by Paul Malmont
“I want you to know that I’ve figured out how your story ends.”
Zhang tilted his head, curious. “Immortality?” he offered, caustically.
“Eternity.”
Dent threw his arms around Zhang Mei. While Gibson spoke, Dent had maneuvered slowly behind the warrior. Zhang Mei was unprepared for an attack from someone of Lester’s size. Dent locked his hands around his own wrists. Zhang’s arms were pinned in front of him. They still held the hilt of the sword. Its point still rested on the top of the metal drum.
The room seemed to surge forward as men prepared to run to Dent’s assistance. Zhang Mei’s body was trembling. His face was growing red, as was Dent’s. Zhang Mei continued to look at Gibson.
“You are right,” he said through his clenched jaw.
Instead of struggling, he suddenly let himself fall forward, drawing his weight and Dent’s down upon the sword. With a shriek, the sword plunged through the lid of the drum. Lester was thrown from Zhang Mei by the force of the impact and he landed heavily on his back on the floor.
Gibson heard the venomous hiss of the gas before he saw thin jets of it bursting out from underneath Zhang Mei.
“Run!” he yelled. His cry galvanized the room. Men began streaming for the exits. There was a flurry of combat in the confusion as Hip Sing men fell upon Zhang’s monks, dragging them along.
Zhang Mei, placing his hands on either side of the drum upon which his chest was centered, hoisted himself up with a jerk. Blood streamed from the gaping wound beneath his torso where the hilt had gouged into the tissue and muscle of the tender abdomen. He staggered back against the platform, gasping for air.
The sword trembled against the pressure of the gas within the drum. Thin plumes feathered out around the neat incision. Gibson clapped his hands over the moist hilt, keeping the sword plugging the hole. He could feel the turmoil within the canister. It was like trying to hold back a tornado. In that moment he suddenly was able to recall Lovecraft’s face quite distinctly.
“Dent! I don’t think I can hold it!”
Lester gripped the hilt above his hands. Sweat streamed down both of their faces.
“Just hold it till the room’s empty,” Gibson spat.
Dent nodded ever so slightly, every ounce of his will concentrated upon the sword.
“Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better,” he muttered through gritted teeth, “that all may profit by it.”
“What are you saying?” Gibson asked. The phrase sounded familiar.
Dent raised his voice so Gibson could hear. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a Chinese man emerge from the alcove carrying Norma, limp, in his arms. Outside he could hear screams and shouts as the panicked people from the Hip Sing building hit the street.
“Let me think of the right, and lend all my assistance to those who need it.”
Dent was invoking the Doc Savage oath. Gibson felt a ridiculous grin spread helplessly across his face as he began to speak along with Lester. “Let me be considerate of my country, of my fellow citizens, and my associates in everything I say and do.”
Dent grinned back. “Let me take what comes with a smile, without loss of courage.”
A breeze swept through the room. Although the windows were open, from where Gibson stood it appeared as if the gusts came from the statue itself, as if they issued from between its carnivorous jaws. As if it were breathing. Wind, he thought, wind would be good.
The room was empty except for himself, Dent, and the corpses of the adversaries. “Go!”
“You sure?”
Gibson nodded at the gas. “I’ve already taken my hit. Find Hubbard. He’s got the antidote.”
“Okay. On the count of three. One…two…three!”
He let go and Gibson felt the full force of the gas again under his control. It was a desperate, live thing that wanted only to escape.
“Try to get everyone back,” he said. “I’ll hold it as long as I can!”
Dent patted him firmly on the back. The sensation was reassuring but in the end there was nothing more to say. Gibson listened to Dent’s footsteps fade down the staircase. The wind had picked up now. That statue is really screaming at me, he thought. The breath of judgment.
Suddenly Gibson felt the sword jump with a new force. Zhang’s hands gripped the hilt and Gibson was face-to-face with him. The two of them stood nearly nose to nose glaring at one another, the sword vibrating between them. Gibson looked deep into those dark eyes and in those eyes, at the end, he saw their fate.
