It was a special alloy created to be virtually impervious to intense heat and chemical abrasion." He shook his head, confused. "Is everything all right, Dr. Smith? I sent it by courier to one of your approved labs. If you want it retested, I can send it to one of the others."

  "The lab is not the problem," Smith said darkly. He sank back in his chair, a dim shadow in his gloomy office.

  Howard detected something in the older man's tone he had never heard before. It was deep concern. Bordering on fear.

  "I have been doing some digging," Smith said somberly. "There are few applications for such an alloy. Since one is space exploration, proximity obviously dictated that I should start with NASA. I have concluded that this is indeed the likeliest source."

  "Remo said they couldn't identify it," Howard frowned.

  Smith was not dissuaded. "That is unlikely," he said. "Look at this." He pulled his chair in tight to his desk. The old man looked down over his monitor like a modern sorcerer searching for augers in the realm of cyberspace.

  Curious, Mark circled around the desk.

  On the monitor was a picture Smith had found at a science magazine's Web site.

  The subject of the photograph was a giant robotic spider. Underneath the picture a caption identified it as the Virgil probe, part of a new generation of NASA space-exploration technology. Technical data filled the screen all around the picture. Small images of Neptune and Venus had been plugged in around Virgil, red arrows detailing atmospheric and climatic information.

  Knuckles leaning on the lip of the desk, Howard glanced down at Smith.

  "I don't think that's what we're after, Dr. Smith," Mark cautioned slowly.