Helmet Head
Page 16
It was some bronze-age implement, a spear or a javelin.
He got down on his knees and looked at the four inches that fell below the copper coils. A staff of wood so old it was almost petrified with some leather shards attached.
The Spear of Destiny. The Spear of Destiny was the power source.
The slam of a refrigerator door made him levitate. Gripping the ax he stood and turned as the first of the headless bikers emerged wearing a Nazi-party armband.
***
CHAPTER 40
Chop Chop
The corpse’s skin had turned deep purple and had contracted but not decayed. The muscles bulged smoothly and ominously as the creature, surmounted by a weird little turret with a single camera eye aimed at him like a tank’s gun, fixed on Fagan with a tiny hum. A brilliant red dot passed over his face. Laser sighting. The thing was unarmed but massive, preparing to bull rush Fagan into the wall. With a terrible whistling noise issuing from a valve in its throat it charged.
Fagan went down on one knee and swung the ax through the creature’s left ankle. The ax was sharp and heavy. The blow severed the foot and the thing smacked turret first into the wall even as its hands snaked out and seized Fagan’s pant leg. It was incredibly strong. It hooked one leg through the open closet door and began to pull Fagan inexorably to itself with hands like grappling hooks. The patch on its filthy denim vest said “Duckie.”
Fagan shortened up on the ax and brought the blunt head down again and again on the turret until he had hammered it a half inch into the neck. The body shuddered once and went limp. Von Mulverstedt must have concealed most of the circuitry beneath the metal pot. Up close it looked like a small sauce pan into which he’d drilled a hole.
Using the ax like a cane Fagan got to his feet, side throbbing. He felt like Hiroshima after the bomb. Light headed. He stared at the closed cabinets across the room. There were dials and controls on each cabinet. Maybe there were locks. Maybe if he twisted the dials and controls whatever was behind the doors would die. Once and for all. Be still. He started across the room as two of the cabinets swung open and their occupants emerged, one with its camera housed in big soup can, the other in an old metal canteen fitted to the top of the spine like a cap.
Fagan snarled, hefted the ax and rushed forward. The dead bikers moved swiftly with surprising fluidity. Pain shrieking in every joint Fagan buried the ax blade first in the canteen, inflicting a huge dent and causing the reanimated corpse to drop. Fagan whirled clockwise in a huge three-sixty, catching the second corpse with the flat of the ax right on the tin can which popped loose and splanged into the wall. A circuit popped and the headless creature trembled and dropped.
The room smelled of decaying flesh, ozone and acetone.
Where was Macy?
Panting, Fagan went to a counter containing a stainless steel sink, drew water, leaned down and drank deeply. He leaned heavily on the counter waiting for his breath to return. There was a mirrored medicine cabinet over the sink. He opened it. Inside was a bottle of aspirin. Gratefully he washed down three. He looked at himself in the mirror. He looked like he’d gone five rounds with Junior Dos Santos.
He could only go deeper into the maze. It must have taken Von Mulverstedt years to excavate this installation, even with a backhoe and Caterpillar. Someone must have noticed the noise. Why had no one checked to see if he had the permits?
Once he got underground there would be no noise. Headless automatons to dig and to blast and to clear. To stand around throwing sieg heils. Midnight runs to his drop box to pick up the mail-order equipment. Years to figure it out and put it all together. The man was clearly a genius, perhaps one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived and it all seemed to happen after the accident. Like it jarred something loose. Triumph and tragedy in one metal mash-up.
What a waste. All those miracles—immortality, reanimation, stem-cell research would not survive the night. And even if Helmet Head survived, and killed Fagan, there was no way Von Mulverstedt would ever be taken alive or cooperate with the authorities. He’d engineered his own little Ragnarok out here in the woods. He’d cut himself off from the human race and declared himself a new species.
Fagan wished he had a gun. Then he remembered the Walther. He listened. The basement was silent as a tomb. Gripping the ax he hustled as fast as he could out of the sub-basement, up the creaky stairs, around to the front, up the creaky stairs down the hall to Von Mulverstedt’s room. He grabbed the Walther out of the top drawer, released the magazine. It was full. He slapped it back in and looked for a second magazine. He found a box of cartridges and dumped a dozen in his pocket.
