Marvel Novel Series 07 - Doctor Strange - Nightmare

by William Rotsler

  . . . dumb dame getting herself in trouble with someone . . .

  . . . stupid . . .

  . . . gray walls . . .

  . . . gray horse, galloping . . .

  . . . man, man with long green cape . . .

  . . . cape?

  . . . no, not the same man, a different one, his face in shadow, shaggy, unkempt gray hair . . .

  . . . only the eyes, burning eyes.

  . . . long lance, burning tip—sparkling tip. A wand, like a damned fairy godmother, only—

  . . . words . . .

  . . . Words were coming through the gray mist, words puncturing his mind, driving into him like nails . . .

  You will obey.

  You will obey me.

  I control you.

  I control your dreams.

  You must sleep, and when you sleep, I control you.

  I control you when you are awake.

  I.

  I, the one who in your dimension they call . . .

  . . . The word, the name blurred and drifted in the sleeper’s mind . . .

  . . . Could the name have been Nightmare?

  . . . gray . . .

  . . . He controls . . .

  . . . He is powerful, but he is not Death. Death wears a red cape, with—

  DEATH!

  The red-caped figure was there, a diabolic entity, the cape swirling in the wind. The gun bucked in the sleeper’s hand, the sound explosive and harsh. The blue clothing of Death impacted with the slugs, but the figure did not fall. He advanced.

  The hit man ran screaming from the dream and found himself quivering in the corner of the motel room, the bedclothes dragged off, the black leather case knocked down.

  The wide-eyed man lunged for the .357 Smith and Wesson in his suitcase, whipped it out and backed into the corner, where he slid to the floor, eyes staring.

  Nightmare, it was all a nightmare.

  No.

  He nodded to himself. No, it was not a nightmare.

  It was Nightmare.

  Four

  Joe Peerson tossed and turned on the bed. Beatrice Marx looked hopeful and snubbed out her nineteenth cigarette. But the prizefighter just grunted and made a series of little uhs and ohs. Lord only knows what he is dreaming about, she thought. The big match, she supposed. Damn his trainer, anyway. After next week, no more hanky-panky. Going into training, he said. No women, no booze, no nose candy, no nothing except hard work for six weeks. This could be her last night with him. God knows you almost have to book yourself in advance, she thought with an expression of distaste. If they only knew in Philadelphia what she did on her little trips. She always returned aglow. “Lost weight, haven’t you?” Adele always said with a smug smile. If the bitch only knew how Beatrice Marx lost weight she’d explode!

  Except tonight—no weight lost tonight. What was he dreaming about?

  The ring was huge. Still a ring, ropes and everything, but big. Some kinda audience out there in the dark, breathing, waiting. The champ was going to come in. He sensed it before he heard the noise, the cheers. The champ.

  He came down the aisle with a spotlight on him. Couldn’t see the people, but he saw the champ. Wore a red cape, had blue trunks, had that hair combed up with the silver streaks on the side. Old for a champ, but undefeated—maybe undefeatable.

  He came through the ropes, ignoring him. Psych-outs don’t work, Joe Peerson thought, only fists. The ref was a big guy, and he too wore a cape, a green cape. Well, ya gotta have a gimmick. The ref was out to make a rep, that was all. He touched gloves with the champ, only the champ didn’t have boxing gloves, only pale hands. You can’t do that, Joe thought. Hey, ref, lookit there!

  But the ref didn’t hear and the bell sounded and the champ was hitting him, one-two-three, pow, hurt. The champ’s eyes were burning, burning, hot and angry. It wasn’t fair. The champ’s punches hurt—bone on flesh—but his were padded, ineffective. He looked at the ref, but the ref was laughing, his unkempt gray hair shining in the light, his face shadowed, though the eyes glowed.

  Eyes, laughing at him, humiliating him . . .

  The champ reared back, his fist cocked. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He was helpless. The fist came at him, pale and hard, and exploded him right out of the dream.

  “Well, I never—!”

  There was a woman in his bed, grasping at the blankets to cover her pale nakedness. Joe Peerson stared at her wildly. He didn’t know who she was, but she was a woman, and he needed a woman. He needed to forget.