“Let me do right to all and wrong no man.” He grunted out the rest of the oath. Zhang Mei’s teeth curled back in something resembling a cruel smile. Gibson realized that he was not fighting Zhang Mei, that the man had added his muscle and sinew, the fiber of his being, to the attempt to keep the sword in its deadly scabbard.
The poisonous vapors began spilling out in plumes from the edges of the puncture. Both the men were trembling at the effort. Gibson could feel the sword shaking and Zhang Mei’s hands straining on top of his.
Gibson grinned back. Their predicament was untenable but there was something humorous about its very futility. He realized something about The Shadow that he had never understood before: sometimes The Shadow laughed because laughing in the face of Death was the only revenge against Death that a man could have. Laughter was as life-affirming, as hopeful, as spiteful toward Death as having a child. Zhang Mei seemed to understand something similar at the same instant.
“Always time to learn something new,” Gibson suggested, as more gas spurted out. They each shifted their weight to try to keep the sword in.
“Yes,” Zhang Mei chuckled and nodded.
“Let me strive every moment of my life to make myself better and better,” he began, and Zhang Mei repeated after him, “that all may profit by it.”
And then the men suddenly found themselves at the mercy of their own overwhelming laughter as the billowing white clouds of death enshrouded them both.
Episode Forty-Seven
“HOW MUCH of that antidote do you have?” he yelled to Smith. The stout little man, sweating profusely, was being towed down the stairs by Gibson’s young woman. She seemed to have no hesitation about throwing an elbow jab to keep the men around her moving. Of course Smith had every reason to be scared. There was enough gas in that canister to wipe out all of Chinatown and a good section of downtown New York as well. From the window of the temple he had been able to see City Hall (he hoped the mayor was enjoying his lunch; it might be his last), Trinity Church, and the financial district, all within the cruel grasp of the poison. It was going to be a bad day for everyone south of the Hip Sing building.
He expected the gas to roil over him at any moment, but it still hadn’t as he reached the next landing down. God, he thought, if you get me out of this, I promise I’ll never abuse adverbs again. As if in mocking response, the man next to him on the stairs stumbled into him at full tilt. The force of the impact knocked him out of the streaming mass of humanity and onto the landing. He struggled to keep his balance but momentum did not favor him. Then his feet lost the sensation of being on the floor, he was tipping over, and he slid into an ornate screen arranged on the landing. The knock to the top of his head made it feel as if his vertebrae were collapsing into one another. Luckily his shoulder absorbed most of the impact.
After several moments of grimacing through the flare of pain, not moving, not even breathing, he opened his eyes. As he struggled to refocus, he saw a Chinese man bearing Mrs. Dent in his arms gliding smoothly down the stairs past him. At the sight of her he felt his heart breaking. Her left arm bounced lifelessly. She didn’t deserve this. None of them did. But especially not her. She had been so nice to him, taken a special interest in him on the Albatross.
The man carrying Norma seemed to be the last person out of the temple, other than Gibson and Dent. He thought he could hear their voices in conversation, but as his senses weren’t functioning properly, he co
uldn’t seem to bring them into focus. In much the same way he was almost able to absorb what appeared to be an impossible sight, lurking in the corner of the landing. He tried to blink it away, or process it as something, anything, else. Statues. Paintings. Memories. Then, through the blazing hurt, a sort of clarity descended and what had seemed impossible a moment before became horrifyingly real.
The two young Chinese boys were terrified. The younger one, whose dark eyes were wide and fearful, held tightly to the older one. It reminded him of the way an organ grinder’s monkey would cling to its master. Together they were kneeling, huddled as far back on the landing as they could go. If he hadn’t fallen, no one would have seen them. He pulled himself to a sitting position as quickly as he could.
“I fell down,” the younger one said.
“So did I,” he replied. He struggled to his feet and snatched the little one and tucked him under his arm. He clapped his hand around the other one’s wrist and helped him. The stairs were empty. Carrying one, pulling the other, he began to run.
The Flash.