His legs went out from under him on the way down to the first floor and he instinctively grabbed the rope banister saving himself from a nasty fall. He hobbled back down to the basement half-expecting the lab door to be sealed from within. Everything was as he had left it.
Where was Von Mulverstedt? For the first time Fagan entertained the terrifying possibility that the killer and Macy were elsewhere. But that made no sense! Hadn’t Doc told him Von Mulverstedt brought Macy into the farmhouse?
He couldn’t remember.
Fagan dropped the ax and ratcheted a cartridge into the chamber. The broom-like wooden handle felt odd in his hand like he was an actor in a play. Three steps down to the second steel door, the one leading under the hill. Standing with his back to the wall, Fagan turned the lever and swung the door inward. A rush of cool damp air flowed past.
He stepped through the door. The cave was lit by a series of utility lamps strung from metal hooks sunk into the cave wall, some suspended from stalactites. Fagan turned to his left and his blood froze.
***
CHAPTER 41
Triumph of the Will
A red, black and white Nazi rally pennant the size of a handball court hung from the smooth cave wall lit by several spots at the base. It momentarily stunned him like a smacked fly. Black box speakers hung from the wall at intervals. What lay before it was even more disturbing. A professional deck finished in polished oak, twenty feet on a side. On top of the deck two gurneys side-by-side, one containing the unmistakable red clad Macy, the other a black body bag. A stainless steel counter rose from one side and on it lay a cranial saw. Fagan had seen them in Afghanistan.
At the front of the deck facing the cave a podium bearing the official Nazi Party seal: an eagle gripping the swastika. All it lacked was der Führer himself. You didn’t advance in modern German society by flaunting Nazism. The conversion must have occurred after the crash. Or perhaps Von Mulverstedt had believed it all his life and kept it hidden. Psychosis in full flower. Fagan knew well the temptation to give oneself over to evil. He had made his choice. And Von Mulverstedt had made his.
Sixty feet across the uneven floor, a coarse dark gray concrete half-tube, convex side up, approximately five feet high with a thick steel door and discolored metal piping snaking back toward the farmhouse, disappearing in a vent in the wall. A pile of ash lay on the ground beneath the hatch.…
Macy was not moving.
He was going to operate here? In a cave? Was there anything he couldn’t do? With what goal? His dead wife had lain in her grave for months, if not years. Was he reconstructing her from DNA, like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park?
Fagan limped across the uneven and slippery cave floor and stepped up onto the deck. He went to Macy, who was strapped to the gurney via forehead, neck, arms, waist and legs. He felt her pulse. She was still alive, thank God. He slapped her gently.
“Macy! Wake up!”
She moaned and her eyes fluttered. Fagan looked for the buckle on the strap securing her head. It was hidden inside the gurney. The strap was made from the same tough nylon material as the helmet from which he’d cut himself loose. Fagan drew water from the tap in the stainless steel sink and dashed it in Macy’s face. She opened her eyes and stared at him uncomprehending for an instant. Her gaze softened.
“Pete!”
Fagan put a finger
to is lips and leaned in close. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “The last thing I remember him grabbing me in that house and pressing a cloth against my face.…I think he knocked me out.”
“Hold tight. I’ll have you free in a second.” He slapped his pockets. Where was his knife?! His eyes swept the stainless steel counter and stopped on the cranial saw. It was cordless. He jammed the Walther in his pants and picked up the saw. It said Guangzhou Mecan Trading Company/Made in China. The blade was a five-inch stainless steel disc with tiny sharp teeth, like a piranha.
He turned it on. It emitted a high-pitched whine like a six ounce mosquito. Maybe Von Mulverstedt was off meditating. Maybe he was riding around cutting off heads. Please God let him cut Macy loose and get out of there before the freak returned.
That’s all he asked.
