Days passed. Johnny and Fergie went back to their normal everyday routine of school, homework, and hanging around Peter's Sweet Shop. In the evenings, they usually dropped by the professor's house to see how he was doing with the robot. It was funny to watch him pretending to be a handyman: he would dress in old jeans and a red flannel shirt, and he would take measurements and talk about screw eyes and wing bolts, but it was pretty obvious that he didn't have the faintest idea of what he was doing. Slowly the robot got put together, and the professor's fingers got covered with Band-Aids. One day, about a week after the trip to New Hampshire, he called up Johnny and Fergie and told them that the robot was all assembled, except for the glass eyes. He wanted them to come down and see the eyes put in, and they would have a modest little celebration, with chocolate cake and champagne. Grampa and Gramma Dixon were invited too, and they said that they would come. Grampa was very interested in seeing the robot, and also a little bit scared—he remembered the way he had reacted when he first saw the robot, fifty years before.
At nine o'clock that evening, everybody was down in the basement workshop, munching homemade fudge cake and sipping cheap New York State champagne. In the middle of the room stood the robot. It was mounted on its metal platform, and it looked very odd indeed: the outside was sculpted to look like a baseball player in uniform, and the pinstripes of the player's shirt and pants were painted red. On the head was a metal baseball cap with a large S (for Spiders) stamped on the front, and under the creature's nose was a curling metal mustache. One arm hung limp, but the other—the throwing arm—was cocked back, ready to fire. The empty eyes seemed to stare unpleasantly at the people who milled about, sizing the robot up.
"It's certainly an amazing gizmo," said the professor, waving his fork at the robot. "And what is most amazing is this: I can't for the life of me figure out how old Sloane made it work! All the gears and things inside it are in their proper place, but the motor's missing. There isn't even any place—as far as I can see—where the silly motor was mounted! And yet, something made it run. Didn't he demonstrate the thing for your team, Henry?"
"That's right, Rod," said Grampa, nodding. "The darned whatchamajigger threw like Cy Young. It was like shootin' a baseball out of a cannon! But when we asked Sloane what made the thing go, he laughed an' said that the power source was a secret."
The professor made a puckery face. "It's certainly a well-kept secret," he said dryly. "I suppose there must have been an electric motor inside the thing, and then later he managed to wipe out all traces of it. Weird, eh?" With a loud harrumph, the professor put his champagne glass down and went over to his workbench. There lay the spectacle case that held the two glass eyes. Silence fell, and everyone who was standing near the robot stepped back a pace or two.
"Now, then," said the professor with a nervous cough. He moved toward the robot, stood up on tiptoe, and took a tube of rubber cement from his shirt pocket. After putting just a little dab of cement in each socket, he took the eyes out of their holder and pressed them into place. Then he stepped back, and the people who were watching applauded. It was faint, polite applause, because everybody was nervous. They all expected something strange to happen when the eyes were put in. The robot stared blankly ahead, but that was all. He did not even look terribly real, the way wax figurines sometimes do.
"So there!" said the professor as he wiped his gluey fingers on a cloth. "I'm disappointed in a way—I almost thought old Ziggy there would step down off his pedestal and have a drink with us."
Everybody laughed, and immediately the party got a great deal more relaxed. Johnny and Fergie went over into a corner and started playing a pinball machine, and the three older people went upstairs to the living room, so they could sit and talk. After a half-dozen games, the two boys got bored with pinball and decided to go upstairs. Fergie turned and took one more look at the robot. He looked thoughtful and a bit disappointed.
"Y'know, John baby," he said, "that tin pitcher isn't nearly as scary as I thought it'd be. I had kinda made up my mind that there'd be some energy source in those eyes, an' they'd make the thing start wavin' its arms or some-thin'."
Johnny was surprised. Fergie was usually the calm, logical type, and when he had weird ideas, he tried to hide them. "Why the heck did you think that would happen?" asked Johnny with a little giggle. "I think you've been readin' too many science-fiction comic books."
