The Pulp Fiction Megapack

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  “Your brother took her down to the packing house. They are loading a car of fruit and she wanted to see it.”

  Mary was there, seated upon a nail keg, watching Matt’s skillful movements as he pressed and headed the barrels of apples which Skinny rolled to a waiting truck. There was nothing in the appearance of any of them to suggest that they had seen a city wrecked, the most complex civilization of the modern world destroyed.

  “Why,” I exclaimed, “you’re shipping out fruit.”

  “Sure.” Matt’s sardonic expression reminded me of the night before the quake, when he stood upon the hotel roof and told me how unimportant New York really was. “You didn’t expect me to quit work because the New York market is gone, did you? People eat apples in other cities.”

  He tightened the chime hoop.

  “That’s what I tried to tell you,” he added. “All the importance of New York, all your importance and the importance of your friends, existed in your mind.” Matt drove a nail. “It fooled others besides you. Markets were all shot to the devil yesterday, but they’ve recovered today.”

  “Matt says New York reminds him of the lady,” Mary interposed. “‘Few noticed when she died, but, ah, the difference to her.’”

  I said nothing. Matt tipped the barrel over for Skinny to roll away.

  Matt began to head another barrel.

  “It took an earthquake,” he announced, “to show you sophisticated people what we dubs knew. This country is so damned big that one New York more or less makes no difference.”

  Down on the railroad track a train whistled for the crossing. Out on the highway, a milk truck rattled past. I picked up the morning paper, which Mary had glanced through. The headline caught my eye.

  RELIEF ORGANIZED

  NO PANIC IS FEARED

  I did not stop to argue the point with Matt. The evidence was all on his side. I took Mary Hull’s arm and led her back into the cool shadows of the packing house, where tiers of barrels concealed us from observation. I kissed her. It was our betrothal kiss, postponed for two days.

  “Matt is wrong about the relative importance of things,” Mary whispered. “This is all that matters. Let’s go back and tell him so.”

  BRIDE OF THE APE, by Harold Ward

  It was dark—abysmally dark. There was not even a star in the heavens to relieve the fathomless blackness that surrounded us on all sides—a blackness intensified a thousandfold by the fierce wind howling down from the mountains. It bit into the very marrow of our bones chilling the blood in our veins, benumbing us, making every step a torture.

  And behind us, its stealthy movements hidden by the ebony curtain of the night, was the thing. For the past hour it had dogged us, spying on our every motion, stopping when we stopped, always keeping just outside our range of vision. Yet we could hear its soft padding; it was always in our rear regardless of what way we turned.

  Once it coughed hackingly. I whirled on my heel, my gorge rising, for the sound seemed right at my elbow. My swinging fist touched only empty space. I caught a momentary gleam of its phosphorescent eyes as it leaped back into the darkness. My cigarette lighter was in my pocket; I held it in my benumbed fingers and snapped the flint. The flame was only for a second; then the raging wind extinguished it, but it brought a low, menacing snarl from the thing behind us—a bestial, half-human growl of anger.

  It was our wedding journey. Married only the day before, we had started by automobile for the home of Betty’s uncle in the mountains. Either the attendant at the filling station back in the little village through which we had passed had given us the wrong direction or we had misinterpreted what he had said. The coming of nightfall had found us in a narrow, tree-bordered lane apparently far from any human habitation.

  Then, to make matters worse, a spring had broken, rendering the car completely useless.

  We had not passed a house since turning into the side road five or ten miles back; by the law of averages, there should be one ahead. Averse to leaving Betty while I sought for help, I had allowed her to accompany me.

  Since then we had wandered miles, it seemed, without sighting a sign of life. Meanwhile the weather had changed; the wind was howling down through the canyons of the foothills in a perfect hurricane, freezing us to the very bone. We had lost all idea of direction, for even our senses were becoming deadened under the strain; only the fact that the trees and underbrush had been cleared away kept us on the road.

  Then, from behind, came the soft pad of feet heralding the approach of the accursed thing that was now following us. The constant menace acted as a tonic to our jaded nerves, quickening our muscles, putting us on the qui vive.

