Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Okay,” I shrugged. “I did my best. I’d better be getting along, got a lot of calls to make.”

  “Yes, I think that is a good idea,” Slouch Hat said.

  I smiled at them and turned for the door. I guess I was just born without brains. I hadn’t taken a step before something like a battering ram exploded against the base of my skull and a blazing pinwheel of light danced in front of my eyes for an instant and then faded into blackness as I pitched to the floor . . .

  A cool, strong breeze in my face brought me around. When I was able to blink open my eyes I saw that I was sitting in the rear of a big smoothly purring car that was eating the ribbon of road that extended ahead of us. There was salty tinge to the breeze that whipped in from the windows and, in spite of the darkness that obscured the scenery, I could tell that we were heading toward the coast.

  I looked to my left.

  Slouch Hat was sitting beside me, a hand in his pocket.

  I looked to my right.’

  The big blond ox was there, hand in pocket. He regarded me sullenly and I knew why when I saw the ugly bluish bruise on the knuckles of his exposed hand.

  There was a throbbing ache at the base of my skull where the young ox had slugged me.

  “Okay,” I said, “what goes?”

  “Shut up,” Slouch Hat said. “You’ll know soon enough.”

  There was an ominous ring in the man’s voice. I shut up. About twenty minutes later the car swung off the highway and followed a crooked dirt road for several jolting miles and then, just when I was feeling like a milkshake, it slowed to a stop alongside a small dark hut.

  Ahead, by the silver glow of the moon, I could see the shimmering beauty of the ocean. The driver got out and Slouch Hat followed suit. The blond ox shoved a gun into my side.

  “Get out,” he said softly. “And be careful.”

  I stumbled through the darkness toward the hut. There was a gun in my back and nothing else I could do. The door was open and I stepped over the threshold with a clammy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  The door slammed behind me and then, an instant later, a small light was flashed on, casting a pale, uncertain illumination about the little room.

  The room was small and crudely furnished and there was only one door other than the one by which I had entered. Slouch Hat was standing in the center of the room regarding me with a humorless smile; the driver was at the window peering out toward the ocean; the blond ox was directly behind me and I knew that the muzzle of his gun was but inches from my spinal column.

  “Kidnapping is a pretty serious business,” I said to Slouch Hat. “Especially kidnapping reporters. How do you propose to wiggle out of that?”

  Slouch Hat’s grin was wolfish. “Since you are being technical,” he said, “the charge against us will not be kidnapping.” He paused and his smile widened. “The charge will be murder!”

  The blond ox behind me grabbed my wrists, jerked them together and looped a rope about them and pulled the knots tight. There wasn’t much point in struggling.

  The driver at the window said quietly, “There is the signal.”

  “Good,” Slouch Hat nodded. “We must hurry.”

  He stepped over and opened the room’s other door and said something in a low voice. There was a movement inside the connecting room and then a small figure appeared in the doorway. A small man with a red face and black hair and pleasant intelligent features.

  I recognized him instantly as Ang-Ar. He looked at me briefly, without interest, then turned to the tall dark leader.

  “Are we ready?” His small hands were concealed in his pockets, and he spoke softly, without expression.

  Slouch Hat nodded. My blond keeper shoved me toward the door. Outside the darkness was relieved by a quarter moon. We followed a pathway leading to the beach. Slouch Hat was in the lead; Ang-Ar was behind him, followed by the stocky figure of the driver. The blond ox and I brought up the rear.

  When we reached the beach Slouch Hat produced a flashlight and signalled rapidly. His light was answered by another far out on the dark swell of the water. And I could see an ominous black shadow about two hundred yards out. A long dark shadow that was like the drifting carcass of a mighty shark. A cold hand of fear closed around my heart. Suddenly everything was clear. These men were agents of the Axis, one of their subs was lying out on the surface of the water either to pick them up or to unload more spies and saboteurs. What part Ang-Ar was playing in this game I didn’t know.

  Slouch Hat turned to me. His smile was gone.

  “If you had been able to control your inquisitive instincts,” he said, “this unpleasantness might have been avoided.”

