Kolchak The Night Strangler

by Matheson, Richard; Rice, Jeff

  “I just came down to do a story on you… and your… uh… new Mercy Hospital… for… my… readers.”

  “Your readers?”

  “The Chronicle. You know… about your work here… at your new hospital. It’s… magnificent.”

  “Hah!” The laugh was so short it was almost a bark. High-pitched. A hysterical note. All the signs had been clearly set before me. This guy was a certified, grade-A nut case.

  He looked over at his wife… or daughter.

  “Did you hear that, dear? For his readers. In the privacy of our home. In the midst of our dinner. The gall. The cheek of this ...” He turned back to me and he didn’t look vague or confused any longer.

  “An interview will be quite impossible.”

  “Perhaps… another time? When it’s convenient, of course.”

  “No. Impossible.”

  “Well, then, I’ll just be running.”

  “Nowhere. No one is ever going to hear from you again, sir. No one.”

  “Uh… well… I…”

  “You profane my world, sir! I cannot… I will not permit you to exist… here!”

  “In that case, Doctor, why not tell me of your work? You know… condemned man’s last request.”

  He walked over and put a paternal arm around my shoulders. But the grip of his hand was like steel. He was a lot stronger than he looked. Not big or beefy. But strong.

  “Just a dumb reporter… does his job…”

  He looked closely at me, eye to eye.

  “You grovel nicely, Mr.…”

  “Kolchak, sir.”

  “Story. You want your story, do you, Mr. Kolchak? Your precious, pitiful story? Your bloody pound of journalistic flesh?”

  I smiled but it stuck halfway into a sickly grin. I was clammy. I was trembling. I could feel my wet trouser leg sticking to my flesh and was grateful I’d eaten nothing solid.

  Maybe Louise had called in the troops early. I could fight him, but from what I’d seen, I knew I didn’t stand a chance. And this was his world. He knew every nook and cranny. If I did manage to get out… I’d get lost in the Underground. And it was five stories just to the top floor. Another thirty feet up the fire escape. No chance. No chance. Only stall for time.

  “Why not?”

  “Why not what?”

  “Why not your story, of course. That is what you came here for.”

  “Oh, yes. Yes! Sir.”

  “It is only fitting that some other person in this world knows the facts, all the facts… before he dies.”

  The arm around my shoulder tugged gently but insistently.

  “Excuse me, dear. This won’t take long,” he said to whoever, or whatever, was seated at the table.

  He conducted a sort of Cook’s tour of his grotesque living quarters, pointing out objects d’art and interspersing his comments with discourses on everything from man’s greed and the futility of reaching for the stars to pointed quotations from Rabelais’ Pantagruel. I kept nodding with what I thought was the proper amount of appreciation.

  At length, we returned to the admitting area and I automatically headed for the stairs. The arm tightened in a not unfriendly manner.

  “Mister Kolchak. You are my guest. There’s no need to tire yourself.” I thought that was considerate, inasmuch as he intended to have me bed down there on a permanent basis.

  He led me to one of the elevators and announced with vanity, “I’ve had a great deal of time to tinker with things here, when the experimenting grew arduous. Some oil, a few wrenches, and a tie-in with the electrical supply in the clinic, plus careful designing and good, sound construction…” He smiled. He beamed. And the hand relaxed. But it never left my shoulder. The car ascended slowly.

  I began rattling off questions about whether or not he was, indeed, St. Germain, but he kept evading the question and, finally, as we walked along the top floor toward his laboratory he balked at my insistence and spun around suddenly, grabbing me by both lapels. His eyes were wild. He slammed me against the banister, which creaked but held, bent me over it and snarled, “Are you going to keep on talking or are you going to listen. You are a guest, Mr. Kolchak. But an uninvited one. I’d suggest that you listen, sir, as you will undoubtedly live longer if you do.”

