Fear and Trembling

by Robert Bloch

  “I still think you’re making a mistake—”

  I shook my head. “I’m making a star. From now on, we’re all going to be concentrating on that concert.”

  Beckoning to Drool, I moved toward the house. “Time to hit the sack,” I said.

  And we did. Despite Drool’s policy of letting sleeping-bags lie, he rested beside me all night.

  When morning came, we went to work. And that’s the story of the next ten days—work and more work. Grafitti wrote lyrics. Swinger did arrangements. With them I coached Drool on proper styles of delivery; how to slur his pronunciation and moan words incoherently, where to go off-key, and all the other techniques of today’s top vocalists. Luke Emia and Sandy were kept busy loading platters on the stereo as Drool listened to the groups he’d be imitating—the Zappers, the Calamity Howlers, Rock Bottom and the Living Ends, and all the other great artists.

  “You’re a slave-driver,” Cy Kotic complained. “I don’t even have time to listen to the news any more. Because of you, I’ve missed two declarations of war, an epidemic, four riots, six mass-murders and nine tax increases. If I can’t keep up with these normal, every-day events, how can I stay in touch with reality?”

  Only Barf seemed satisfied with the schedule. He’d rearranged his habits so that he now slept all day and stayed awake all night. It was then, while the rest of us retired to our sleeping-bags, that he proceeded with his educational activities. He and Drool spent those nocturnal hours in Barf’s room upstairs where the philosopher lived in a fashion once popular in square circles. I’d never been invited to that room, but I know it contained books, a writing desk, and even an old monophonic record-player.

  It was the sound of the latter which aroused me one midnight just at a time when I was about to entice Sandy over to my sleeping-bag to discuss the territorial imperative.

  “What’s that?” I muttered, jumping up and taking the stairs two at a time. As I burst into Barf’s room the sound ceased.

  Drool was seated on the floor amidst a welter of records and books. Barf stood at the record-player, removing a disc.

  “What were you playing just now?” I demanded.

  Barf put the platter away. “Just a recording from my own collection.”

  “Stop wasting Drool’s time. You’re supposed to be teaching him something worthwhile.”

  “But he is.” Drool indicated the volumes stacked up beside him on the floor. “He’s taught me a great deal about life in your world. We’ve been going through the encyclopedia, slowly. Three volumes a night—”

  “Three volumes?”

  “Drool is a very fast reader,” Barf explained. “And a very fast listener, too. I answer questions as he goes along.”

  “What sort of questions?” I inquired.

  “Well, we’re up to the letter P,” Drool said. “So we’ve been discussing pathology and psychosis and poverty and plagues and pollution and population explosion and prejudice and Pop Art—” He nodded reassuringly. “I’m beginning to understand how you people live.”

  “I’ve just been discussing public opinion polls,” Barf explained. “For example, here’s one of the latest—a poll taken to determine whether or not people believe in polls—”

  “Who needs it?” I glanced disapprovingly at the book-shelves lining the walls.

  “You think books are obsolete?” Drool asked, eagerly. “So does Marshall McLuhan. In fact, he wrote a book about it.”

  I gripped Drool’s shoulder and pulled him to his feet. “Come on,” I murmured. “You’re going downstairs with me.”

  Barf looked confused. “Don’t you approve of my educational methods?”

  I shook my head. “Teach him the things he must know when he’s rich and successful. How to handle a sports-car with a right-hand drive, how to order a hamburger from a French menu, how to set up a tax-free foundation. That’s what he needs to learn—the practical stuff! With only a few days left before the concert, I don’t want his mind cluttered up with a lot of useless knowledge. Facts will only confuse him.”

  Barf gestured tentatively. “Are you quite sure this is what you want?” he said quietly. “In a world of chaos, can’t you think of any meaningful contribution besides more chaos?”

  “People want to get zonked,” I told him. “That’s what’s happening, baby. You go with whatever turns you on.”

  “Maybe it’s time to turn off,” Barf mused. “Before we reach a point of no return, where sheer sensory impact loses meaning. We have no music any more—just the beat. Our abstract art is nothing but a series of Rorschach tests. When artists cease to communicate with their audiences, the ability to communicate is soon lost and all that matters is subjective sensation, drug-induced. We have sold our birthright for a mess of pot.”

  “End of lecture,” I snapped, and dragged Drool downstairs.

  “But I like talking to him,” Drool protested. “He’s even taught me about warfare and strategy. Divide and conquer. To the victor belongs the spoils. Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes. Oh, if I only had my superdisintegratosonic weapon now—I could take over in no time!”

  “You take over Saturday,” I reminded. “By making a success of the concert. And until then, I’m calling the shots.”

  The remaining days before the performance blended into a hyperactive blur. Rehearsals and last-minute preparations occupied every waking moment and even invaded my dreams.