“Hold still,” he said slowly bringing the spinning blade to bear on the strap below her neck. The blade zipped through like paper and the strap fell free. Fagan quickly applied the spinning saw to the arm and leg restraints. Macy moved cautiously, testing her arms and legs before trying to sit up.
She reached out and Fagan helped her to sit. She seemed a little wobbly. Fagan found a red plastic cup on the counter, filled it with water and handed it to her. She gulped it down gratefully. He refilled it. She drank half and set the glass on the gurney next to her.
“Think you can walk?” Fagan said.
She looked over his shoulder, pupils contracting to pin points. Her arm shot out knocking the cup of water to the floor. Fagan instinctively drew the pistol and turned. Von Mulverstedt stood at the bottom of the three concrete steps leading into the cave looking at them. For a second they stared at one another, frozen. Helmet Head walked deliberately toward them, right hand swooping up over his left shoulder and drawing the blade with a metallic ching.
“If I can lure him away from the door get out of here.”
“Not without you!” Macy said, hugging him and surprising herself by her depth of emotion. Fagan reluctantly turned away.
Fagan settled into a shooter’s crouch behind the podium resting his forearms on the polished oak. Fagan was a trained marksman. At this range he couldn’t miss. He zeroed in on the faceplate and squeezed off three shots in a tight cluster.
Helmet Head belied the laws of physics and believability. As the shots rang out the blade flickered cutting a complicated pattern in the air, catching a bullet with each stroke. Fagan’s aim had been perfect. None of the bullets hit their target. Helmet Head split and deflected all of them. The zing from the vibrating steel lasted longer than the gunshot echoes. The repercussions continued to echo down the cave all the way to the hell. Helmet Head was the devil and this was his domain.
Helmet Head paused, hands in front, palms facing forward.
Whaaaa—?
Helmet Head advanced. He was ten feet from the deck when Fagan seized the steel gurney with the body bag, whirled it around and ran at the monster, shoving the gurney over the lip of the deck. The gurney smacked Helmet Head square in the gut and he staggered as it fell to the floor with a clang, spilling its grisly payload.
Helmet Head’s wail was louder than a tornado siren. Fagan clapped his hands to his ears. Helmet Head dropped the sword and fell to his knees. He gathered the body bag to him with a disturbing rustle and cradled it, no bigger than a large rag doll. Fagan turned to Macy, held out his hand and helped her off the deck. She leaned into him and stumbled but she could stand. Like a three-legged race they staggered to the edge of the deck. Fagan stepped down first then turned to help Macy down. Her fingers sank into his shoulders like eagle talons.
“He’s getting up.…” she said with barely suppressed hysteria. Fagan looked around frantically for a place to hide her. There was no good place. He was the only thing standing between her and Helmet Head. He walked her back to the far end of the platform and pushed her down to the cool stone floor.
“Stay there!” he hissed looking for a weapon. He leaped on the deck and pulled out the stainless steel drawer from the counter as Helmet Head stepped up onto the deck holding the sword back in one hand for a killing blow. Fagan threw the stainless steel drawer at him sending scalpels and hemostats flying. The blade struck the drawer and cut through six inches. Helmet Head flicked the stainless steel drawer off his sword with a musical chime.
Fagan put his head down and charged. He’d been a Double AA collegiate wrestling champion and studied martial arts in the Army. He got inside the creature’s swing and barreled forward shoving Helmet Head off the deck onto the cave floor where he landed hard on his back. Fagan landed with a knee on Von Mulverstedt’s diaphragm and thought he heard a faint exhalation behind the opaque shield.
Fagan sprang up and lurched back. Helmet Head had dropped his sword. He seemed momentarily stunned. Fagan dove onto the wet stone floor, grabbed the sword and rolled. He got to his feet as the monster sat up.
Fagan brandished the sword. “YEAH, MOTHERFUCKER! HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?”
***
CHAPTER 42
Escape
Macy crouched behind the deck shaking. The cop and the monster squared off beneath the Nazi banner. It was like a bad acid trip. She tried to wake up but things kept going from bad to worse. How did she even know she was awake now?