  Slowly he drew a gun from his pocket.

  “Unfortunately you must remain behind,” he said.

  Ang-Ar stepped forward quietly. His glance was puzzled as it moved over the three Axis agents.”

  “But, gentlemen,” he said softly, “you—”

  “Please keep quiet,” Slouch Hat said harshly. “What I said has nothing to do with what I am going to do. Remember that I have this.” He whipped out a small slender tube from his coat pocket. I recognized it as the disintegrating ray weapon.

  “Of course you have it,” Ang-Ar said, “I gave it to you.” He shook his head in a puzzled fashion. “I do not understand this. If you men are agents of the United Nations—”

  “What!” I yelled. I couldn’t help it. I suddenly saw the whole picture. I wheeled to Ang-Ar, breaking away from the blond guard who held me. “Don’t listen to these lying rats,” I shouted. “They’re—”

  Slouch Hat stepped forward and clubbed me with the butt of his gun along the temple. A sick, nauseous pain flooded through me as I fell helplessly to the ground; but I didn’t black out. I just lay there, gasping and miserable. Through a maze of pain I saw Slouch Hat swing his gun around to cover Ang-Ar.

  “Don’t make a move,” he snapped. “I have what I want from you and I’d be happy to blast a hole through your stomach.”

  “You struck a helpless man,” Ang-Ar said in a soft musing tone. “That is the evidence of the brute streak, I imagine. That is the mark by which one can tell them.” He sounded like a man talking to himself, thinking a problem over out loud before arriving at a definite conclusion.

  “Shut up!” Slouch Hat said tensely. His gun hand was trembling with the eagerness to fire.

  “How stupid I’ve been,” Ang-Ar murmured. “I am very dissatisfied with myself.”

  Slouch Hat backed slightly. “You talk too much,” he murmured to Ang-Ar.

  I saw the gleam in his eye. “—careful,” I croaked. “He’s going to shoot.”

  “Yes,” said Ang-Ar reflectively, “I imagine he is.”

  With a slight smile he moved one hand slightly and instantly a blazing aura of brilliant radiation sprang about him, like a protective shield. Slouch Hat fired three times in rapid succession. Ang-Ar continued to smile. The bullets melted with an audible hiss as they struck the fiery armor of leaping light surrounding him.

  The three Axis agents staggered back, but they were unable to avoid the three shafts of lance-like light that suddenly speared forth from the cone of energy and drove into their foreheads.

  They fell, sprawling on the sand, without a sound. And the blazing light that surrounded Ang-Ar faded away. I felt his hands working on my bonds and then I was free and staggering dizzily to my feet.

  “I have been unpleasantly duped,” he said, with a rather humble smile. “I came here under the impression that I was to meet the heads of your war department. Instead these men—”

  A rattle suddenly sounded over the water and spray began kicking up along the shoreline.

  “The sub,” I snapped. “They’re opening up on us. Get down!”

  “How foolish of them,” Ang-Ar murmured.

  The blazing cone of energy sprang about him again. He raised one arm and a brilliant, arcing beam of light flashed out over the water. There was a mighty roar in my ears
and then hissing, sputtering turbulence, as if all the boilers in the world were suddenly exploding.

  The light blinded me and the noise pounded in my ears until I could hear nothing. When the cataclysmic roar subsided the blazing radiance disappeared and, a hundred yards out, I could see a great frothing series of bubbles and oil breaking the surface. The shark-like shadow of the sub was gone.

  Ang-Ar stepped to the sprawled body of the man who had worn the slouch hat and took a small slender object from his limp fingers. It was the small disintegrator ray. He slipped it into his pocket.

  “I shall leave you now,” he said. “My coming here was a mistake. I might do more harm than good by trying to help your brave people. The difference between the development of our civilizations is too great to be spanned; but,” he smiled fleetingly, “should you really need us we will be ready and waiting.” The cone of electrical energy blazed again and when its glow subsided I was alone on the beach with the bodies of three Axis agents.