  Along the long, bleak trail, I stumbled across a rough club. Picking it up, I brandished it in my hands. The feel of it strengthened me and gave me renewed courage.

  Dimly, through the swaying trees, we saw a light. Taking Betty more firmly by the arm, I quickened my footsteps. The narrow lane brought us to a fence. Skirting it, we approached the house from the side.

  There was nothing eerie or particularly forbidding about the rambling old structure that loomed like an uncouth spot of blackness in the frame of the starless night a hundred yards away. The light gleamed from a single window on the lower floor, casting a sickly beam through the heavy foliage. Yet a chill of apprehension swept over me that left me colder than the mountain wind. Betty shuddered, too. Involuntarily my arm sought her waist and I drew her closer. Some subtle sixth sense told me to flee; I fought it back, for to remain outside exposed to the constantly increasing cold for the remainder of the night meant but one thing—death. Had it been the howl of a ghoul in the midst of a graveyard, I would have welcomed it on Betty’s account.

  It was the fence, I told myself, that was bothering me. Yet I could see but little of it by the light shining through the single window. Fully twenty feet in height, it was made of tightly meshed wire fastened to high posts from the top of which extended cross pieces overhanging the interior and also tightly wired. It reminded me of a prison enclosure I had once seen.

  * * * *

  Betty’s hold on my arm suddenly tightened. “Listen!” she whispered hysterically.

  At the same moment my toe struck something and I sprawled forward on all fours, my hands extended to break my fall. For an instant my fingers touched dead flesh.

  I leaped to my feet with an exclamation of horror, groping in my pocket for the cigarette lighter. I snapped the flint. The flame flared up for a second, flickered in the howling wind…died.

  Yet in that heart-stopping flash I saw what caused me to reel backward, a shriek of terror on my lips. The naked body of a woman lay before me—a weird, misshapen creature, her form twisted and warped, her lips drawn back over her fangs in a grimace of horrible malignancy. Her throat was torn—ripped as by some wild beast in a frenzy of demoniacal anger. Even her breasts, huge, pendulous—were slashed and smeared with gore.

  For a moment horror robbed me of the power to move. I heard Betty’s breath come in a scream—a shriek that was cut off in the middle as a huge shape plunged out of the darkness and seized her in its powerful arms.

  Again she gave voice to her terror as the diabolical thing pulled her away from me back into the darkness. I caught a momentary glimpse of a bloated, spiderish body with short, stubby legs and long muscular arms, its enormous shoulders surmounted by a shaggy head, the matted hair of which hung over glittering, bloodshot eyes.

  For an instant I was paralyzed with fear—unable to stir hand or foot. It lifted Betty bodily, holding her with one arm against its barrel-like chest; with the other it tore at her clothes. She shrieked wildly. Her voice galvanized me into action and I leaped forward. The accursed thing appeared to have the power to see in the dark, for it struck me a stinging blow on the head that sent me to my knees, my faculties benumbed.

  It leaped backward into the pocket of blackness, chuckling harshly. Betty screamed again and again in a frenzy of fear. I gained control of my shattered senses
and charged once more. Hampered as it was by Betty’s dragging weight, I caught up with it and crashed the stout hickory club down upon its shaggy head with all my strength. The beast roared with rage and flung its huge bulk forward, my loved one still fighting futilely against its nauseating embrace. I dodged its mad rush and struck again. The stick broke across the monster’s skull. Wild with anger, it hurled Betty aside and leaped at me, its teeth grinding together in a paroxysm of madness. Again I managed to dodge it.

  “Run…Betty!” I gasped. “The house…!”

  The accursed thing was upon me. I sprang away from it…but too late. Its club-like arm struck me a wild, swinging blow that sent me crashing to the ground a dozen feet away. It was upon me before I could pull myself to my feet. I felt its stubby fingers twisting themselves about my throat. Its face was close to my own, its fetid breath fanning my cheek as it snapped at me with its gnashing fangs. I threw my arm upward in a futile gesture of self-preservation. The movement was a lucky one, for the jagged end of the broken club crashed into the bestial face. The beast’s own weight, rather than my puny strength, drove the sharp point to the bone.