  I shot a quick look at the five-floor drop and had no trouble agreeing with him. I nodded. His host-guide manner returned and so did the paternal arm. Together like long-lost friends, we made our way back to the lab.

  “I’ll not bore you with the details of how I evolved my formula. Suffice to say that the additive which ultimately made it work for me was the blood of women, removed from their brains in the first 30 seconds after their deaths. And, of course, they had to be in good physical condition and reasonably short of middle age. Something to do with their hormones that’s far too technical to explain here.”

  “Oh, quite. Quite.”

  So charming. So utterly unfeeling. A true psychopath. About that, I had guessed correctly. And like many a psycho, he loved an audience. Especially a captive one. (There had been several uncomfortable reminders in the way he was holding court that compared unfavorably, in my mind, with my own performance in Schubert’s office.)

  “I found that six victims were required to supply the quantity of blood needed for the eighteen-day period in which the Elixir was prepared and consumed.”

  We moved past racks of beakers and flasks and he checked these with a practiced eye as he talked. While he rambled on, I kept looking for anything heavy I could grab to belt him with. I knew he was building up to something, and I didn’t figure the cops were going to arrive like the Seventh Calvary in time to pull my fat out of the fire. Of that, too, I was very certain.

  “I first took the Elixir in 1868.”

  “In New York.”

  “Correct. And believing my immortality assured, I set about perfecting the formula with the ultimate intention of bestowing its benefit upon mankind. Consider how many, many years I had worked up to this point.”

  “How many?” Again he ignored the question. Interesting. A classic pattern. The end justifies the means. To kill for mankind’s “ultimate benefit.” Yet, even though he had earmarked me for execution, he wouldn’t give me the whole story.

  “Think of it, Mr. Kolchak! No longer circumscribed by the ravages of disease and physical deterioration that hasten the road to death; no longer made to suffer the impairment and slow, excruciating loss of mental faculties at the precise time in a normal life span when acquired knowledge and experience are just beginning to prove their worth—what wonders on this earth could men not then accomplish?”

  “And what about coming generations? Where would they find room? What about those who were already old, ill, and destitute? How long would you prolong their suffering?”

  “The Elixir would of course be given, secretly at first, only to the finest minds. The rest would be taken care of in due time, when I and my fellows, scattered about the globe, could move about freely as benefactors, instead of being… driven underground.”

  “Ahh, then you would decide the entire course of mankind’s future history.”

  “Exactly. In a few centuries… or ten centuries, it doesn’t matter. In time this would cease to be a world of strife and become a world of order; a planet of philosophers.”

  “With you as its spiritual head.”

  “You wanted to hear my story. Please listen and do not interrupt.’

  Ten more minutes. Maybe even less. Keep him talking. He moved to a flask of ruby-colored liquid being heated over a low gas flame. In all this time he had not produced a weapon. The man was supremely confident of his own physical strength. I wished I could feel that same confidence. Nothing but Bunsen burners and beakers to break for cutting edges.

  “I moved here shortly after my marriage… a long life can be a lonely one… and settled down to a life of research and a practice limited to the aged and destitute, experimenting and trying out several variations of the Elixir with occasional
ly rewarding results.

  “Then, in 1889, my secure little world collapsed.”

  “The fire… and then you began to age.”

  “Will you be still?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Yes! The fire. And the discovery that the effect of the Elixir was not permanent. Not having realized its lack of power, and having done no further experimenting with what I took to be the ultimate homeopathic dose of the Universal Solvent, I was forced to seek a fresh supply of blood. There was no choice. I tried duplicating the results with blood from living donors but the results were unacceptable.”

  A nice choice of words. Unacceptable.

  “I was forced to kill again. To restore myself.”

  “Stage by stage, in eighteen days. That’s how it works, doesn’t it?”

  “Last warning, sir!”

  “And that is why you look the way you do now, right?”

  “Yes. Are you satisfied?”

  “One more question: Are you the Count St. Germain?”

  “Aahh… hah hah hah hah!”

