Eyes of the Killer Robot

by John Bellairs

  For some reason, nobody wanted to go in right away. The professor snapped pictures and chattered about old houses, and Johnny picked pieweed stalks and then threw them away. Whenever they stopped talking, the oppressive silence of the place began to make them feel nervous, and they would start talking again. As the sun rose higher, the three of them circled around into the yard that lay on the north side of the house. Suddenly, Fergie raised his hand and pointed at something. In the middle of the sloping roof was a tiny square window.

  "Hey, look at that!" he said. "That's a heck of a funny place for a window, isn't it?"

  "I've seen them before," said the professor as he squinted up into the sun. "They put them there to let more light into the attic. Speaking of which, I suppose that's the first place we ought to look. How about it, kids? Are you ready for a little breaking and entering?"

  Johnny started getting fidgety. He was always terrified of doing something illegal, but he didn't want Fergie to think he was chicken. However, when he glanced at Fergie, he saw that he was looking nervous too. There's something about the house that he doesn't like, thought Johnny. But he said nothing.

  The professor glowered at the boys. "Look, you two!" he growled, "are you coming or not? Byron, you're the one who always loves exploring, aren't you? Well, here's your chance! Am I going to have to go charging in there by myself?"

  Fergie looked at Johnny, and he smiled weakly. "C'mon, big John," he said, with a half-hearted wave of his hand. "Let's go search for robots an' stuff. Okay?"

  "Okay," muttered Johnny, and he started walking slowly toward the house.

  There wasn't any problem about getting in—the lock on the front door was broken, and the door hung slightly ajar. With the professor in the lead, the three of them stepped inside the old house and began walking through the empty and desolate rooms. Pieces of plaster had fallen from the ceiling here and there, and flies buzzed and bumped against the dirty windows. They started up the stairs. On the second floor they found a door that led to a narrow staircase, and they climbed it too. The attic was as empty as the rest of the house. An old-fashioned light socket hung from one of the rafters, and there was a small, floor-level window at the far end of the room. But there was nothing up there, no robot, not even a stick of broken furniture.

  "Phooey!" said the professor. "Double phooey, with cheese and tartar sauce!" Stooping, he ran his fingertip over the floorboards, and then he examined the tip of his finger. "You know what's funny?" he went on in a thoughtful voice. "This place is a lot cleaner than you would expect it to be. There isn't any junk lying around—no beer bottles or moldy half-eaten sandwiches, or things of that sort. Usually hoboes camp out overnight in abandoned houses like this one. But I don't see any sign that they have."

  "Maybe they didn't feel welcome here," said Johnny in a strange voice.

  The professor looked at him for a second and opened his mouth to say something. But at this point Fergie interrupted.

  "Hey, prof!" he said, jabbing his finger into the professor's arm. "I'll tell you somethin' else that's screwy: I can't see that little roof window anywhere. Wouldn't it be right up over our heads?"

  The professor was startled. He thought a bit, and then he began to smile. There was a gleam in his eyes. "Ye-es ..." he said slowly. "The window would be over our heads, unless... unless ..."

  "Unless there's another attic room!" said Johnny excitedly.

  "Precisely," said the professor. "Pree-cisely! And now I think we had better go see if we can find a way to get into it. Are you coming, gentlemen?"

  CHAPTER SIX

  The professor and the two boys went down to the second floor of the house, and they started going through the rooms. It didn't take them long to find what they were looking for. In a bedroom in the northeast corner of the house, they saw the outline of a door under the faded pink wallpaper. Eagerly they went to work ripping away the paper, and when they were through, there was an old paneled door. The knob was gone and the keyhole was filled with putty, but when the professor gave the door a kick, it groaned and moved inward. Eddies of dust sifted down from the top of the door frame. He kicked harder, and the door flew back with a loud, alarming clatter. Behind the door lay a shallow closet, and a ladder was bolted to the back wall. At the top of the ladder, set in the ceiling, was a small trapdoor.

  "Well, well!" said the professor, putting his hands on his hips. "It looks as if we have struck pay dirt! Who wants to go up first?"