  I turned and headed back up the path to where we had left the car . . .

  Of course I got the credit for single-handedly capturing three saboteurs who attempted to land on our coast. I felt guilty as hell accepting the plaudits of everyone from the President on down, but what could I do? If I told the truth I’d wind up in a strait jacket. So . . .

  Now, on still nights, when I’m working a late beat I look up and find the red eye of Mars winking in the blackness of the bowl of night—and I feel a pleasant warm glow of reassurance.

  We won’t need their help to win this war. But it’s comforting to know if we should, Ang-Ar and others like him are ready and willing and waiting.

  SPAWN OF HELL

  First published in the February 1943 issue of Fantastic Adventures.

  No matter what the punishment in the hereafter, here was a priest who dared to call upon demons to fight the Nazis!

  THE long powerful German staff car crawled slowly along the tortuous trail that was but faintly outlined by the silver light of the moon; and in the rear of the car OberLeutnant Reinwold smoked nervously and glanced from side to side, striving vainly to pierce the Stygian gloom of the Black Forest which rose in a engulfing dark wave from the sides of the rutted road.

  “Careful, fool!” he barked at the driver, as the car lurched suddenly. “Do you want to kill us both?”

  “Sorry, sir,” the driver said. He was hunched close to the wheel and his eyes were narrow, red-rimmed slits in his stolid face. The long lances of the headlights stretched ahead of the car like the feelers of a giant bug. H-Their bright sharp light knifed through the swirling fogs that drifted through the dark mass of the trees and lowered over the road like a grim pall.

  The driver wiped the windshield with a gloved hand.

  “How much longer?” the Oberleutnant asked.

  “Only a few hundred yards, sir,” the driver grunted.

  Oberleutnant Reinwold settled back against the cushions of the car and lighted another cigarette. He looked out of the right window again and an involuntary shudder crawled along his spine as he contemplated the moody, desolate horror of the terrain.

  The thick dark mass of trees grew to the edge of the poorly defined trail and their soft leaves scraped against the top of the car as it passed; a gray swirling mist hung over the entire area, thick, damp and oppressive. And overhead the slim crescent moon cast an eerie silver glow that frosted the tips of the trees with a pale luminescence.

  The Oberleutnant drew the fur collar of his great coat closer about his shoulders. He was a tall, sparely built man with a narrow face and hard gray eyes. He was a complete realist. There was nothing in appearance to suggest otherwise; and yet there was something in the weirdness and wildness of the Black Forest, something about the ancient legends that were whispered about this area of brooding mists and moaning winds, there was something in all this that got under his tight armor of icy realism and pierced him with a strange sense of terror.

  He dropped his cigarette to the floor of the car and ground it out with heel of a polished boot. He found a certain satisfaction in the physical action of destroying the glowing ember of the cigarette, of grinding the tobacco and paper into a shredded pulp. The Oberleutnant liked things that were solid and real; things that could be felt and seen and heard; things that could be bent and broken and crushed. For that reason the Oberleutnant did not like the Black Forest and its brooding sense of desolation and mystery. He had the feeling that its secret was one that could not be destroyed.

  He lit another cigarette and he felt a slight irritation with himself. He was behaving and thinking like a superstitious peasant. He smiled ironically and drew deeply on his cigarette. The smoke drifted from his mouth in blue-gray streamers and merged imperceptibly with the white wisps of fog that seeped into the interior of the car.

  He reflected that in just such a manner would National Socialism absorb the impure doctrines and ideologies that held other nations in their demoralizing grasp. The Oberleutnant considered this thought for a moment and he was pleased with its profundity. It had a touch of the same mystical vision that accompanied der Fuehrer’s pronouncements and it was certainly not a thought that would occur to a peasant.

  He would mention it casually at the next party meeting. Who could tell? It might drift upward and find its way to Goebbel’s ears. And that would not hurt the career of Oberleutnant Reinwold.

  THE car stopped abruptly at a crossroads. A helmeted figure stepped from a motorcycle at the side of the road and approached the car.

  Oberleutnant Reinwold stepped from the car and returned the soldier’s brisk salute.

