Lee Falk - [Story of the Phantom 12]

by The Vampires

He took the confused officer’s arm and led him to the door.

  “Roko, tie up those two phony vampires and guard them. The chief will book them later on charges of arson and attempted murder.”

  “I will?” said Chief Peta as the Phantom led him out the door to his little car.

  “You will.” The Chief started toward the driver’s seat, but the Phantom pushed him into the other seat and took the wheel himself. He waved to the amazed couple in the doorway and drove off into the night.

  “Who on earth is he?” said Enna once more.

  “Mr. Walker. Whoever that is.” Roko turned back into the house, got a coil of heavy rope and some light chain, and tied up the unconscious men with obvious pleasure. He bent lower over them.

  “Enna, come look at this. Those marks on their jaws weren’t there this afternoon. What do they look like to you?”

  His wife looked where he pointed.

  “Can’t tell without my glasses.”

  “Both exactly the same—like what you see on bottles of poison stuff. You know. Death’s heads,” he said slowly.

  Enna got her glasses, looked, and gasped.

  “How’d they get there?”

  “My guess is Mr. Walker. Know something else: my second guess is that’s not his name.”

  Chapter 13

  Chief Peta mumbled and belched as the car bounced and rumbled on the rough dirt road. Suddenly, he stiffened and turned pale. His hand reached for his gun. Out of the comer of his eye, he had seen a large, hairy shape directly behind him.

  “Wha-wha-what?” he gasped.

  “Relax, Chief. That’s Devil. You saw him in your office.”

  “Uh, your dog?”

  “He’s a wolf.”

  “A wolf?” Koqania had wolves in the mountains. They killed sheep and goats and had been known to pull down steers.

  “Don’t be afraid. He’s a friendly fellow, unless irritated.”

  Ivor Peta sat as far forward as possible. A vague thought whirled in his boozy brain.

  “Some wolves can turn into vampires at night,” he said frantically.

  “No, Chief. You’re thinking of werewolves.”

  “Oh.”

  The chief slumped back and started to doze. The road led into town. It was late at night. As usual, the streets were deserted. In the center square, opposite the Lord Mayor’s mansion, was a large fountain that bubbled and cascaded forth water day and night. “Toss a levana in the fountain and you’ll return to Koqania,” travelers were told. No one did. No one wanted to come back. The Phantom stopped at the fountain, and after a quick look around pulled the half-dozing, protesting Chief Peta out of the car.

  “Whazza matter?” mumbled the chief.

  “You’re drunk. No good to me at all this way.”

  “How do I know you’re not a vampire—uhhh.”

  The Phantom picked him up and dropped him into the cold water. As Chief Peta gasped, he pushed his head under for a second, let him up to gulp air, then back under again. He repeated this a half-dozen times while the chief law officer of Koqania struggled, sputtered, gulped, and choked. When he began to swear, the Phantom pulled him out. The dripping police chief faced him. He was coughing up water and speechless with fury.

  “You were too drunk. You’re better now. Get back in the car.”

  He lead the wet policeman back to his seat. The man slumped gratefully in his place, then looked around anxiously.

  “Did anyone see us?”

  “Not a soul. Your dignity is intact.”

  And he drove on, through the dark empty streets, out of town. Chief Ivor Peta reached for cigarettes and matches. All were soaked.

  “Damn,” he said. “I’m sober now more or less. I need a cigarette.”

  “That can wait. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Who are you? What are you doing here?” said the chief, his eyes focusing properly for the first time all night as he stared at his strange driver—the hood, the mask, the skintight costume.

  “Didn’t you get a cable from Colonel Worobu of the Bangalla Jungle Patrol?”

  “Uh, yes, the Jungle Patrol. Are you from there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he send you?”

  “In a way.”

  “That’s a million miles from here. What business is out business to them?”

  “Hmm, international ramifications,” said the Phantom solemnly.

  “International?” said Chief Peta, his eyes wide. “Uh, why do you wear that, er, odd outfit?”

  “To scare the vampires.”