  Fergie said that he had the right to go first, since he had been the one who noticed the window in the roof. The professor grinned and stepped back, and Fergie started to climb. When he got to the top of the ladder, he reached up and shoved at the trapdoor. It was loose, so Fergie gave it a hard push, and it went flying back. More dust and a stale, shut-up smell came drifting down through the small square opening. Fergie climbed up another rung and poked his head into the room above.

  "Oh, my gosh!" he exclaimed in an awestruck voice. "Hey, you guys, it's up here! It really is! The robot—the whole darned thing!"

  Johnny was overjoyed. He felt like dancing and yelling, and he could see that the professor was pretty tickled too. They were like archeologists who had discovered King Tut's tomb.

  "Wonderful!" crowed the professor, rubbing his hands with glee. "Byron, climb on up into the room. John, you can go up next if you want to."

  A few minutes later, all three of them were kneeling on the floor of the tiny attic room. Overhead, a thick pane of lead-colored glass let a faint light seep in. Lying in a heap against the wall were the pieces of the wonderful baseball-throwing robot. Its arms lay stacked on its headless body, and its legs stood against the wall. The wheeled platform was propped against a rafter, and nearby, on a little shelf, stood the robot's head. It stared weirdly out into the room, but the stare was blank—the robot's eyes were gone.

  Humming quietly, the professor picked up one of the robot's arms and examined it. It was the cast-iron throwing arm, and it was quite heavy. "Interesting," muttered the professor. "He had the arm coated with zinc, so there really isn't much rust. I brought my toolbox with me in the car, and I'll bet I could get this silly gizmo slapped back together and in working order in no time."

  Fergie glanced quickly at Johnny, and Johnny winced. He knew what Fergie was thinking: The professor was always bragging about how good he was with tools, but everybody knew that he could hardly drive a nail straight. If he tried putting the robot together, they might be up here in New Hampshire for a long, long time.

  The professor glowered. "Well, what are you two simpering and snickering about? Hmm? I fixed the windshield wipers on my car the other day, and they worked... for a while, anyway. If either of you thinks he can put the robot together faster, go right ahead."

  Fergie gave Johnny another look, and then he coughed and tried to smile in a reassuring way. "Prof," he began, "we... we know you're a real whiz with tools an' all, but... well, doncha think we ought to take the pieces of this whatchamajigger back with us in the car? We could get a real... er, I mean some car repair man to screw it back together for us. It probably wouldn't cost much, would it?"

  The back of the professor's neck began to get red, which was a sign that he was becoming irritated. "Gentlemen," he said in a biting tone, "I was not planning to do the whole job of reassembling the robot up here. I thought I would merely, well, screw the head onto the body and have a look at the machinery inside the chest cavity. Then we could carry the pieces of the robot down to my car and take it to my basement workshop at home. And I wish you two would stop giving each other funny looks. I'm a perfectly reasonable person, and I'm not all that bad with tools. Now, why don't you two help me carry the pieces of our friend here downstairs, and then I'll go get my toolbox and we'll see what can be done. Okay?"

  Fergie and Johnny shrugged helplessly. The professor climbed halfway down the ladder, and the boys handed pieces of the robot down to him through the trapdoor hole. Except for the cast-iron arm, the pieces were surp
risingly light, and the professor remarked that the robot might be made of aluminum.

  "Aluminum?" said Fergie in a surprised voice. "Did they have aluminum way back then?"

  The professor nodded. "They did indeed! There's a statue in Piccadilly Circus in London that's made of aluminum, and it was put there in 1893. Anything else you'd like to know? Hmm?"

  A little while later, all the pieces of the robot were lying on the grass in the field next to the house. The professor was kneeling next to the shiny metal body, and he was peering in through a little door in the man's chest.

  "Mercy!" he said, shaking his head in despair. "It looks like the night they went crazy at the clock factory! I've never seen so many gears and levers in my born days!" With a sigh, he shut the metal door and stood up. "And there's another thing," he went on, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "I wonder what happened to the eyes? People claimed they were extremely lifelike—made of glass, probably. Oh, well. The eyes were just ornaments, and I'm wasting time yammering on like this. You boys stay here—I'll scoot on down to the car and get my toolbox, and we'll see what can be done."