  “Well?” His voice was crisp with eagerness. “Have you caught them? Have you found their trail?”

  The helmeted soldier shook his head.

  “We have had no sign of them, Herr Oberleutnant. I have contacted all the other patrols before meeting you here. They report the same as ours. We have patrolled every possible trail and searched every house in the vicinity but have not seen them. The earth has swallowed them without leaving a trace.”

  The Oberleutnant slapped his gloves into the palm of his left hand with a sharp cracking report.

  “Fools! Dumkopfs!” he cried. His voice was hoarse with biting, caustic rage. “The two of them were seen in Heidleberg only six hours ago. They have fled to this section of the forests. And you cannot find them! Are you waiting for them to walk into your hands? Have you looked for them?”

  “We have looked. We have questioned everyone in the neighborhood. But everywhere it is the same. The peasants know nothing. And they are smiling at one another as we leave.”

  “The swine!” Oberleutnant Reinwold muttered. He slapped his gloves into the palm of his hand again. There was a hard thoughtful frown on his face. “There is a monastery in this neighborhood, is there not?”

  “Yes. I think it was called Saint Benedict’s. It is a crumbling pile of stones, now. There is one old monk there, Brother Joseph, but he is half blind and out of his head.”

  “Have you searched there?”

  “No, but—”

  “Fool!” the Oberleutnant said disgustedly. “You should have looked there first. How far is it from here?”

  “Only a mile or so. It is in the valley at this foot of this road.”

  “Get in the car. We shall pay Brother Joseph a visit. Perhaps he is not as harmless as you seem to think . . .”

  OBERLEUTNANT REINWOLD flashed the light of his torch on the massive oaken door of the monastery as he strode up the mossy stone walk that led to the main entrance. His feet slipped on the soft slick moss with each step; and thick swirling mists transformed the light of his torch into a ghostly flickering beacon.

  But he was not afraid. The comforting weight of his Luger hung at his waist and the firm steps of the helmeted soldier matched his own as they approached the massive, rusty-hinged door.

  The soldier drew his gun and gripped it by the barrel. When they reached the door he pounded its solid timbers w
ith the butt of his gun, until the thudding reverberations echoed back from the depths of the forest.

  Oberleutnant Reinwold stepped back and surveyed the vast looming bulk of the monastery, silhouetted against the pale light of the moon. Its towers had crumbled years before to the general level of the building; broken panes of glass winked in the faint light like the sly eyes of an old beggar. And there was a brooding, pervading silence that shrouded the dark pile of rock with a sepulchral atmosphere.

  His study of the building was interrupted by the dry rusty rattle of a chain and he heard hinges creaking protestingly. The door of the monastery opened slowly and an old man with a candle in his hand appeared in the doorway. One thin hand was cupped about the guttering candle flame and above this light, two rheumy blue eyes stared out with mild bewilderment.

  “Yes?” the old man said in a thin faltering voice. “Is there something you want?”

  Oberleutnant Reinwold studied the white-haired, brown-frocked old man for several seconds in silence. He noticed the thin, hunger-twisted body, the trembling hands and weak loose lips and he observed the blank dazed light in the old monk’s blue eyes.

  He slapped his gloves into his hand with sudden irritation. This was a species that should be completely eliminated from the Reich.

  “We are looking for two criminals, old man,” he said, biting the words off sharply. “They are known to have come this way. Have you seen them?”

  “Criminals?” The old man looked apprehensively from Oberleutnant Reinwold to the helmeted trooper. “What have they done?”

  “They have attempted to escape from Germany,” the Oberleutnant snapped. “They are heading for the Swiss border. They are non-Aryans. Have you seen them?”

  “No, I have not seen anybody,” the old monk said, shaking his head slowly. His hand strayed uncertainly to his sunken cheeks. “I do not see anybody anymore. But I used to,” he said softly. A slow smile came on his face. “There used to be many of us here. We worked in the fields all day in the hot sun but we did not mind. At night we prayed together in the chapel. We were very happy.”