by Len Wein
“Kill! Kill!” Linda got to her feet, lunging for the SHIELD agent.
“Damn it, Jones! I could have winged her if you hadn’t—”
“You could have killed her, you idiot!”
“Be careful who you call an idiot, you halfwitted—”
“Easy now, girl.” Up ahead, Quartermain was struggling with the possessed Linda.
The girl raked her fingernails across his face, cursing him. Then all at once, she slumped in his grip, her head lolling against his chest. “I don’t . . . understand . . .”
Taking her by the shoulders, Quartermain held her out in front of him, eyeing her. “Looks to me, my girl, as if you’re coming out of it, though I’m blessed if I know why.”
She shook her head from side to side, auburn hair brushing her slim shoulders. “How did I . . . what’s been going on?”
“Linda, it’s okay. I’ll explain.” Rick ran up to them and took hold of the girl’s arm.
She blinked, gazing around her. “I feel . . . as if I’ve been sleepwalking . . . or something.”
“Well, that’s exactly what has been going on,” said Rick. “It’s a sort of complicated thing to explain to you.”
She moved a few steps away from the SHIELD agent. “And who’s this gentleman, and why . . . I have a vague notion I tried to hurt him.”
“No real harm done, sweet lady,” Quartermain assured her.
“Are we going to play hearts and flowers on our confounded kazoos all day?” General Thunderbolt Ross wanted to know. “I want to get back to the job at hand.”
“General, this is all part of our task,” said Quartermain. “These good people, after all, are victims of this alien creature.”
Lips near Rick’s ear, the girl asked, “Rick, please, can you tell me something about what’s going on?”
Maybe it was immature on his part and betrayed a lack of perspective, but he enjoyed the closeness of the girl’s lips to his skin. For a few seconds he thought only about that, completely forgetting the cosmic problem they faced. “Well, Linda, we think there’s some kind of alien entity out in the crater,” he told her. “The thing, whatever it is, has the ability to control the minds of a lot of the people here—including you, I guess.”
Very slowly, she nodded her head. “That makes sense. Somehow I feel it does,” she said. “Lately I’ve had all sorts of very strange dreams . . . but they weren’t all dreams, were they?”
“No. This thing’s been using you.”
“And today . . . what? It tried to make me kill your friend?”
“Doesn’t want us near the crater for some reason.” He pointed a thumb at the damage done to the road by the recent explosion. “Had the sheriff and some others lay a trap for us. Kept you in reserve to finish off any survivors. Fortunately, it didn’t work exactly as planned.”
She shivered, hugged herself. “It’s terrrible, Rick. I feel as if I’ve been . . . I don’t know . . . assaulted.”
“Yeah, I know.” For a moment he put a comforting arm around her. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to—”
“What in the world does this mean?” His leathery hand serving as a sun visor, General Thunderbolt Ross was squinting into the sky.
One of his helicopters was visible, heading back in their direction.
“Mayhap,” suggested Quartermain, “our chum, the Hulk, is about to pay us a visit.”
“Why only one chopper, then?” said Ross. “I don’t like it.” Scowling, fists at his side, he stomped back to the Jeep.
His hand was reaching for his radio mike when Quartermain shouted, “Something’s wrong with it!”
The general spun in time to see the copter come wobbling down through the sky. It fell into the woods out of view. Then came the sound of a terrible exploding crash.
“We mean you no harm, Dr. Banner.”
“Doctor, are you well enough to—”
“Sure, I’m fine. I’m just in dandy shape.” Banner dug his elbows into the dirt and shoved himself into a sitting position. “Where’s the general?”
“To the best of our knowledge, sir,” said one of the two clean-cut young lieutenants who’d come down into the crater to fetch him, “General Ross is still in Crater Falls directing the overall operation.”
Knocking aside the proffered helping hand, Banner got to his feet unaided. “What about Sh’mballah?”
“Who?”
“That creature, that thing that broke out of this damned pit.”
The other lieutenant said, “Holy smoke! That was the weirdest-looking thing I’ve ever—”
“Our orders, Dr. Banner, were to give top priority to the capture of the Hulk.”
“So you just let that . . . whatever it was . . . go shambling away?”
“One of our copters is keeping it under surveillance, Dr. Banner.”
“A lot of good that’ll do.”
“How the heck would you overcome that thing?” asked the more exuberant of his two captors.
“I’m not at all sure.”
“The gas we used to subdue you, sir,” explained the more sober lieutenant, “had no effect on the—”
“You didn’t subdue me,” said Banner angrily. “You subdued the Hulk.”
“Whatever you say, sir. All I know is, we knocked out the Hulk after he fell into this hole. When we came down to gather him up, we found you, instead.”
“Makes the hauling operation easier,” said the other lieutenant. “Boy, that Hulk must weigh a ton. How exactly do you work the trick, Doctor, turning from that—”
“You say you tried gassing Sh’mballah?” Banner asked.
“Yes, sir, when we saw him running . . . or, well, that’s not exactly what he does . . . when we decided he was withdrawing from this pit, we used the gas. It had no effect on this . . . Sh’mballah.”