In all his life he had never wished so much that he could live up to his nickname as he did right now. He’d give anything to become truly fast. He’d give up his dreams, his hopes, his wishes, his ambition, his talent, his skill, his imagination, if he could just get these boys out of the building. The flights seemed endless. He didn’t remember all these steps. At one landing he dropped the older boy’s arm so he could hoist the little one over his shoulder. His shoulders and head ached. He didn’t want to die. He just wanted to go home to his wife. How could such a little kid weigh so much? He wasn’t fast enough. The Flash wasn’t going to be fast enough.
They burst out onto the empty sidewalk and the brilliant daylight stunned him. The crowd, composed of paradegoers and evacuated guests, had re-formed on the sidewalk opposite the Hip Sing building. Exhausted, he lowered the little boy from his shoulder. The older boy grabbed the younger and the two scampered across the street, vanishing into the crowd.
He couldn’t take another step. If this is where the gas took him, then so be it. He had done all he could hope to do, all he had wanted to do. He sat down heavily on the curb and lifted his head straight up and back. High above him, he could see the temple floor, the silk curtains fluttering in the breeze wafting through open windows.
“Hubbard!”
He wasn’t The Flash anymore.
“Hey! Ron!”
The Flash hadn’t run those steps carrying those boys. He had.
“Lafayette! Hey! Ron Hubbard!”
L. Ron Hubbard heard his name. Dazed, he looked around. Two dark figures loomed over him; with the sun in his eyes he couldn’t see them. Not the Chinese boys. Bigger. Men. Strong hands were gripping him, pulling him, dragging him across the street, away from the Hip Sing Association. They entered the building’s shadow, and he could see his rescuers, finally. Driftwood and the cowboy helped him to his feet.
“How did you find me?” he asked them as he steadied himself and caught his breath. As he waited for an answer he began to explore the painful parts of his body, looking for blood or extruding bone, both of which he was sure he would find but neither of which he did. Both men seemed pleased to see him, to the point of genuine self-satisfaction. “What are you doing here?”
“Just had a bite of Chinese,” Driftwood said, stifling a yawn.
“Best I ever et,” the cowboy added. “What brings you here?”
“That shit!” he said, throwing an indicating thumb back over his shoulder.
“Aw, son of a bitch!” the cowboy said. “I seen about enough of that.”
Litzka pushed through the crowd to join them, with Smith panting along behind her. Hubbard patted Smith on the back.
“Nice to see you alive,” he whispered to the chemist.
Smith nodded gratefully, gasping for air. In his shaking hand he still held the half-full mason jar of decoction of belladonna, the liquid swirling around and around.
Hubbard turned to see Lester Dent standing in the doorway of the Hip Sing Association, blinking back the sunlight. Hubbard watched him scan the crowd until his eyes fell upon what he was looking for. Then Dent dashed into the street in their direction but to the right. Hubbard turned to see where the man was headed. “Oh, God.”
With the assistance of two other men, the Chinese man who had carried Norma past him on the staircase was gently attempting to slide her motionless body into the back seat of an automobile. Hubbard could see instantly that any attempt they made to get her to a hospital was going to be blocked by the crowds thronging the street. With Norma in the car, another Chinese man in the driver’s seat began honking the horn, pulling away from the curb. Hubbard began running to catch up to Dent, with Driftwood and the cowboy in pursuit. This time he felt fast.
The trio was steps behind Dent as he reached the car and banged on the trunk. It stopped and he threw open the rear door. Hubbard, Driftwood, and Lew ran to the front of the car, shouting and pushing people to move. All eyes were affixed to the top of the Hip Sing building; few people even acknowledged Hubbard.
Driftwood, realizing the problem, turned to him in frustration. “We’re never going to get out of here.”
Hubbard spun around, ready to yell at the driver to just gun the engine, when he stopped short. The door was still open and Norma Dent lay half on the seat and half in Lester Dent’s arms, her blond hair spilling down to gently touch the cobblestones. The skin on her cheeks was shockingly white. He could only stare at her still, calm face.
