by Philip Wylie
It was tedious work. In the dusty room, under the light of one feeble bulb, she stuck to it doggedly. As fast as the flooring broke or crumbled, she removed the debris. By the time the men from town reached the house she had made a considerable hole. The raucous bruit of their activity came to her ears weakly. Its very remoteness was an indication of the futility of calling for help. But it served to spur her efforts.
It gave her courage, too, to attempt to break open the door with the furnace shaker, but she was unable to accomplish that. She knew that there were men around the house, that something extraordinary was taking place—that was all. When she reached the dirt below the floor she burrowed with the broken rake. By and by she realized that the noises outside had ceased. Whatever it was had departed.
She never knew what proportion of time she gave to the various tasks she performed. Ultimately the lip of her excavation extended beyond the door. She made the space wide enough for her body and pulled herself through. The cellar was pitch dark, the house above as still as a morgue, recalling her terrible walk through the woods on the night of her arrival at Sinkak.
The door at the head of the cellar steps to which she groped her way was locked. There was no alternative but to break it open if she could. She fumbled in the darkness until she found another light hanging from the ceiling and with its aid she searched the cellar. The hunt yielded a rusty axe. She determined to use it against the door and if the noise brought Carpenter—she had a weapon, at the worst.
She was covered with cobwebs, with the dust and mould of decades. But she was no longer afraid, having no time for fear, being armed with an unselfish purpose. The first blow of the axe echoed through the house. Then the second. A panel split. Still Carpenter did not come. In a moment, she stood in the kitchen.
From the faucet, drinking without a glass and keeping her face toward the iron door of the laboratory while her hands gripped the axe, she took a long drink. Then she listened. No sound. The horrible thought that Carpenter was now invisible and stood nearby watching cast her mind into a momentary tumult. Her eyes shot around the kitchen. She picked up the axe and suddenly whirled it around and around herself. It encountered nothing. The gesture was followed by no deep laughter.
She assumed that Baxter was still inside the laboratory. She went to the door and beat upon it with the axe. It rang sonorously, like some giant metal drum. She thought she heard a faint response but she was not sure. She tried again. After that she was positive. Baxter had shouted from somewhere far inside.
She attacked the door furiously, but her strength was wasted. Its purpose had been to separate Carpenter from the world—to prevent interruption—even forceful interruption. The room was designed for that—a vault of stone and steel. She wondered how best she could enter it. A fan blocked the ventilating shaft. The chimney was too small. The outside was stone. And at any moment Carpenter might appear—or be present even if he did not appear.
She decided to attack the chamber from the outside. The windows that had been walled up could be reached from the ground. If one stone could be loosened, the rest might be rent apart. Moreover, while she was out doors and if Carpenter reappeared, she could run. She might escape him. She thought of going for assistance, but once she had heard Baxter’s voice, that thought became a possibility to be postponed for the last extremity.
The stars were shining and the countryside was peaceful. There were tools in the garage. When she reached it and saw that the car was gone, a great wave of relief overcame her. The car gone—and with it Carpenter! She hurried to the side of the house and began to rap along the wall. Her equipment had been augmented by a pick and a crowbar which she wielded with a savagery that supplemented her moderate strength and lack of skill. At the most hollow-sounding spot she commenced at once to undermine a stone.
An hour later it wobbled. Five minutes after that it dropped to the ground. The stone above it fell immediately afterward. She felt behind it and discovered that the wall was double. But the outer sheathing of rounded field stones was opening steadily. When she attacked the layer behind it, her first stroke brought into being a star of light from the laboratory inside and her second shot six inches of the crow bar into the room. Through the orifice she peered eagerly. Everything was in order. Baxter was not in sight. She put her lips to the round hole and called, then her ear and listened. The answer was plain.
She shouted back, “Coming!” and her tools hammered at the wall. Ultimately she crawled through the ragged aperture she had made. She had been working incessantly for many hours. The last resources of her strength were ebbing and when she located the trap door and saw the final barrier to her goal, tears coursed down her cheeks. Her muscles screamed with protest as she renewed her endeavors. Baxter was shouting something to her.
“Try the hinges!”
“All right!”
“And hurry!”
An unbearable indignation swept her. As if she had not hurried! “I am!”
“Right!”
The inner hasps of the hinges were sunk in the floor. She ripped one of them loose with the iron bar. Then, from necessity, she rested. The second hinge gave just when she was deciding that she would be forced to get help. Baxter put his shoulder under the door and lifted it. She helped him out. Then she lay down on the floor and shut her eyes.
Baxter brought water from the sink. He lifted her head gently. She sipped it.
“All right?”
She nodded.
“Going to faint again?”
Her head shook imperceptibly. He put his coat under it. From her clothes, her hands, the streaks on her face, he could guess what the effort had cost her. She smiled a little. He kissed her. And only then did he assuage the thirst that had ravaged him for hours. After that he went to the chemical shelves and found some ammonia. He held it under her nose.
Daryl looked up. “I made it.”
He answered unevenly. “Yes, darling, damn if you didn’t. Where were you?”