“How’d you find out his name? I mean, does be talk?”
“Well, he didn’t tip his hat and say, ‘Howdy, I’m Sh’mballah, from outer space!’—if that’s what you mean,” said Banner. He started the long climb out of the Crater. “This creature has the ability to project his thoughts, to control people. He got the people of Crater Falls to troop out here and unearth him. Not sure how long he’s been buried here, but what you see down below there is the hull of a spaceship.”
“Holy smoke! A flying saucer!”
The two uniformed young men followed Banner up the wall of the pit.
“Can you contact Thunderbolt Ross?” asked Banner when they were near the rim.
“We’ve been instructed to communicate with General Ross as soon as—”
“Lieutenant Alch!” Yet another clean-cut, uniformed young man came running from one of the helicopters as they emerged from the crater.
“What is it?”
“The copter that went after that . . . thing—it’s down.”
“We’d better get on its tail ourselves,” Alch said. “But first radio General Ross.”
“Can’t.”
“Can’t?”
“Already tried. His radio isn’t working for some reason.”
“Which way,” asked Banner, “was that monster heading?”
Lieutenant Alch pointed. “In that direction, sir, back toward Crater Falls.”
Without another word, Banner started running, heading for the woods and the town beyond.
“Stop, Dr. Banner!” called Lieutenant Alch. “Stop or we’ll use force!”
“I thought we were only supposed to use force on the Hulk.”
“He is the Hulk.”
“Not exactly, not at the moment,” said the other lieutenant. “It’s sort of complicated. If we gas him, we haven’t actually gassed the Hulk, and yet, if we—”
“Banner can’t get far on foot,” Lieutenant Alch decided. “Let’s take off and see what happened to that chopper.”
While that discussion went on, Banner kept running.
Twenty-Five
For now, Sh’mballah had released all of his slaves. It was a much
greater strain to control them during their waking hours, and he wanted to concentrate on defending himself against his new enemies.
Using his tentacles and the pods on his underside, he went thrashing and undulating swiftly through the forest.
A dull countryside, as dull as its miserable little people. Such pitiful trees, so monotonous in their coloration. Where were the rich blues and crimsons, the pulsing yellows and purples of his homeland? And these pathetic things hardly attained any height at all.
Look what passed for grass on this planet—uninteresting stuff of a sickly green shade. Ah, to move again over the lush golden sward of his homeland, that would be something.
But what was the use of such sentimental lamenting? All the time he’d spent probing the minds of these simple Earth people had planted an unhealthy strain in him. There was no need to regret his lost home. There was no returning; he was an exile forever. This Earth, as dull and drab as it was, this planet would be his home now . . . more than his home—his domain, his kingdom.
He’d make his first stand against them from their own town. Ensconced in one of their sturdier buildings, he’d destroy the dangerous ones and take over the rest. Moving from the town as a base, Sh’mballah would take over another town and then another. Before they had time to mount any serious attack against him, he’d control too many of them.
Something above him. His mind warned him before his upper eye saw the helicopter.
A primitive flying machine, yet possibly capable of doing him some harm. Best thing to do was get rid of it.
Hear me!
He sent a thought zinging up to the brain of the pathetic creature piloting the helicopter.
I am your master!
A faint garble of thoughts came drifting back down to him, enough to let him know he had the pilot in his thrall.
You will crash your aircraft!
Some hesitation, some faint instinct of self-preservation, a touch of loyalty.
I am your master! I command you to crash!
There! Good!
The helicopter came stumbling down out of the sky to smash and explode in the nearby woodland.
Satisfaction rippled through Sh’mballah’s immense body.
It would all go this way; it would be incredibly simple.
Something up ahead. Another challenge.
He left the forest and found himself on a road. A quarter of a mile ahead were several more people, and a land vehicle. Some of these had been his slaves; others were part of the new threat. And one was the youth he hadn’t been able to use. Now and then you found one like that, where the mental rule was impossible. Fortunately, there were few of those.
They saw him now. He sensed fear and repulsion. Hate, dread.
That was to be expected. To rule, however, you didn’t need subjects who loved you. All you needed were subjects.
A female with hair the color of pale flame was screaming, pointing at him. And a man, large for one of these humans, was aiming a weapon at him.
Sh’mballah came as close to being amused as one of his kind could. The pathetic pellet from the gun hit his outer skin and flattened, falling to the dust of the road.
He rolled on toward them.
The youth was forcing the girl into the wood, to hide.
Sh’mballah snapped out a tentacle or two and smacked the youth across the head. Even though he couldn’t control his mind, he could hurt him with his other powers. He sent a strong electric shock into the boy.
Then he threw him against the bole of a tree.
The girl next. Shock and throw.
What was this?
Another of them was trying something different. Going to drive that tiny little machine into him.
Pathetic.
Sh’mballah waited until it was close enough, then whipped it from his path, driver and all.
Kabam!
It made a very satisfying sound as it smashed into the trees.
Sh’mballah continued on his way.
Banner found Rick Jones first.
The young man was lying at the edge of the road, on his back, dirt and blood smearing his face.
“Rick!” Banner knelt beside him.