  “Forget it. No more questions.”

  Evidently he was through being my host. He reached into his coat and produced a small revolver. We had come to the end of the road.

  Chapter Eighteen

  He stood there, caressing the beaker, and then slowly turned off the flame. With the pistol still leveled at my chest, he took out an old-fashioned pocket watch on a chain attached to his vest, and popped it open. He set it down on the counter next to the flash and disconnected the chain, laying it carefully alongside.

  “This is my sixth and final dosage. I will take it shortly and complete the revitalization.”

  A thought came to me and it must have showed.

  “Yes? You were about to ask… what would happen if I didn’t take it?”

  “Oh .. uh… no, not really. You said, no more questions…”

  “No matter, Mr. Kolchak. I’ll tell you anyway, for your readers…” He looked sadly at me, then at the flask, and laughed one short coughing “Hah!… who will never read of this.

  “If I didn’t take this final dosage now, the entire process would reverse itself. I’ve never been able, as yet, to perfect the process and the reversal is incredibly swift… timed almost to the second. This year, for the first time, it has occurred almost a year ahead of schedule.”

  “Indicating perhaps that man is finite after all?”

  “Conjecture. However, I will take it, Mr. Kolchak. And I will have another twenty or twenty-one years in which to try and perfect…”

  I had to stop him. But with what? He had the gun and he had stepped back far enough so that I’d never reach him with a lunge. I had to smash that beaker!

  “Twenty-one years or twenty… that’s all you’re ever going to have, isn’t it? Mankind is never going to benefit…”

  This enraged him and distracted him sufficiently so I could begin to back away until I came up against another counter full of equipment. I shifted my stance slightly hoping he couldn’t see what my right hand was doing.

  “That isn’t true. I’ll find the answer eventually!”

  My hand was searching, groping, for something. Anything!

  “Eventually? How many more women are going to die before you do? A hundred? A thousand?”

  “There’s no choice! Plasma won’t work! Synthetics won’t work. It has to be blood as I’ve described! So they die! Useless creatures. Brainless. Contributing nothing to the benefit of mankind. So many chattering females taking up space.

  “Yes! If they must, they will die. What are a few lives compared to the ultimate result? IM-MORTALITY… FOR MAN-KI-I-IND!!”

  His voice had a terrible fierceness to it, compounded by an echo that reverberated off the stone walls.

  “And I shall be the first… the one to lead the way.”

  He raised the flask to his lips.

  “You mean you’re going to let me witness this sacred event? Aren’t you afraid I’ll try to stop you? You’ve got the gun. Why don’t you use it?”

  He hesitated. Flask poised. Gun just off-center. My hand found a lump of something… glass? Metal? A familiar shape… perfect! An inkwell!

  I shot my best shot, and it was a good one. The flask shattered in a mist of crimson and Malcolm screamed! The gun went off, but I had already dived behind a counter.

  Malcolm had, quite rightly, come unglued. He kept screaming, “Idiot! Fool!” and popping off shots at me with his gun as I scrabbled about on the floor, ducking the shards of glass and boiling liquids flying everywhere.

  “Cheat!”

  BLAM!

  “You’ve robbed mankind…”

  BLAM!

  “… of its chance for immortality!”

  BLAM!

  “I took the short way!”

  BLAM!

  ”I… would have been first!”

  BLAM!

  Where the hell were the cops?

  BLAM!

  The shooting stopped. Six? Was it six shots? Wait. Some of those little devils carried eight… even nine. Had to move. I grabbed a beaker and poked my head above the counter. His arm shot out for my hair and came away with my hat. I threw the beaker.

  Missed!

  I was up and moving to the end of the counter, but he beat me to it. We stood on opposite sides of the counter, glaring at each other through the maze of cross-braces, brackets and glass containers. His eyes were glazed and already his cheeks had begun to sink. There were pouches under the eyes.