She hurt too much for it to be a dream. The feel of the oak deck against her cheek was too real. She was too keyed up. She would never sleep again. Her volume dial was cranked out to eleven. She’d need vise grips to ever shut her eyes. She could not unsee the awful things she’d seen.
Here was this man whom she’d just met, and she’d let him fuck her!—fighting a creature from hell. Fagan didn’t have to come after her. He could have waited for the all clear and reinforcements. He’d already risked his life time and again. Yet here he was risking his life on her behalf.
Wild Bill had beat down dozens of guys over the years for the crime of simply looking at Macy, or commenting on her to a buddy. But that was different. She was HIS woman. He was fighting to protect HIS dignity. Not much of a fight. Wild Bill weighed 260 lbs and was in the habit of bull-rushing his opponents and hammering them into the earth with his massive fists. He’d never even come close to losing a fight. He always struck first.
The antagonists circled one another. For the first time Helmet Head seemed cautious. He feared his own sword as if it had properties separate from his skill. Maybe it did. Maybe it was a magic sword. Macy was ready to believe. She believed the dead could walk, that headless corpses stole people and that this creature from hell, this thing from her darkest nightmares, was invincible. It was only a matter of time before he caught the cop and twisted off his head.
So Fagan had the blade so what. Bullets hadn’t stopped Helmet Head. What made him think a lousy sword would?
Maybe it had magical properties.
An insane hiccough escaped the corner of her mouth like swamp gas and she feared she was losing it. They’d find her babbling among the rocks if she survived.
But here was this cop. All her life Macy had searched for men to take care of her, to protect and love her as her father had not. She was always disappointed, always. She feared she was one of those women doomed to make terrible choices in men. She was guilty of magical thinking.
But maybe this guy was the one. Maybe this was her last chance for a normal life. He was certainly her last chance at life. If he hadn’t showed … well she had no idea what the creature wanted. She had yet to absorb the reality of her surroundings. One moment she was in the creature’s bedroom the next she woke up with Fagan shaking her in a cave with a Nazi banner.
She recalled that flash of recognition when she’d looked at the picture of the woman in a red dress. Even their hair was the same. But the thing had been stalking Little Egypt for years! It hadn’t even known she’d existed, unless it had magical properties. Why wait until now to claim her as his own? Then she remembered the date and what Fred said. Beware the Solstice. And it
was her fucking birthday. She hadn’t told anyone. The only one who’d known was Wild Bill and he’d always forgotten it anyway.
The antagonists’ dance of death took them further down the gallery away from the door. Now was her chance. Testing her legs she got to her feet. She could walk. She was young. She could run. The broom-handled Walther with the swastikas embossed on the handle lay on the deck in front of her. She picked it up. She’d fired guns before. Bill had pressed a .25 automatic on her that she’d left back in the trailer, and she’d fired all sorts of weapons with the boys at retreats, along with some of the other old ladies.
She couldn’t just leave him. It wasn’t in her DNA. But the thought of creeping up behind that monster, insinuating the barrel in the crack between jacket and pants—if there was one—and pulling the trigger made her knees go weak.
She had to think of the baby first. She was certain Fagan would want it that way. It didn’t matter whose kid the baby was, the baby was innocent. The baby came first. The fiend’s back was to the door and for the first time Macy took a real look at their surroundings. The underground gallery was the size of a firehouse and seemed to extend indefinitely, the tunnel only partially illuminated by the work lamps hanging from the wall. It could be a major tourist attraction, bring some much-needed bucks to this corner of the world!
Nazi Cave! The Most Horrible Monster in History!
Of course there would be added attractions like a two-headed snake in a jar and a bearded lady.
Now was her chance.
Wobbly, she tottered toward the door into the sub-basement. With each step she gained strength until by the time she was there she was running on her twenty-seven-year-old legs, sprinting like Catherine Ndereba, leaping up the stairs and dashing through the hideous brightness of the fluorescent-lit linoleum laboratory, into the actual basement which she’d never seen before. She glimpsed the mummified head out of the corner of her eye, nearly slipped on the slick concrete but caught herself and bolted up the stairs hanging onto the banister for dear life.