“In the cellar. In the fruit closet.” Life flowed back into her veins. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. Think you could drink some whiskey?”
“If you say so.”
“There was some around here.” He went off on a short search and returned with a bottle. He mixed it with water and administered it.
She swallowed and shuddered. “We must be ready if he comes back.”
“We’ve got to be gone.”
“What happened?”
Baxter shrugged. “Right now I’d give a year of my life to know. I can guess—many things. Feel better?”
“Much.”
“Walk?”
“Sure. But kiss me first.”
He kissed her and lifted her to her feet. She took a few recalcitrant steps. “I’ll be all right in a minute.”
“Hope so.”
Her will had lost its strength. She looked at herself in Carpenter’s mirror and her face expressed a transient wonder. “Can we go now?”
“If you’re ready.”
“I am.”
Baxter opened the iron door. He peered into the kitchen. Its light was already dimmed by the infiltration of dawn. He put his arm around her waist and together they crossed the familiar room, opened the back door, hurried down the steps. Daryl urged him toward the road.
“Not that way—through the woods.”
“But it’s slower and harder.”
“I know dear. We’re hiding.”
“Hiding?”
“From Carpenter.”
“Oh.”
The cool morning air, the comfort of his presence, the need of further effort stimulated her. She was able to look at him now, and to see him clearly. His face was hawk-like. His ordinarily comatose brown eyes were alert. She thought evanescently that he had become a different person in those hours under the laboratory floor.
As they walked, he talked.
“He forced me down there with a revolver right after supper. You?”
&nbs
p; “He—oh—he was dreadful. Said he loved me. Said he would have me. He dragged me into the house when I ran to the car. Then he put me there. I dug out.”
“And dug in to me.”
“Yes. Did you hear the noises? People outside?”
“Very vaguely. But I did hear this. Carpenter stayed in the laboratory for a long time after he must have locked you up. He talked to himself. Then he began to laugh hysterically. Then he went out. Later, I heard cars drive up and a number of men shouting. I think he tried—his last experiment. I think it failed—perhaps it made him only partially invisible—like jelly.”
“Then—Mrs. Treadle. Where is she?”
“She ran away. He let her go.”
“That fits. She sent people up here to investigate. And things got too hot for Carpenter so he drove away in his car.”
“That must be it.”
Baxter smiled. “It agrees with the facts that we could perceive, doesn’t it? Just the same, we’ll stick to the woods. It may be that he is invisible now——”
“I thought of that. When I came up from the cellar.”
“Poor kid!”
“It would be frightful—wouldn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“To have him walking right here with us——” She moved closer to Baxter.
He chuckled. “Not that. We’d hear him on these dry leaves, you know.”
“I didn’t think of that.”
They reached the Sinkak road, crossed it after peering from the bushes and skirted it from a spot about opposite to the place where the couple in the sedan had turned their lights on Carpenter. It was now broad daylight.
Suddenly they were struck and almost knocked down by a powerful concussion. On its heels came a booming, belching explosion. Half a mile away the Mortland house hurtled bodily into the air, breaking apart as it rose. It hung in the sky momentarily on the crest of a volcano of smoke. Then it dropped back with a sound of falling. The smoke mushroomed.
Daryl and Baxter had turned to face this appalling spectacle. The young scientist almost whispered. “I wonder if he looked to be sure we had gone first.”
She did not hear him. “That’s our house!”
“Certainly. It was. Just now it’s in smithereens and with it the finest biochemical laboratory on earth. I wonder if it was suicide.”
She understood. “He did it!”
“Yes. We got out just in time. Five minutes more—perhaps he even saw us go.”
“Saw us go!”
“We don’t know what happened to him yet. If his great experiment ended in some preposterous failure—he was probably sitting in his laboratory when it blew up. If he was successful—then, my dear—I think we are very foolish to stand in plain view here at the roadside. Don’t you?”
“But—but what are we going to do now?”
Baxter smiled. “My best idea at the moment is—get some coffee.”
CHAPTER 5
A MIDNIGHT VISIT
Baxter’s shrewdness was ample for the perception of his predicament. He was faced with a score of problems chief among which were Carpenter, Daryl, the natives of Sinkak, and their own geographical situation. If Baxter had lacked the imagination necessary to anticipate complications that might arise from any of those sources, his troubles would have been many and grave.
It was morning and May. They were in the open without hats, soiled and fatigued. They had not slept all night. They had no definite knowledge of what had occurred and such knowledge was vital to them. It must be obtained, even at a hazard.
Daryl’s clothes were torn, her hands were raw. She needed medical attention and rest. Only the staunchest spirit could sustain her through any further activity.
Carpenter might be looking for them, might even have located them and, again, he might be dead. His precipitate departure—which Baxter assumed from the empty garage—and the subsequent dynamiting of the Mortland house indicated that the scientist had been in some difficulty. It was logical to suppose that the same threat hung over Carpenter’s assistants—that it came, in fact, from the people in Sinkak. They had doubtless investigated Carpenter, chased him from his premises and they could be expected to regard any one connected with Carpenter with hostility.