  The chief chuckled. “That’s a good one.” He sobered. “Look, this is no joke. They’re real and they’re—”

  “I know.”

  “Hey, where are we going?”

  The chief had looked out of the window. To his amazement, he saw the ruins of the old castle just ahead.

  “We’re going there.”

  “Now? Tonight? Alone?”

  “Not alone. The three of us.”

  ‘Three?”

  “You and I and Devil. He’s worth twenty men.”

  The chief glanced back. Devil’s long fangs gleamed in the pale light from the dashboard. The Phantom stopped the car, turned off the engine, and got out. Devil leaped over the front seat, out the same door, his long body brushing the chief who sat without moving. The Phantom crossed to the other side and opened the door. “Out,” he said.

  “Listen, Mr. Walker, or whoever you are, we can’t go in there. That place is haunted.”

  “By vampires and a witch?”

  “Yes. Vampires and the witch.” He almost swallowed the last word. “But that’s not all.”

  “There’s more?”

  “My grandfather saw him. Maybe he’s one of them— one of the vampires.”

  “What did your grandfather see?”

  “A kind of ghost. Hooded and masked like, like—” Chief Peta stared at his companion. “Say, you’re—ah, foolish thought. That was fifty years ago.”

  He’s talking about my grandfather, thought the Phantom. One of the generations of Phantoms who had visited this place since the days of the eighth Phantom.

  “Let’s go.” He took the chief’s unwilling arm and they started through the high grass. Devil ranged ahead, going from side to side. “If there are any vampires hiding in the grass, Devil will flush them out.”

  As they neared the ruins, the chief balked.

  “I don’t like this. Not one bit.”

  “Would you rather we separate, you go around the back, I take the front?” said the Phantom. In answer, the chief clutched his arm.

  “No, I stay with you.”

  “Okay, then in we go.”

  There were patches of clear sky now, and moonlight filtered through, throwing shadows among the ancient rocks. They crossed the moat on the rock pile and reached the dark staircase that led under the ruins. The chief stopped abruptly.

  “We’re not going down there?”

  “Yes. Now quiet.”

  They reached the iron door. The Phantom turned his narrow light beam on in order to open the lock. But the lock was gone. The door was slightly open. The Phantom drew a gun from his holster. He had closed the lock the previous night, but he said nothing about this to the chief. That might have sent him into a panic. The door squeaked and groaned on its rusted hinges as he pulled it open. The two men and the wolf moved slowly along the damp stone corridor, the chief clutching the Phantom’s arm in a tight grip. At each bend in the corridor, they paused. Then ahead, from around a bend, they saw flickering light. Chief Peta tensed, then shook with sudden fear. The Phantom patted his arm reassuringly and moved forward in a semi-crouch. A few steps ahead, Devil walked slowly, pale eyes gleaming, head lowered as though stalking.

  They reached the turn in the corridor and peered around it. Ahead was the big rocky chamber with the many ancient devices of antique torture. A few torches in sockets were burning on the walls. The old metal of the torture instruments shone in the tor
chlight. Prominent among them was the shining hollow metal figure of the Iron Maiden. But most prominent, sitting on a low platform in the center of the chamber, was a coffin, the same coffin the Phantom had seen the previous day. But then it had been in a far corner, and he had left it closed. Now in the center of all these deadly devices, the coffin was open.

  They stood without moving for a few seconds while the Phantom and Devil peered from spot to spot searching for movement. They saw nothing. At a touch from his master, the wolf moved silently about the chamber, searching through the shadowy and dark places: in comers, behind pillars and torture instruments. Then he returned to his master. The room was safe.

  They started toward the coffin. Clutching the Phantom’s arm, the chief held back, trembling now, on the verge of panic. This place was too much for his nerves. The Phantom pulled him along. They reached the coffin and looked in. It was not empty this time.

  A figure was lying inside, a man wearing black formal attire, a white bow tie, a white dress shirt glittering with diamond studs. The face was dead-white. The eyes were open. A trickle of red blood was visible on his chin. Long fangs protruded from both sides of his mouth. And a large wooden stake protraded from his chest.