  But even as she gasped under him, a wide smile on her face, even as he took out his fear and fury on her, he knew he could not forget the dream.

  The nightmare.

  Billie Joe Jacks was swept up, up through the roof of his temple, right through the $267,000 stained-glass tower, right past the $9,700 bronze cross, leaving behind the $3,240,000 Temple of Light and going upward, outward into the darkness of space.

  The carefully tended fringe garden dropped away, the 2,450-car parking lot and the little building where the collectors kept their roller skates became small and distant. The cross-shaped building dwindled until it was an ornament and obscured by a cloud.

  Higher . . . higher than the clouds. Into space. Into the night of God and the myriad of His wonders. Into the realm of reality where only dreams were real.

  How did he know that? Was that in the Scriptures?

  No, he knew it because a voice told him so. A voice? A voice like those heard by Saint Joan? Was this a space-age revelation, an atomic-age miracle? He, Billie Joe Jacks?

  No.

  There was a voice in his mind.

  I have selected you, the voice said. You have access and command attention.

  Billie Joe beamed. Yes, that was true. One of his favorite points to make was that even the Lord Jehovah had to burn a bush to attract the attention of Moses. You had to have a gimmick.

  I will use you, the voice said.

  Yes, Lord, Billie Joe replied, his heart bursting with pride. He, Billie Joe Jacks, had been selected—not Billy Graham, not Oral or Bob or any of that bunch; not even the Pope! He, Billie Joe!

  You are a door, the voice said.

  I am a door, I am a way. I am—

  You are mine. I control you, I am . . . Nightmare!

  Five

  Clea looked up from the desk littered with scrolls. She smiled at Stephen Strange and lifted her cheek for a kiss, but her eyes studied him carefully.

  “What is it, Stephen?” she asked softly. The scrolls rolled back noisily as her hands left them. Incense flowered the air of the paneled room as Dr. Strange walked to a high-backed chair and sat down. The tips of his fingers touched the side of his face and he stared into the fireplace almost sightlessly.

  Clea almost gave up expecting an answer and was about to return to her study of the scrolls of Amarkand when Strange spoke.

  “Something is going to happen.”

  Clea searched his face for a clue, but found none. He seemed thoughtful, so she did not intrude. Instead, she leaned a shapely hip against the dark oak desk and fingered the ornate medallion hung between her full breasts. The crimson robe she wore parted and a leg of great beauty and shapeliness protruded. She did not intend to distract Stephen Strange with any display of sex, and indeed, knew that no such exhibition—whether accidental or deliberate—would interfere with his thinking when he was in this mood. Stephen Strange was a man all right, with a man’s desires and feelings, but there were times when he was just above such things as physical pleasure.

  “I have felt . . . something . . . for a fortnight,” he said. Clea nodded in agreement. That much had been obvious. But what?

  “An old adversary . . . I feel it, yet I do not know which one.” In Clea’s mind there were a host of possibilities, each more deadly and powerful than the last.

  “An old adversary?” she asked.

  Stephen Strange looked up at his lovely companion. Her stark white hair framed a lovely and eternally y
oung face. Her figure was superb and even the loose crimson folds of the casual robe could not conceal its lushness. But he saw her more as a woman personified, a female perfected, than as a sexual object at that moment. His face was creased with concern and thought.

  “I feel . . . that it is someone from years ago. I don’t know why. A feeling.”

  “Could it be . . . Dormammu?”

  Strange shook his head. “No, your uncle, the dread Dormammu, is sealed in his dimension. Nor is it the Demon. Zota. Baron Mordo . . .”

  Strange’s voice trailed off into a whisper. Baron Mordo. There was an ancient enemy all right. The memory of Mordo and his early conflicts came back to Stephen Strange, and the memory of the man that Strange had once been came with it.

  It was not a memory that brought pleasure to Stephen Strange, but he forced himself to relive it. Perhaps in the memory of those times he might find a clue to the present troubles.