  It leaped away from me squealing with pain. Through the darkness I could see it clawing at its face as it strove to pull the weapon from its flesh. I dragged myself to my feet and, turning, raced after Betty. She was already on the tumbledown porch, her tiny fists pounding a frenzied tattoo on the wooden panels of the door.

  “Help! Help!” she shouted.

  The door was jerked open and a man stared out at us; the rays of the lamp suspended from the ceiling brought out his tall, gaunt figure in bold relief. Despite my excitement, I noted that he was wearing a tattered dressing gown, the front of which was stained as from acid or chemicals.

  “What is wanted?” he demanded.

  I halted him with a gesture. Leaping inside, I dragged Betty after me and, hastily slamming the door, I plunged home the bolt.

  “Attacked by…wild beast!” I managed to ejaculate pantingly. “Drove it off…may be following us…”

  He turned and looked at us curiously. His eyes were sunken, his face so emaciated as to give his countenance a skull-like appearance.

  “Beast?” he exclaimed. “You say that you were attacked by some sort of animal? What do you mean? There have been stories…”

  He led the way into a small study. It was the room, through the window of which we had glimpsed the light, for the shade was partly raised. The walls were lined with built-in bookcases, filled to overflowing. In the center of the room was a large table upon which were piled other books and manuscripts over which he had evidently been working when we made our precipitate entrance.

  He motioned us to chairs and turned to us wonderingly.

  “I do not understand…?” he mused. “There have been strange tales, as I say. I have discounted them as silly rumors. You are certain…?”

  I pointed to Betty’s torn garments—to my coat ripped by the creature’s sharp nails as if by a knife.

  “Our appearance bears out my statement,” I snapped. Then, as he seated himself at the desk, I hastily sketched what had happened—the breaking down of the automobile, our long tramp through the chilling cold and darkness, of the thing that had trailed us for hours, the discovery of the dead woman among the underbrush and the sudden attack of the fur-coated monster a moment later.

  The old man stared at us questioningly, his glance shifting from one to the other. Taking a huge pipe from the desk, he stuffed it with tobacco and, lighting it, took a short turn about the room.

  “It seems fantastic…unbelievable,” he said finally, stopping his restless pacing for a moment. “Yet, as you have said, your appearance bears out your statement. If you will pardon the assertion, I have been wondering if the cold…and your privations…have not…”

  He stopped in the middle of the sentence, allowing the remainder to go unsaid.

  “But we will not quibble now,” he smiled. “The young woman is almost spent. Let me offer you some refreshment. My name is Bixby—Professor Bixby—a poor scholar come to this old place to work out certain theories. I wanted a place where I might have solitude. I can offer you but little, yet I do not want to appear unhospitable. I—”

  Betty screamed.

  “The window!” she gasped. “The…thing!”

  She leaned forward, her face twitching with excitement, her eyes filled with terror.

  Bixby whirled as I leaped to my feet. Pressed against the glass was a flat, hairy face, the thick lips drawn back over fang-like teeth, the matted hair hanging down over a tiny forehead. The creature’s eye—bloodshot, flashing with anger—glared at us malevolently. Bixby gave a sudden exclamation and took a step forward. The diabolical creature leaped backward; we heard the crash of its body as it dashed through the underbrush.

  For an instant the old scholar appeared petrified. Then he rushed to the door opening into the hall and clapped his hands together in a sort of signal.

  “Jarbo!” he rasped excitedly. “Come…quickly!”

  The summons was answered by a huge black—a powerful, broad-shouldered creature with a tiny head and a face almost as evil as the accursed thing that had glared at us through the window. For an instant his glance hovered over us appraisingly, shifted to Betty’s slender form—then turned reluctantly again to the old man. Bixby was addressing him rapidly in some foreign jargon. At the finish of the speech the black nodded and, with another glance at Betty, shuffled out of sight.