The boy’s eyes opened. “Christ, he . . . where’s Linda?”
“Not sure,” said Banner, examining his friend. “Mostly bruises and bumps—nothing too serious.”
“That thing,” said Rick as Banner helped him to sit up, “it just grabbed us and . . . it was like being grabbed by a high-voltage cable.” Wincing, he looked around him. “He got Linda, too.”
From the nearby brush came a low moan.
“Stay here,” ordered Banner. “She may be just over there.”
It was the auburn-haired girl, lying like a discarded rag doll. There was an ugly chain of puckered red welts glaring along one bare arm.
“Doesn’t look like anything’s broken,” observed Banner, kneeling beside the awakening girl. “Linda, how do you feel?”
“Strange,” she said. “That creature . . . did he hurt Rick?”
“Not too badly.” He eased an arm around her, got her to her feet. “That arm’s going to have to be treated. Trouble is, I have a hunch Crater Falls is going to have other things on its mind for a while.”
“That’s where it was going . . . to our town,” she said, brushing her hair away from her face. She saw her arm then and gasped. “My Lord, that’s where it touched me!”
“Fancy meeting you here, old chap.” Quartermain was with Rick when Banner and the girl reached the roadway again. The SHIELD agent, except for some rips in his jumpsuit, was in excellent shape. “Good thing I’m noted for my dexterity. That blobby bloke flipped me into a tree, relatively high up. Took a bit of apeman technique to get to the ground.”
“What a damned fine mess this is.” Farther along the road General Thunderbolt Ross was standing, scowling at his overturned Jeep. One of his arms hung limply at his side.
“That arm is bleeding badly, old man,” said Quartermain as he approached the general.
“Just lucky I didn’t break the damned thing.” Snorting, he kicked at one of the Jeep’s tires.
Bloom!
The tire blew out.
“Halfwitted tire!” He turned to scowl at Banner. “What in blue blazes was that thing you let loose?”
“I’m not certain what it is,” said Banner. “And I had nothing to do with releasing it, General. My thought is, the townspeople were recruited to dig him out of the crater.”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Linda. “That’s what all my dreams mean. Except they weren’t dreams—we really were coming out to that pit. It’s awful.”
“Stiff upper lip to one side, General, we better get you to a hospital. An injured arm is—”
“There’re more important things to do.” He moved his scowling countenance closer to Banner’s. “Where’s this glob friend of yours going next, Banner?”
“Crater Falls, I’d guess.”
“Then I better send a flock of planes in to—”
“Not going to be that simple,” said Banner. “He just knocked one of your choppers out of the air. I passed the wreckage on my way here.”
“Yeah, we saw it go down. What about my crew?”
“All dead.” Banner shook his head. “Ship exploded and burned when it hit.”
“Damn!”
“Our transportation problem is solved,” said Quartermain, pointing skyward.
Another of the helicopters was circling overhead, dropping closer to the ground.
“Good. We’ll go into Crater Falls and settle this monster’s hash,” said Thunderbolt Ross.
“Not going to be that simple,” repeated Banner.
Twenty-Six
“There! It’s over there in the church!”
There were people lying in the bright afternoon street, a dozen of them, smashed and broken.
The helicopter had set down in the town square.
Rick noticed that the squirrel-feeding man was
there, hiding behind his usual bench, quaking with fear. Only a few days ago, Rick, guitar over his back, had come wandering into town. It felt like a long time ago.
Hopping from the copter, Banner said, “Rick, see if you can get somebody to look after Linda.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Careful, Bruce, that thing’ll—”
“Look after her.”
“Banner,” warned the general as he got himself to the grassy ground, “you’re officially in the custody of the U.S.—”
“Nope, I’m on my own for the duration of this business.” He left them, running toward the town’s white wooden church.
“I’d fancy one more peek at that beastie.” Quartermain went loping after him.
Spang!
Shards of stained glass exploded out into the street as one of the church’s windows shattered.
“He shouldn’t do that,” said Banner.
“Chap may be an atheist, old man,” said Quartermain. “Never know with these foreign blokes.”
“He’s wrecking the place . . . he’s killing people . . . Hulk must stop him!”
“Good gravy!” exclaimed Quartermain, slowing, then stopping.
Banner had made another transformation. In his place was the Hulk, the green mammoth, muscles bulging, teeth gnashing. “You knocked Hulk down once! No more.”
“Wisely, I think I’ll sit this one out.” Quartermain backed off to watch.
The green giant went bounding up the stone steps of the venerable church.
Stay away!
“You do not scare Hulk!”
I’ll do worse this time! I can defeat you!
“Not this time! No!”
The Hulk barged into the church, pushing through the polished oaken doors.
Sh’mballah had taken over the interior of the place. His immense body filled the aisle and spilled over into the pews. He had sensed that the people would be reluctant to destroy this sacred building. But he hadn’t anticipated the Hulk’s return.
It’s too late! I intend to rule!
“You won’t rule anybody! Hulk will smash you now!”
The big green man ran full tilt at the crater creature. He dodged the whipping tentacles and dug his fingers into the pulpy flesh near the head.