  Dr. Stephen Strange had been a surgeon then, a brilliant and renowned surgeon, acclaimed and acknowledged as a medical man. But as a man, as a person, he was almost universally despised. Even those who acknowledged his brilliance could not stand him. He was arrogant, ruthless, cold, haughty, proud, and greedy. His fees rose as his fame rose, the arrogance feeding on the fame.

  “The operation was a success, Doctor,” Dr. Ziegler had said to him after a surgical procedure that was later written up in all the medical journals. “Your patient wants to thank you.”

  “I can’t be bothered,” Strange had said, pulling off his surgical gown and reaching for his cigarettes. “Just be sure he pays his bill.” He stuck an imported cigarette in his mouth and walked out, leaving Dr. Ziegler behind with a slowly mounting fury.

  “To him, the problems of others mean less than nothing,” Ziegler muttered angrily.

  Outside the OR was a group of doctors from an upstate research facility. “Doctor Strange, I’m Doctor Siegel, these are Doctors Patten, Mayer and Christensen—”

  “Yes, yes, what is it?”

  “Doctor Strange, we need your help on our new research project—”

  Strange turned away with a disdainful expression. “Sorry, I am not interested in charity work.”

  “But with your skill, your knowledge,” pleaded Dr. Siegel, “we might be able to find a cure for—” Strange walked toward the elevators, putting on his hat. “Wait! Come back!”

  “When you are willing to pay me for my talent,” he said coldly, “I will listen. Not until then. Good day!”

  Strange remembered the feeling of smug satisfaction he felt going down in the elevator. They’d find someone willing to donate enough money to pay for his services, if they wanted him badly enough. Or they’d cut costs elsewhere. It didn’t matter, as long as he received his fees and a good support in proper equipment and personnel. Good people cost money, whether they were doctors, plumbers, space scientists, or lawyers. He remembered getting into his car—a sleek new model, with special modifications, real leather upholstery and four hundred horses under the hood.

  He didn’t remember much of the drive out of town—only the rain-slick street . . . the sudden corner . . . the explosive sound of the blown tire . . . the tree . . . the rending shriek of metal . . . and blackness.

  He’d been lucky, they said, lucky to live. Only minor bruises and unimportant cuts—except for the hands. His hands had been badly smashed. It took thousands upon thousands of his dollars to bring in the best surgeons to repair the bones; cosmetic surgeons to repair the skin; therapists to aid him in regaining his skill.

  Then there had been the visit to Dr. Noto, the eminent orthopedic surgeon. The plump, bald-headed man had studied the X rays in silence, which only irritated Strange. He knew the doctor had spent a long time on the X rays already and this was just window dressing.

  “I don’t know how to tell you this . . .” Dr. Noto began.

  “Speak up, man!” Strange snapped. “I can take it. What do the X rays show?”

  The orthopedic surgeon spoke slowly, reluctantly. “Stephen, you’ve had a very bad accident. Although your hands seem to be all right, the nerves have been severely damaged.”

  Strange stared at his hands. Nerve tissue did not repair itself very well; once severed, nerves did little to rebuild their electrical connections. Only very minor repairs were ever done and there were no sufficiently good surgical techniques developed to assist in the healing.

  “You . . . you mean . . . ?” Stephen Strange’s carefully controlled exterior was marred by an expression of stunned amazement and horrified realization. He had been having a little trouble, but he accounted for that by assuming he was not yet fully healed.

  “Yes,” Dr. Noto said. “You’ll never be able to perform an operation again.” They both knew the tremendous skill required to be a surgeon, and to be a great surgeon required even more. Men who considered themselves skilled with their hands—carpenters, pilots, dentists—were clumsy compared to the subtle and almost microscopic motions of a skilled surgeon.

  Stephen Strange refused to believe. “No!” he said. He backed away. “No! I don’t believe you! You’re lying! You must be lying!” He held out his hands. “They’re well, I tell you.” But Noto had just shaken his head sadly.

  Others tried to help him, but he was still too arrogant, too vain, and too bitter to take help of any kind. His self-pity threatened to swallow him whole.