  “Jarbo is an Algerian and speaks but little English,” our host explained. “He is absolutely fearless. I have told him to go after the creature—he will be armed, of course. Meanwhile I have sent him for refreshment.”

  He resumed his restless pacing, stopping again and again to glance at us. A question seemed on the point of his tongue—a question he seemed averse to giving voice to. The big black came back into the room carrying a tray on which was a decanter of wine, some bread and cold meat, thinly sliced.

  Bixby apologized.

  “We eat sparingly, Jarbo and I,” he said as the black deposited the tray on the table. “When a man reaches my age, he is apt to overstuff himself.”

  Again I noted the quick glance of the black man rest on Betty’s slender loveliness. Bixby muttered something to him. He grunted an unintelligible reply and shuffled out. A moment later we heard the front door slam. Bixby scowled, then waved his hand toward the meager fare.

  “Help yourselves, my friends,” he said. “I dined hours ago.”

  We lost no time in accepting his offer. Despite our weariness, we were very hungry, for we had not eaten since noon and our strength had been sapped by the hardships we had gone through. The wine dissipated the chill that had permeated to our bones, racing through our veins like molten metal, filling us with a delicious warmth that was succeeded by a feeling of lassitude.

  In spite of my efforts to control myself, I caught myself yawning and a great desire for sleep swept over me. I glanced at Betty; her curly blond head was pressed against the cushion of the chair and her eyes were closed. From the rise and fall of her breast, I knew that she had given way to the stupor I was fighting against. Bixby was watching us, his saturnine face twisted into a grin of triumph. I tried to speak to him; my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth…

  Then consciousness left me.

  * * * *

  I was in a great pit from which I was struggling to escape. Time after time I almost reached the top; my fingers reached up to pull myself out, but I always slipped back again…down…down…never reaching the bottom. Sometimes I floated on thin air—a gossamer, wraith-like thing of feathery lightness; again I was stone-heavy, sinking like a plummet.

  Someone was screaming—shrieking wildly for help. I knew subconsciously that it was Betty calling to me—that I was fruitlessly trying to get to her. I tried to open my eyes. The lids seemed glued down. Again and again I almost succeeded, only to sink back again into that bottomless pit of abysmal blackness from which I w
as struggling to escape. I was unable to move hand or foot; I wondered in a hazy, impersonal sort of way if I was paralyzed.

  Something within my brain suddenly snapped and I was awake, pulling at the bonds which held me. Somewhere in the distance Betty was screaming. This time there was no hallucination—it was real. As consciousness swept over me I realized that I was bound; I was lying in the darkness, trussed like a fowl for the market.

  And Betty—my wife of a day—was appealing to me, begging me to come to her assistance.

  “Bob! Help me, Bob! Please…please help me!”

  The inertia was dragging me down again. I fought it off and struggled to collect my scattered faculties. A tiny buzzer in my brain kept telling me to wake up—to go to her rescue. Yet I was unable to move a muscle. It was an effort to even think. She screamed again as if in pain. I jerked at my thongs with a desperation born of despair. Something gave way and I felt myself dropping.…

  * * * *

  I brought up with a thud, my head crashing against some solid object that stunned me for a second. The realization swept over me that my bindings were a bit looser. I twisted my body; every movement sent a twinge of pain racing through my muscles, but each jerk added to my freedom. Finally I managed to get one hand free. I reached out exploringly. My groping fingers told me that I had been tied to an ancient iron bedstead, the rope was looped around the head posts. In my struggles I had pulled the rickety affair apart.

  It took me but an instant to untwist the thongs with which I had been bound. I dragged myself out of the wreck and stood swaying in the darkness, my head spinning like a gyroscope. A feeling of horrible nausea swept over me and I toppled forward. My outstretched hand brought up against the wooden panels of a door. I slid to my knees, my fingers twisted around the knob. The door opened at the touch; I stumbled, face downward, into a dimly lighted hallway.

  For an instant I lay there, too sick and weak to move. Then, as my breath came back to me, I dragged myself to a sitting position.