  If I’d taken time to reflect I probably would have kept a closer watch on my companions, but it didn’t occur to me. I was only vaguely aware that Luke Emia absented himself from the house at regular intervals, and that Barf and Drool exchanged muttered conversations in the corner whenever they met.

  But I was too busy to check up. I spent hours on the horn with Sylvester Schlock, going over the publicity and promotion for the concert, and additional hours with Swinger, Grafitti and Sandy, planning the numbers to use in the program itself.

  By Friday evening I was a basket case. “Tranquilizers don’t help any more,” I told Cy Kotic. “You were a doctor once. Can’t you do something to calm me down? Isn’t there some kind of operation—a pre-frontal lobotomy—?”

  “This you need like a hole in the head,” he replied. “Now just relax. Tomorrow at this time it will all be forgotten. That’s your answer, the same answer I give all my patients. Just remember to forget.”

  It sounded like a great notion, and somehow it got me through the final night.

  Late that evening I wandered out on the patio with Drool and Sandy. The view was breathtaking. So was the smog.

  “Look!” Sandy gestured to the east. “Those lights, way off in the distance—isn’t that Groovyland?”

  “It’s all Groovyland,” I told her. “The whole world.”

  Drool nodded excitedly. “Just think—like tomorrow I’m going to conquer it!”

  “Sure,” I said, smiling at Sandy. I wasn’t worried about Drool and his predictions. As far as I was concerned, all this talk about conquest was just his schtick.

  The only trouble with schticks, of course, is that sometimes you wind up with the short end . . .

  IX

  They came to Groovyland on Saturday night.

  They came by Cadillac and by pick-up truck, by station-wagon and by motorcycle, by sleek and shiny sports-car and by broken-down bus. They tangled the traffic on the freeway, turning the air blue with exhaust fumes and with curses. They jammed the parking-lot, jockeying for position as they smashed one another’s fenders. They glowered and glared, swore and snarled, then pushed and pummeled their way into the lines before the ticket-windows. Twenty thousand of them came, sweating and squirming and shrieking their way into their seats. And why not? After all, they came here to have fun.

  We came for business; Luke Emia in his car, Barf, Swinger, Grafitti and Cy Kotic in a Volkswagen. Sandy and Drool rode with me. Originally I’d intended to bring them all, but Luke pointed out the advantages of keeping extra transportation handy.

>   “Suppose we need to make a fast get-away after the concert,” he said.

  “I don’t think you’re a bit funny,” Sandy told him. But in the end, we split up and drove our separate ways.

  While the others joined the audience in the Hall of the Mountain King, Sandy and I conducted Drool backstage.

  “Up tight?” Sandy whispered to him.

  Drool shook his head and grinned. “Under control.”

  And why not? He didn’t have to scuffle for bread, because he didn’t eat. He didn’t need a fancy pad because he didn’t sleep. He was the quintessence of all that the gurus taught and the hippies sought—a completely non-involved entity who lived merely to do his thing.

  Maybe if I had his advantages I wouldn’t be here. I’d have turned Drool over to the scientists for study, let them examine his unique physiology and alien mentality. Or perhaps I’d just let him free to go his own way in the world.

  But I did have to eat and I did need a pad, and my thing was everybody’s thing—do unto others before they do unto you.

  So I was here, and I was nervous.

  Jostling through the narrow corridor behind the outdoor stage, we came to the tiny cubicle which served as Sylvester Schlock’s temporary headquarters for the evening. He bounded into the hall and grasped my hand.

  “Did you see the crowd?” he demanded. “Beautiful!”

  I stared into the office over his shoulder. “So is that,” I told him.

  The floor of the little room was stacked with canvas bags stuffed with coins and currency; loose bills and loose change cascaded from their containers, brought here from the box-offices.

  “Twenty thousand customers at three bucks a throw,” Schlock murmured. “Sixty thousand on one concert alone. And if your boy makes it big tonight—”

  “He will,” I promised. “Just keep an eye on him.”

  “Sorry,” said Schlock. “I’ve got to stay here and keep an eye on the loot. I never mix business with pleasure, and watching money like this is a pleasure, believe me.”

  “But I thought you were going to introduce our star—”

  “There’s a mike on stage. Why don’t you do the honors?” Schlock waved me forward. “Better start soon, that mob is getting restless.”

  Sandy squeezed my hand. I squeezed back. And then, somehow I was out there under the lights, under the scrutiny of twenty thousand pairs of watchful eyes. And I was winging something about, “Tonight we bring you a new era in entertainment—a new star straight from the heavens—Sneed Hearn!”

  The applause rose, and Drool stepped onstage, moving to the microphone and bowing.

  “This is it,” I whispered. “Remember—all systems go!”