Fergie made no answer. He just shrugged and started up the stairs, and Johnny followed. They went to the living room, where the professor was just beginning to play "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his upright piano. This was the way he always let his guests know that the party was over. Fergie went home, and Johnny trotted back across the street with Gramma and Grampa. The two old people went upstairs to bed, but Johnny wasn't sleepy yet, so he wandered into the living room and turned on the TV set. Then he went out to the kitchen and made himself a pimiento-cheese sandwich and poured a glass of ginger ale. He had just gotten back to the living room when he was startled by a terrific loud pounding. Putting his glass and plate down on the coffee table, Johnny rushed to the door. There stood the professor in his bathrobe and pajamas. His glasses were stuck onto his face crookedly, and his hair was wild. He looked absolutely frightful.
"John! John!" gasped the old man as he staggered into the front hall. "It's gone! The robot's gone! Oh, my lord, what are we going to do? What on earth are we going to do?"
CHAPTER EIGHT
Johnny was thunderstruck. All sorts of wild ideas came rushing into his head. "You... you mean somebody stole it?"
The professor shook his head miserably. "No, no! That's not what I mean! No one could possibly have... but wait! If you'll come across the street with me, you'll see what I mean. Come on!"
With a dazed look on his face, Johnny followed the professor across the street and into his house. The door to the cellar was in the kitchen, and before he opened it the professor paused and tapped the dead-bolt lock with his finger. "This door is the only way into the basement, except the windows," he said. "And there's no sign that any of the basement windows has been forced open. After you folks left, I spent about an hour here in the kitchen, doing dishes. Once or twice I went to the living room to poke the fire in the fireplace, but I would certainly have heard anyone who tried to drag the robot up the cellar stairs. But the blasted thing is gone! Have you ever heard of anything like that in your life?"
Opening the cellar door, the professor stepped aside and waved Johnny ahead. Down the creaky steps he went, and at the bottom he paused. All the lights were on, and he could see the professor's workbench and the bare place on the cement floor where the robot had stood. Johnny began to feel faintly sick inside. This was the kind of eerie unexplainable thing that he had feared.
"Hard to believe, isn't it?" muttered the professor as he began turning the lights out. "Something very uncanny is going on, and I'm afraid this may be just the beginning of our troubles. Where do you suppose that miserable hunk of tin has gone to?"
Johnny didn't have any answers. He went upstairs and sat around in the kitchen talking to the professor for a while, and then he went home. When he finally went to bed, he did not get much sleep, and when he came stumbling down to breakfast the next morning, he found Grampa sitting at the kitchen table with a newspaper in his hand. He looked shocked.
"Oh... hullo, Johnny," said Grampa in a distracted way. "I was just readin' in the paper—somethin' awful happened here in town last night! I never heard of anythin' like it, not ever!"
Johnny grew tense. Vague, shapeless fears began to form in his mind. "What... what is it, Grampa?" he asked.
The old man handed Johnny the newspaper. It was the Duston Heights Gazette, and on the front page was a headline: SENSELESS BEATING SHOCKS CITY. Underneath was an article, and Johnny began to read it:
At a little after midnight last night, Officer Paul Willard was passing the home of Mrs. Anna Tremblay, of 306 South Cedar Street. He noticed that the front door of the Tre
mblay home was open, swinging in the wind, and the screen door had been ripped from its hinges—it lay halfway down the front walk. Stopping to investigate, Officer Willard entered the house, called out, and when he received no reply, began to search. On the floor of the living room he found Mrs. Tremblay lying unconscious. Her face and body were badly bruised, and under her fingernails were bits of red paint. Mrs. Tremblay is an elderly widow, and according to neighbors, she seldom receives visitors. She has not yet regained consciousness, so the identity of her assailant remains a mystery. Nothing of any value had been taken from the Tremblay house, and this has led observers to say that the intruder must have been an escaped lunatic ...
Johnny looked up. All the color had drained from his face. He was thinking of the painted red pinstripes on the robot's body.