  “Even though you can’t operate, you can work as my consultant,” Dr. Ziegler had said. “As my assistant.”

  “Stephen Strange assists nobody!” he had replied in a nasty voice.

  He went into seclusion, spending days brooding, letting bitterness fill his soul. He had no friends, no lovers, no family, none who really cared for him—only those who depended upon him. He continued his physical therapy with an obsession that took all his time.

  “I must be the best . . . the greatest! Or else—nothing!” He ground his teeth in anger and frustration. “I’ll never consent to work for anyone else!”

  He lost track of time. He listlessly stopped doing his physical therapy. His money ran out. He moved from his palatial home to an apartment, then to a single room. He neglected his appearance, grew unshaven and shaggy. He stared for hours at his hands, refought battles in his mind, relived triumphs, and felt very sorry for himself.

  He became little more than a human derelict, wandering the city aimlessly. He felt contemptuous for those around him, just as he always had, only now those around him were bums. These vagrants were, in his mind, stupid and witless. He and he alone had suffered the unendurable tragedy. It had been Fate herself who had singled him out. The others had just been stupid and careless and deserved their miserable condition.

  One day, slouched against a scabby brick wall near the docks, drifting into a favorite dream—miraculous recovery, instant recognition, fame, fortune, the tribute of lesser beings—words penetrated his fogged brain.

  “Yeah, hey, I heard of the Ancient One, also. They say he can cure anything, by some magic power, I heard.”

  Strange looked up. A couple of seamen were walking along the street. The one with the heavy seabag over his shoulder said, “If you ask me, he’s just a legend.” The argument began, fading off as they walked on toward the seedy delights of the waterfront bars.

  But the words clicked something in Stephen Strange’s mind. The Ancient One. Many times in the past he had heard that name mentioned, mostly in low whispers; too many times for there not to be some sort of truth to it all. Was there truth to this . . . this modern legend? History tells us there have been men with certain unusual powers, he thought. What if this Ancient One is such a man?

  It took the last of his money and he spent weeks traveling to the Orient on the cheapest transportation. In India, with his money gone, he had hitchhiked the last kilometers, then walked up the mountain, staggering into the quiet of the templelike building. It reeked of time and incense. His months of searching were over. He knew it. Something told him.

&n
bsp; Within the domed temple there was a thronelike chair with an Oriental sitting cross-legged upon it, wearing a purple robe and a strange golden headdress.

  “You! Old man!” Strange’s voice cut through the silence of the temple like a dropped pan. “Are you the one I seek? Are you called ‘the Ancient One’?”

  The head rose and the calm eyes looked at him. The man was old, very, very old. “I am the Ancient One,” he said.

  Strange staggered closer. He was close to collapse, headachy from hunger, dry from thirst, and desperate from longing. “Then you’re the one with the magic healing power!” He held out his hands and stumbled closer, unshaven, smelly, and shabby. “I need you! You have to help me!”

  “Be patient, man of the Western world.”

  Strange made a sound and came toward the old man. “I heal none save those who deserve it,” the old man said, his voice creaky and weak. “The power of my magic must never be wasted on the undeserving! First you must prove you are worthy!”

  Anger suffused Stange’s mind. He had come so far. It was the end of the trail for him. His string was played out. It was all or nothing. “You can’t refuse me!” he said, starting toward the old Oriental with his hands spread into claws. “I won’t let you! I’ve traveled too far . . . waited too long!”

  “Stop!” the Ancient One said, gesturing with his long-nailed hand. For a microsecond, it seemed as if his hand glowed with light. Stephen Strange gasped in surprise.

  “Wha—!” He was raised off the ground. His worn boots were two feet from the smooth stones of the temple floor. He gaped down in complete surprise.

  “I will permit no act of violence here!” the old man said with authority. “None may lift a hand against the Ancient One!”

  Strange’s desperate writhing to get free of the invisible hand that grasped him was futile. He’s holding me motionless above the ground, he thought with wonder. With just a gesture! It’s uncanny!

  “And now,” the Oriental sage said, “I shall peer into your brain . . . into your memory . . . and learn the truth about you!”