  The professor walked off across the field humming quietly.

  "Well, we found the famous gizmo," said Fergie as soon as the professor was out of sight. "I hope the prof is happy. But I still don't see how he's gonna pass this hunk of junk off as a real human being."

  "I don't either," said Johnny glumly. He looked down at the pieces of the robot that lay shining in the sunlight. "But he said there was this energy source that made the robot go, and maybe that's the answer. Maybe the mysterious energy source made the robot look like a real person. Could that be possible?"

  Fergie shrugged. "Search me! All I know is, this 'energy source' stuff sounds like a lot of garbage. Does he think that old whosis came up with atomic power back in the horse and buggy days? That's kinda hard to believe!"

  Johnny said nothing. The robot was a riddle, but he knew one thing: He would be very glad to get away from this place. The house was grim and forbidding, even in the daytime. Idly, Johnny watched a bird fly by. Then he stretched and yawned and walked around picking pieweed stalks. Fergie sat down on a rotting stump and took a harmonica out of his shirt pocket. He began to play an old sad folk tune. Johnny knew the words:

  Come all you young fellows so young and so fine

  And seek not your fortune in a dark dreary mine

  For 'twill form as a habit and seep in your soul

  Till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal

  For it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew

  And the sorrows are many and the pleasures but few ...

  Fergie played on, and Johnny walked away with his bunch of flowery purple plants. He was looking for a jar or a bucket to stick them in, and he had a vague idea that there might be one out behind the house. As he walked, he began to feel very odd. It seemed to him that the air had suddenly gotten chilly. And the sound of the harmonica grew fainter, as if Fergie were playing off in some distant place. Dreamily Johnny turned and stared at an old rusty drainpipe that ran down the back side of the house. Sure enough, there was a coffee can full of water under the drainpipe. He started to walk toward it, but he hadn't taken two steps when something made him turn.

  Not far from the back door of the house stood a bench covered with peeling white paint. It was a garden seat, the kind people used to make so they could sit outdoors on hot summer nights. The bench stood in a patch of wild rosebushes not far from the rugged wall of the mountain, which towered overhead. A man was sitting on the bench—a man Johnny had never seen before. He wore baggy, dusty overalls and a faded plaid shirt, and he had a big mop of straw-colored hair. The man sat hunched over with his face in his hands, and he seemed to be crying. Johnny stood dead still. The bunch of pieweed stalks fell from his numb fingers, and he took a couple of shuffling steps forward. And then, as Johnny watched, the man stood up. He took his hands away from his face and he stumbled. Johnny gasped in terror—the man had no eyes. Streaks of blood ran down from empty black sockets.

  "They took my eyes," the man moaned. "They took my eyes."

  Johnny opened and closed his mouth, and made little whimpering noises. He shut his eyes tight to block out this horrible vision, and when he opened them again a second later, the man was gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Johnny was so frightened that he couldn't even scream. He stood staring, eyes wide, at the empty bench and the patch of grass where the man had been standing. He hadn't had time to run away—Johnny's eyes hadn't been closed that long. Who or what had he seen? Was it the ghost whose voice he had heard at the old baseball stadium? And was this the same creature that had appeared to him as a scrawny shadow crouching outside his bedroom window? Johnny raised his hand and found that it was trembling violently. In the distance, Fergie's mournful harmonica music went on endlessly. After swallowing several times and licking his dry lips, Johnny found his voice.

  "Fergie? F-Fergie?" he said weakly. Then he pulled air into his lungs and bellowed: "Fergie! Fergie! Help! Quick!"

  The harmonica-playing stopped, and soon Fergie was galloping across the grass to the place where Johnny stood. "Yeah? What... what is it, John baby?" gasped Fergie breathlessly.

  Johnny was still so shaken that he had trouble putting words together. "I... oh, my gosh, Fergie, I saw... oh, you'll never believe what I saw," Johnny stammered, and he pointed a trembling ringer at the bench. "He... a guy... he was right there... a man with no eyes... it was awful!"