"Ain't that the most awful thing you ever heard of?" asked Grampa. "This is s'posed t'be a safe town where nobody ever locks their doors. Well, I'll betcha they start lockin' 'em now!"
Johnny nodded. Suddenly he felt alarmed—he didn't see Gramma anywhere. At this hour of the morning, she was usually puttering around in the kitchen.
"Where's Gramma?" he asked nervously.
Grampa smiled. "Oh, she's down the street talkin' to Mrs. Kovacs 'bout the break-in. Wants t'find out all the gory details. You oughta go over an' talk to the professor 'bout this—he's always playin' Sherlock Holmes an' tryin' t'outguess the police. I'll betcha he's got some theories already!"
I'll bet he does, thought Johnny grimly. He wanted to tell Grampa about the robot's disappearance, but last night the professor had made him promise not to tell anyone what had happened. Johnny felt helpless, and he felt frightened. If the robot could pass through locked doors and walls and beat up old Mrs. Tremblay, he could come back to Fillmore Street and hurt Gramma and Grampa. Johnny wanted very much to go across the street and talk to the professor, but he was a bit scared to: when the professor got bad news, he flew into a rage—he broke crockery and punched holes in plaster walls. Johnny did not want to be around when the professor started raging. While he was trying to make up his mind what to do, he heard a loud vrrrrrROOM! Johnny rushed to the front door, and he was just in time to see the professor's car come peeling out into the street at an incredible speed. Then, with a grinding of gears and a squealing of tires, the car shot off down Fillmore Street. The professor had probably gone to see his old friend, Professor Charles Coote of the University of New Hampshire. Johnny didn't know for sure that this was what he was doing, but he felt fairly certain—Professor Coote was an expert on black magic and ghosts, and it was possible that he would be able to help them do something about the robot. Johnny was a bit hurt that the professor hadn't wanted to take him along, but he knew that there were some things that the old man wanted to do alone. Oh, well— there was always Fergie. Johnny wanted to have a long talk with him about this whole strange business. Of course, he would have to break his promise to the professor, but Johnny was not always perfect when it came to keeping promises.
The professor was away all day. Meanwhile, Johnny and Fergie walked the streets of Duston Heights and talked about the mysterious robot with the glass eyes. Both of them were convinced that the robot had attacked old Mrs. Tremblay, but that was about the only thing they agreed on.
"How about that! The darned thing is magic!" muttered Fergie thoughtfully. "Magic is what makes it run, and not some super-duper energy source. But nothin' happened till after the prof stuck the eyes back in the robot's head. So I was right about those glass eyes after all! The prof shoulda been more careful—he should never of stuck those eyes back in the darned thing's head."
"How did he know anything was gonna happen?" asked Johnny, irritably. "I mean, he's not a wizard or anything. He just thought—"
"Well, he should've thought some more!" snapped Fergie. "Now that darned pile o' tin is out there runnin' around, clobberin' people! Where do you think it is now? Any idea?"
Johnny shrugged and kicked a stone down the street. "Fergie, how would I know? Maybe it hitched a ride to Kansas City! It's out there on the loose, an' we have to stop it. That's why the professor went up to see Mr. Coote, so he could—"
"Are you sure that's where he went?" asked Fergie in a taunting voice. "Maybe, he's tryin' to get out of the country so the cops won't arrest him for what happened to Mrs. Whatsis."
Johnny turned on Fergie angrily. "Look, Fergie, the professor's not a coward! He didn't know he was gonna start that robot goin', but I know he's sure gonna try to stop it. I bet you he'll be home tonight. Come on over after dinner an' we can go see him. Okay?"
Fergie's mouth curled into a sarcastic smile. "All right, I'll be over," he said. "But I'll bet you fifty cents the prof doesn't have any answers when he comes back. That old geezer up in New Hampshire doesn't know everything. An' he sure won't know how to handle that crummy robot!"
"He won't, huh? Okay, I'll take your bet—you pay me fifty cents if Professor Coote doesn't know what to do about the robot."