  I feinted to my left, he moved to counter, and I lunged to my right, hoping to get to the center of the lab and have some room to swing. He was still quicker then I was. He leaped in front of me.

  “Now!” he snarled.

  I belted with him everything I had. He went sprawling back, more from lack of balance than my punch. But his lip was bleeding. He could be hurt!

  Seeing that, I got a little more brave. I closed in. He circled in a crouch, arms extended like a wrestler. I came in low and swung a short left for his gut. He feinted with a left, blocking my punch, and before I realized it, he’d faked me out; he’d got my left leg up and dumped me on my ass. I hit my head against the side of a work counter. For a second I couldn’t see. It was all the time he needed.

  Hands like steel hooks grabbed at my coat and hauled me up and off my feet. The face I looked into was that of a sixty-year-old man. This disintegrating visage with red-rimmed eyes and scrawny neck spat at me, “I won’t just kill you, Kolchak, I’ll age you a little first!”

  With that he picked me up and held me high overhead and then slammed me down on the nearest counter, the racks of beakers buckling and shattering under me, my back burning with the heat of a Bunsen flame.

  With one hand at my throat, choking off my wind, he reached out and grabbed a flask of yellowish liquid. I recognized the smell.

  Sulfuric acid!

  Total blind panic.

  I curled up into a ball, and with one monumental effort slammed both feet up against him. He was too close to kick, but I could shove. And shove I did. It bought me a few seconds.

  I rolled off the table, my legs buckled, and I landed on the floor. I kept rolling until I hit his legs. He tripped and the flask went flying, spilling some of its contents across part of his face and coat. His screech had the pitch of a siren. He threw up his hands and covered his face. The hands were the color of parchment with knobby blue veins and liver spots.

  He doubled over and half-turned from me as I staggered to my feet. He was keening now, almost sobbing like a child. Shrinking visibly in his clothes like Margaret Hamilton had done as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of OZ.

  Suddenly he uncoiled and came at me for one last try. The hands were claws now, almost bare muscle and bone. The face was a skull, white hair fringing a dome of a forehead, gouges of discolored flesh hanging where the acid had struck, his nose a mess of flaking flesh and cartilage. Only the eyes were bright… and terrifying.

  The
stink of euphoric made me gag. His coat was still smoking.

  Again the hands at my throat. Again the feeling that it was all over.

  Then shouts from the direction of the doorway. I started to black out, kneeing him in the crotch to no effect and clawing in panic at his hands, the flesh sloughing off under my nails.

  Then suddenly he straightened, and looked toward the door.

  Schubert came charging through, his service revolver raised. Two more officers came right behind.

  He whirled away from them as if to hide his ruined face. But he didn’t hide it from me! He looked at me with what passed for a fixed and hideous grin, although it might have been the death rictus of his facial muscles. His voice was like a tinny rasp, hollow and unreal.

  “When the world starts to chew itself up alive, and spits out its own guts… be it on your conscience, Mr. Kolchak!”

  He staggered away. Schubert was yelling for me to stop him. I made a grab for his coat but it came off in my hand. The acid.

  He bolted for what had been an outside window, now boarded up, and smashed through it.

  We could hear his wail all the way down. And a distance, echoing clatter of falling wood… and glass… and bones.

  We ran to the window and jostled each other for a look. I was ahead of the pack but all I could see down below was the smoky white blanket of fog already settling where Malcolm had fallen. I knew what they’d find down there. A scattering of dust. That’s all.

  While Schubert barked out orders, I made my way out of the lab, but my eye caught something glinting on the wall. It was a motto, done as a sampler, framed and sealed in glass. It was by the door and I’d missed it when I’d come in.

  That no man lives forever,

  That dead men rise up never,

  That even the weariest river

  Winds somewhere safe to sea

  —Algernon Charles Swinburne

  Chapter Nineteen

  Wednesday, April 19, 1972

  2:30 pm

  Vincenzo had pulled out all the stops for his headline.