  Chief Peta cracked at this sight. He screamed. He turned and ran as though pursued by all the demons of hell. His scream echoed among the rocky walls as he disappeared in the darkness, headed back toward the open air.

  Chapter 14

  The Phantom stared at the figure. As hardened as he was to the violent or unusual, this gruesome sight had given him a momentary shock. He reached out and touched the white cheek, then felt the chest under the fancy white shirt. Then he laughed, hearty laughter of relief and sheer amusement. The thing in the coffin was a wax dummy.

  He turned and took a step back toward the direction the chief had fled in, then stopped. It was easier to work without the nervous officer, weakened as he was by alcohol and fear. By now, he would be headed for his car, and would soon be back in his office hitting the brandy bottle.

  He studied the wax dummy. It was a clever, realistic job. Why would anyone go to all this trouble in this old cellar beneath the ruins? Not many outsiders would come here. At this moment in Koqania, it seemed more likely that nobody would dare to enter this place so widely known to be cursed and haunted. Then, why this theatrical prop, this gruesome scene, obviously intended to frighten? To frighten whom? Himself?

  By now his presence, the presence of the stranger, would be known by whoever inhabited these ruins. The door had been left unlocked purposely. Torches lighted. He examined one. It couldn’t have been burning for more than an hour or so. Was he being watched? Was the hunter being hunted?

  His jungle-trained senses did not dismiss this possibility. Without doubt, there would be watchers in the night, eyes that had observed his going and coming, had seen Chief Peta flee. The chief, once safely back in town, could be counted on to tell what he had seen in the coffin and so enlarge the legend and increase the fear. But how about himself? What would they—-the unknown watchers who had prepared this dummy and the torches—do about him? He would not wait to find out. He would find them first.

  This chamber was as far as he had gone into the cellars. He saw dark corridors leading off at 'the far end. The old castle, its outbuildings and battlements, had covered many acres. That meant acres of cellars. He started toward the central dark corridor, and if there were eyes watching through chinks in the stone walls, he was unaware of them. .

  Something suddenly raced out of the darkness, and his gun moved toward it. The rapid patter of claws on stone. It was a huge rat as big as a cat. It sped out of the darkness across the torture chamber, headed for the open air. Quick as a flash, Devil was after it. The wolf had a long-standing feud with rats. Once in a deserted slaughterhouse, a pack of them had almost killed him. He killed the pack, but still bore the scars. Before the Phantom could stop him, he was out of sight. The master knew his animal’s feelings about rats. Devil’s chances of catching this big one were remote. The wolf would rejoin him when the chase was over.

  Now the Phantom moved slowly and carefully through the dark corridor, the light from the torture chamber gradually diminishing. Soon he was in complete darkness. He flashed his thin beam only occasionally. A man walking in a dark place with a lighted flashlight was too easy a target. He moved slowly, testing each step. There could be ancient pits, wells, or trap doors down here. There could be subcellars, and cellars below that. He moved on, passing many empty chambers, all filled with the dust and neglected, stale air of many years.

  He became aware of a strange sound, faint at first, then stronger as he went forward. It was a whirring or wheezing sound with an occasional rasping—a sound he couldn’t place. As the sound became louder, he heard something else in the whirring and wheezing and rasping. A more human sound—wailing or a moaning? Could that be it? Moaning, wailing and what else? A faint shriek? Coming from somewhere ahead in these endless cellars.

  He stood motionless in the darkness, shaken by these sounds. The words of Old Mozz, the teller of tales, came to him. He could almost hear the cracking voice . . . “there deep in the earth where none could see her, he chained her securely to a pillar of stone, for she was evil, this witch of Hanta. And so he left her, shrieking and moaning, and to this day she shrieks and moans.”

  As these words rang in his head, he heard another sound in the midst of the whirring, and wheezing, the rasping, the wailing and moaning. The most improbable sound of all. “Phantom. Phantom.” It was a soft voice, a feminine voice, and it seemed to come from the walls and ceiling about him. He shook himself, flashed on his beam quickly, then turned it off. He had been able to see nothing hut rough stone walls. “Phantom. Phantom.” Suddenly, all the noises stopped. The wheezing, the whirring, the rasping, the moans, the wails, the shrieks—all gone. The cellar was as silent as a tomb.