That evening, when the professor's old maroon Pontiac pulled up in front of his house, Fergie and Johnny were sitting on the front porch. The car door slammed, and the old man got out. Under his arm he carried a thick book bound in peeling blue leather. He seemed very tired, and he trudged slowly up the walk with his head down. But when he saw the boys, he managed a weary smile.
"Well, gentlemen!" he said sighing. "It seems I have a welcoming committee. Greetings! I've just gotten back from visiting my old pal Charley Coote, and—as you may have guessed—we talked about the robot. We—"
"Did you find out what to do?" asked Johnny eagerly. "To stop the thing, I mean?"
The professor sighed and patted the book under his arm. "Did I find out what to do? Yes, and no. There are some answers in here, but they don't seem terribly helpful. Come on inside and I'll show you what I mean."
A few minutes later, the two boys were sitting at the professor's kitchen table. They were drinking Coke and staring at the huge old book that was spread out before them. It was written in Latin, but the professor was standing behind the boys, and as they listened he began to read the book aloud, in English:
"How you may make a statue that will work for you: Take the eyes from a living human and pack them in myrrh, cassia bark, and aloes, and then say over the eyes the prayer of Cagliostro and offer incense to Asmodai. After forty days the eyes will become like glass and may be used to make a statue come to life. Be warned! Do not place the eyes in the head of the statue until you have made the Key of Arbaces. The key will allow you to control the living statue. Without it, the creature will become wild and uncontrollable, and in the end it will murder you, its creator, if it can find you. By using the key properly, you can make the statue do tasks for you, pass through walls of stone and steel, and even kill those whom you hate. I will add that—"
The professor stopped reading. "Well, there you are, boys!" he said, sourly. "Isn't that a lovely set of instructions for would-be wizards to follow? Charley Coote says that this book is a fairly common one—Evaristus Sloane must have had a copy. So now we know how he brought the robot to life. Brrh! What an awful thing to do! He must have killed the man whose eyes he stole, and that was the man's ghost that you saw, John. Evil, evil man—Evaristus Sloane, I mean. No wonder the lady at the inn didn't want to talk about him!"
Fergie turned in his seat and looked up at the professor. "Prof?" he asked. "Do you know what this Key of Whosis is? The one that controls the robot?"
The professor scowled. "No. There are no instructions in the book about how to make such a key. Charley says that the Key of Arbaces must have been one of those things that wizards learned about when they took lessons from other wizards. The instructions were probably never written down."
"Oh, great!" exclaimed Fergie. "Just great! So how are we gonna stop the robot if we can't make one of those keys?"
"How indeed?" sighed the professor. "Charley and I discussed this problem for a long time. We even talked about the swor
d cane that the ghost sent us, but neither of us can figure out how it can be of any use to us. I mean, a sword is a sword and a key is a key. Sooo... we think that we'll just have to find the key that Sloane used. There are two places where it might be hidden: one is in his grave."
"His grave?" said Johnny, and he made an awful face.
The professor nodded solemnly. "Yes. As far as I know, Sloane is dead, so—as disgusting as it is to think about—we may have to dig the old codger up to find that magic key. Of course, it's always possible that he hid the wretched thing somewhere up at his house on Mount Creed. Isn't that a charming thought? We may have to go up to that dreary house and pry up floorboards and poke holes in walls! Oh, Lord above! I wish I had never heard of Evaristus Sloane or his filthy robot! And to think that I started the thing going when I stuck those eyes into its head. Oh, Roderick Childermass; you ought to send your brain out to the dry cleaner's!"
Tears came to Johnny's eyes. He hated to hear the professor blaming himself for something that wasn't his fault. "You didn't know, professor!" he said, shaking his head sadly. "How could you have known?"
"I should have been more cautious," said the professor bitterly. "But all this is neither here nor there: we'd better get ourselves in gear, or that metal monster is going to cut a bloody swath through half of New England. Charley Coote is trying to find out where old Sloane is buried. In the meantime, I think we're going to have to grit our teeth and go up to Stark Corners once again. Are you ready to go up with me? You don't have to if you don't want to."
Eyes of the Killer Robot Page 6