He discussed those facts briefly with Daryl. At some nearby point it would be necessary for them to make contact with the world again. They walked toward the main road and selected a roadside lunch room on the outskirts of Sinkak. A single man was behind the counter—there were no other customers—and they sat on the stools at the table.
The man stared curiously at them, but, if he guessed their identity, he did not reveal it to them. He was obviously curious concerning their bedraggled appearance and it was not difficult to start him talking.
Baxter ordered coffee, eggs, toast.
“Nice country around here.”
“Yeah.”
“We had a little accident down the road. Sent our car back to the garage.”
“Yeah?”
“Thought we’d have breakfast before they picked us up.”
“Mmmm.”
Baxter helped himself to sugar. “Quiet, I suppose? Nothing much happens around here?”
“Wouldn’t think so if you’d been here last night.”
“Really? What happened?”
“Plenty.” The man broke eggs into a frying pan with one hand. “Hell broke loose.”
“What kind?” Baxter swallowed coffee.
The man looked at them. His face was somewhat pallid and he had not shaved. “Wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“No?” Baxter’s intonation was encouraging.
“Don’t hardly believe it myself—now that it’s daytime.” The wayside restaurateur tapped on the marble counter with a fork. “Year ago a fellow come here to do experiments. I knew he was crazy as a loon the first time I see him. Big, tall bird with red hair and loony eyes. Took an old farm house and fixed it up.” He dwelt at length on the Mortlands, their house, the changes that had been made in it.
He proceeded with an account of Mrs. Treadle’s relation to the household. He told of the arrival of a girl and an assistant—staring straight at Baxter who looked back with unblinking innocence. The eggs had been fried and served before he reached the previous night. He had been one of the first to reach the country store. His embroidery of Martin’s tale was blood-curdling.
Baxter prompted with awed murmurs. “A skeleton! You don’t say! Came to the door, eh?”
Daryl was listening while she bent over her breakfast plate.
“Come to the door. Chased him, he said.” There followed a recitation of the experience of the lad and lass in the car. “Took two hours to revive her.”
“Are you sure it was a skeleton?”
“Yep. You ain’t heard nothing. Nothing.” The man’s eyes became reminiscent. He told of the formation of the posse, of the hunt in the woods, of the escape in the car, the barrier, the arrival at the amusement park. His language was picturesque. He forgot the lady. He reached the point of the bon-fire.
“The Judge says to burn the thing. Me—I wouldn’t touch it. Some of those as did was saying this morning that they got rashes coming on their hands and the local midwife is looking after ’em. Well—just as they was setting out to wire up the thing and burn it, up it gets on its feet and down fall the people in front of it. Flat. Eating dirt. Then—whooie!—out it goes like a light. I say it went down. Others claim it went up.”
“And then what?”
“Then what? Nothing. What more do you want? We went back. We busted out a keg of applejack. When it got good and light I came over here to open up my place. Can’t afford to lose trade. Later on I heard the place had blowed up. The explosion didn’t do no damage here—but I’d already guessed what it was when it shook me up.”
Baxter nodded. “Never heard of anything like it in my life.”
“Me neither. And I never want to see nothing like it again.”
“Don’t blame
you. How much do we owe?”
“Sixty-five cents.”
Baxter produced a bill. The man’s hands went under the table to make change and suddenly his expression changed. The dumb wonder of the country bumpkin left it. A cold shrewdness came instead. Baxter saw the change, almost anticipated it. He stood against the counter, close to the man. His eyes could see over the edge where the hand of the erstwhile narrator had clasped a gun. It was never raised above the marble top. With the speed of light Baxter had put one knee on the stool, had rolled over the counter, had knocked the dishes on the floor, grasped the man’s arm, wrenched it back, kicked the weapon along the duckboards behind the serving table, loosed the arm and retrieved the gun.
He stood with the gun in his hand. The man retreated toward the shiny coffee boilers. Baxter smiled tensely.
“I thought you had guessed who we were. Keep this little thing for hold-ups and rough customers, what? You should learn a better technique. Our mutual friend William Carpenter understood the principle of keeping the victim at a distance more clearly than you. What was the idea?”
The man whined. “I—I wasn’t going to do nothing.”
“Turn us over to the police?”
“Honest, mister—”
“Baxter. I ought to take you along with us. Have to, I guess. Come out.”
“I gotta stay here. Honest.”
“You get out of there, you smart yokel, or I’ll spin you around with this thirty-two and you’ll never get out of anything again. Come on! We’re going down the road.”
The trio stepped out in the sunlight. Baxter put the weapon in his pocket and kept his hand on it. The proprietor of the lunch wagon was compelled to keep ahead of them. Baxter’s other arm was around Daryl. She had not spoken.
They walked for a mile. Each time a car approached Baxter sent his unwilling companion into the underbrush and hailed it. The sixth car, a light truck driven by a youth in the uniform of a store, stopped. Baxter helped Daryl into the seat and stood on the running board beside her.