  What had caused those weird sounds? Wind whistling through the ruins? Old rafters creaking? Underground streams flowing? Animals, Birds? Insects? And that sound of his name? Imagination? That old tale of the witch of Hanta moaning and wailing. A story he refused to believe. None of his ancestors would chain a woman in a cellar and leave her to die, or moan through eternity, not even a witch. Yet that was the story of Old Mozz. And what had happened to the missing parchment page or pages in the eighth Phantom’s chronicle of three hundred years ago? What else had Old Mozz told about that day? “This beauteous young creature turned into a shriveled old hag before his very eyes ... but nothing can free her and nothing can return her to youth and beauty, nothing save the kiss of the Phantom.”

  Odd how those words kept ringing through his head as he stood in the damp underground corridor ... he shook himself. I’m getting as superstitious as the rest of Koqania, he mused. Maybe it’s catching, he thought, trying to see the humor in it. But he couldn’t laugh. There was something strange going on down here, those strange noises, his name whispered in the dark. He stood fcrr a moment, waiting to hear the soft sound of Devil returning. But there was no sign of his pet. Was he chasing the big rat through the fields? Or running into another rat pack? Devil could take care of himself and would find him. He moved on slowly in the direction from which all those sounds had come.

  Now as he advanced slowly, gun in hand, he was aware of another sensation—a scent, an odor that reminded him of something. The image flashed into his mind. The dry sweet-moldy smell of dying flowers on a grave. Hr flashed on his beam. There was a faint mist near the ceiling, he turned off the light and moved on. The scent became stronger—dry, sweet, moldy—he began to feci dizzy. He walked on unsteadily, puzzled by what was happening to him. Perhaps it was best to turn back, find and breathe fresh night air. Then, ahead, there was a light in the darkness. And the sound started again: the wailing, the moaning, faint at first, stronger as he approached the light. The sweet scent was even stronger now. His dizziness was increasing. The wailing and moaning and the small shrieks became louder and louder. An
d out of the sound he heard that soft cry, “Phantom, Phantom.”

  Moving along the wall to keep on his feet, he reached the source of the light. It was an open doorway leading off the corridor. The sound was coming from there. The wailing, the moaning. Holding onto the doorframe, he peered in. There he saw her.

  A shriveled old woman, dressed in faded rags, long white hair streaming down her shoulders. She was chained to a stone pillar. And as she slowly writhed, she wailed and moaned, and she called, “Phantom, Phantom.”

  Chapter 15

  The moaning stopped. The chains rattled.

  “At last, you have come to free me from my chains,” she croaked in a weird singsong voice.

  He leaned against the wall. The chamber seemed to revolve around him. What is the matter with me? I can hardly move, he thought.

  “Come, free me, free me with a kiss,” said the crackling voice. “Come.”

  The voice commanded. He crossed the room slowly as though fighting against a strong current in a stream.

  “Further, further, another step. You chained me; you alone can unchain me.”

  It was like a nightmare, but it was real. Or was it? He had difficulty focusing his eves. The chained figure swam before him. Wearily, using all his strength, he climbed the stone steps leading to the platform where she stood.

  “One more step, one more step.”

  He was nearer now. Her eyes glittered. Her face was like old yellowed parchment, wrinkled beyond belief. Her wrinkled hands had long curving nails reaching toward his face.

  “You took my youth and beauty. Make me young again.”

  He swayed before her.

  “Free me, free me with a kiss.”

  Struggling to control himself, he stumbled toward her, aware now of her musty scent, the odor of ancient things. As he swayed, almost falling, she placed her face close to his and his lips brushed her rough cheek. At this moment, there was a tremendous clap of thunder that seemed to shake the chamber and resounded from wall to wall. In this same moment, the chains of the witch fell off and clanked onto the stone floor. She raised her arms.