  Fergie was astonished—he really didn't know what to say. "You mean it was a ghost?" he asked, frowning skeptically. "Is that what you think you saw?"

  Johnny glared. "It's not what I think I saw, it's what I saw! I'm not crazy, Fergie, and I'm tellin' you that right there, five minutes ago, there was this—"

  "Yes? Yes? What is it? What in heaven's name is going on here?"

  Fergie and Johnny turned. There stood the professor, red-faced and out of breath. He had been walking up the road with his tool kit when he heard Johnny yell, and he had come pounding pell-mell across the field to see what was the matter. Patiently Johnny told the story of what he had seen. Now that he was calmer, he could give more details and make more sense. The professor listened with a grave expression on his face. Johnny couldn't tell if he believed him or not.

  "That is a very strange tale," said the professor in a hushed voice. "I have no doubt that it's the ghost that gave you the snuffbox, the one that has visited you twice before. But why he should have come to you now, in this place, I can't imagine. However, speaking of mysterious occurrences, let me tell you what happened to me a few minutes ago: I was on my way back to the car, when I happened to turn my head, and I saw a blue jay pecking at something that was caught in a bush. I was curious, so I went over and chased the bird away, and guess what I found? An old-fashioned case that was meant to hold a pair of spectacles. But there were no spectacles inside. Instead, well... here, let me show you what I found."

  The professor knelt down and opened the toolbox. From it he took the case he had been talking about, and he popped it open. Inside were two glass eyes.

  Johnny turned pale. Once again, he seemed to hear the moaning words of the ghostly figure: They took my eyes... they took my eyes.

  "Now, what do you make of all this?" said the professor, giving each of the boys a searching look. "I will bet you fifty dollars that these are the eyes that belong in the robot we found. Somebody must have stolen the case from the house, and when the robber found out what was inside, he threw it away. I suppose that if we had any brains we would throw these disgusting objects and the robot away too. However, I have never been known for being sensible, so I am going ahead with my plan. Do I hear any strong objections from anybody?"

  Johnny and Fergie looked at each other. They both could see that something uncanny was going on here, but—like the professor—they were not going to be scared away. Silently the three of them went back to the place where the pieces
of the robot were lying. The professor got some screws and a screwdriver out of the toolbox and bolted the head onto the body of the robot. With the help of the boys, the professor lugged the armless and legless figure down to the car. They put it in the trunk, and then went back for the other parts. When all the pieces of the robot were in the trunk, the professor revved up the engine and made a screeching, lurching U-turn. As the car bumped away down the road, Fergie threw an anxious glance at Johnny, who was sitting in the backseat. He looked very pale and frightened.

  "Prof?" Fergie asked. "How come you didn't put the eyes back in the robot?"

  The professor grimaced. "Because I did not want to stir up any evil forces that may be lurking near the old house," he said. "When we're back in Duston Heights, there will be time for putting all the parts of the robot back together, and I hope that we will also be able to figure out what makes it run. But I'll let you in on a little secret, Byron: If it turns out that there is no secret energy source, and this is just a tin man full of gears and rods, I will not be too unhappy. We can donate the machine to a museum and forget about striking out Cliff Bullard. It was a pretty silly idea, anyway. Now that I've seen the robot, I realize that it couldn't possibly have been used in that contest. There's no way it could have been mistaken for a living, breathing human being."

  "You better hope there's no way," muttered Fergie as he thought about the heap of metal parts that clunked and clattered in the trunk of the professor's car.

  When they got back to the General Stark Inn, the professor went inside and explained to Mrs. Barnstable that he and the boys were going to have to cut their vacation trip short. He claimed that Johnny had come down with a bad cold and would need to be put to bed at home as soon as possible. Mrs. Barnstable was very sympathetic, and she even refused the extra money the professor offered her. So while Johnny stayed in the car and pretended to be ill, Fergie and the professor went upstairs, packed all the bags, and brought them down. Mrs. Barnstable came out onto the porch of the inn and waved good-bye as they drove off. When they got back to Duston Heights, the boys helped the professor carry the pieces of the robot down to his basement workshop.