A great and terrible murmur swept through the crowd. They all turned to look up at the top floor of the Hip Sing Association building. A cloud of white gas spilled out of the windows like a wave crashing against a rocky cliff. It spread across the sky, blocking out the light of the sun and casting a shadow over the crowd below. Wispy tendrils, pulled by gravity, began to descend.
“Son of a bitch.” This Hubbard said almost in unison with the cowboy. For a moment he almost thought that somehow, in the roar of the gas, he could hear the sound of laughter, of men laughing as hard as they could, but that could only have been a strange echo because in moments it had vanished.
They all felt the wind at the same instant. It seemed to rush from the building, or from above it. It was a massive, gasping breath of air, as if the great throng, exhaling as one, had created it. It was a merciless, pitiless wind, colder than any he had ever felt in New York. It swirled skyward, sweeping up the lethal cloud.
Slowly, the deadly gas began to rise into the sky, dissipating, dispersing. The tendrils were whisked away. The wind was stiff and steady. The supply of gas within the temple seemed to reach its end. Shafts of light began to penetrate the cloud. Its solidity began to drift away in wisps. At last the sun broke through and the white haze vanished. There was a long moment of silence and then people in the crowd began to cheer with joy.
Hubbard looked at the building. The doorway was dark. Then a solitary figure emerged from the darkness into the light. It was Walter Gibson. In his hand he held the golden sword, which he tossed onto the ground with a clanging ring which echoed up and down the quiet street. The look on his face was triumphant and defiant. Hubbard knew from that look that no one else would emerge from the doorway alive. Gibson’s girl burst from the crowd and dashed across the street into Gibson’s arms. He caught her up in a kiss so passionate and intimate that Hubbard had to look away. Moments later they came to where Lester sat holding Norma.
“Lester?” Gibson asked, softly.
“There weren’t going to be any more adventures.” Dent rubbed his cheek against Norma’s, nuzzling. “You promised.” The others slowly gathered around the pair but it was as if they weren’t there. Gibson gently placed his hand on Dent’s back.
Hubbard felt the sadness well up in his throat and his eyes grow wet. Norma had seemed more alive than any woman he had ever known. Somehow this seemed impossible. He looked at her again.
Almost imperceptibly her eyelids flutt
ered. Then they opened. “Lester?”
With a great sob of relief, he lifted her head higher.
“Are you mad at me? Why do you look so worried?” she asked. Dent lowered his lips to hers and kissed her tenderly. She brought her hand up to his face. “Did you see I found my treasure?”
He smiled and nodded, holding her tight. She wound her arms around his neck and he helped her out of the car. As they came to their feet, Hubbard made sure that both Dents took a hearty sip from Smith’s mason jar. Then he stepped back as they kissed.
A great, joyous sense of giddy relief sweep through Hubbard. He looked at Driftwood and the cowboy. They were experiencing it too. The color even seemed to be returning to Smith’s cheeks. Litzka was embracing Gibson and sobbing almost inconsolably in her delight while a grateful and relieved look of thanksgiving spread across his face.
One by one Hubbard committed them all to his memory; then he took them all in at once, a great vivid tableau of a moment he was living in that he wanted never to forget. After everything he had been through with them, this is what he didn’t want to see end. His friends had survived.
There was a rustle and the two little boys emerged from the crowd. As the Chinese man who had carried Norma clapped his hands in delight, they ran straight into the arms of Lester Dent. That’s gratitude for you, Hubbard thought; it’s not like he saved their lives or anything.
“What’s the matter with everyone?” Norma Dent asked her husband as he lowered her feet to the pavement. “At a loss for words?”
Episode Forty-Eight
AWARM, early May breeze scattered the few remaining leaves left on the ground from the previous autumn and gently stirred the airport’s wind sock as Walter Gibson stepped out of Manny’s cab and onto the tarmac of Floyd Bennett Field. The dew was still sticking to the grass and he shielded his eyes from the bright morning sun, looking for the small plane.