  “I’ll lay it on them,” Drool promised.

  I left the stage, perspiring.

  Drool stood under the spotlight, grinning.

  The crowd fell silent, waiting.

  I’ll never forget that moment; the hushed, still moment of expectancy.

  And I’ll never forget the moment that followed it; the moment when Drool opened his mouth.

  Drool opened his mouth and the music came out. It poured and pulsed, surged and soared.

  It wasn’t just the sound of a vocalist and a small combo—the majestic strains issuing from that tiny throat were the unmistakable utterance of a mighty orchestra and full chorus.

  “Holy Toledo!” Schlock moaned.

  “No,” I corrected. “That’s not it. What he’s laying on them is Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony!”

  Schlock may have groaned again; if so I didn’t hear it, for the sound was drowned in the greater groan of the audience. Even Beethoven was lost in the impromptu chorale of boos, hisses, shouts and catcalls.

  “Get him off before they murder him!” Schlock shrieked, pushing me onstage.

  I got him off. “Come on,” I muttered, grabbing Drool by the nape of his neck. “They’re starting to throw things.” And indeed they were. I dodged a pizza hurled by an indignant music-lover and ducked a beer-bottle aimed at me by another patron of the arts.

  “What’s the matter?” Drool quavered. “Why don’t they like it? Barf told me they would—”

  “Barf?” I shook my head, but the picture was clear now, only too clear. That two-bit philosopher had corrupted our boy with classical music on his own record-player, seduced him into symphonies. “Wait until I get my hands on him!” I promised.

  But wait we would. Right now the important thing was to keep that angry crowd out front from getting their hands on us.

  Somehow I propelled Drool into the wings. The audience was rising, converging on the stage amidst a thunder of rage.

  The thunder was split by the lightning of Sandy’s scream.

  “No!” she wailed. “Stop—”

  I glanced up quickly, then blinked in sudden shock. Apparently Barf wasn’t the only traitor in our midst.

  For there, standing beside the little offstage cubicle where the box-office receipts rested, was Luke Emia. As Schlock and Sandy raised their hands high in helpless surrender, Luke moved forward to cover them with—

  “My superdisintegratosonic weapon!” Drool squealed happily. “He found it!”

  Which explained Luke’s interest when he questioned me about the lost weapon, explained his absence during recent evenings when he went out to hunt for it in the canyon brush near the house. It also explained why he’d suggested we drive here tonight in separate cars. He had the weapon, and now he had the caper: holding up the place for the concert receipts.

  “Stand back!” Luke warned. “Don’t anybody move—”

  The words came too late, for Drool was already ducking under his arm, tugging at the oddly shaped, rifle-like object in Luke’s hands. Luke pulled the trigger—

  Then it was in Drool’s hands, just as the weapon went off. Drool jerked the muzzle aside just in time to avoid the puff of greenish smoke which burst forth and coalesced into—

  Another Drool, standing side by side with his exact counter-part, an identical twin Drool holding an identical weapon from which a puff of greenish smoke burst forth to coalesce into a third Drool—

  “Stop!” I shouted.

  “Not until I conquer the world,” Drool gurgled.

  “With that thing? It doesn’t kill anyone!”

  “Never said it did,” Drool shrugged. “All it does is reproduce.”

  “You mean it duplicates?”

  “Reproduces,” Drool corrected me. “How do you think Krool managed to have four million offspring?”

  Another greenish puff and from it, another Drool—then another and another—

  “That’s the secret of taking over the world,” the Drools chorused. “Divide and conquer.”

  A rumbling roar from the platform behind us indicated another kind of problem.

  “It’s the audience!” Schlock cried. “They’re storming the stage—they’ll tear us to pieces—”

  “Don’t worry,” said the Drools in unison. “We outnumber them.”

  Then six Drools turned and marched onstage, raising six weapons. Six puffs coalesced and as the crowd shrank back there were twelve Drools facing them. Twelve weapons raised, and now the twelve became twenty-four. Twenty-four became forty-eight and forty-eight became ninety-six and ninety-six became a hundred and ninety-two and a hundred and ninety-two became an army and the army became—

  But you get the idea.

  So did I.

  Grabbing Sandy’s hand, I ran for it.

  X

  It is very quiet here.

  Sandy and I stopped to plunder a refreshment stand on our way, and I think we have a big enough stock of provisions to last us indefinitely.

  That’s good, because I’m not sure we’re ever going to come out again.

  At the rate Drool was reproducing himself, he may well have managed to take over the world by sheer weight of numerical supremacy alone.

  And I can just see it now—everybody knee-deep in masses of Drools, rising higher and highe
r until they smother. It’s the final population explosion, I suppose.

  And since Drools don’t eat or sleep or have much need of oxygen; there’s no reason to suppose they’ll ever stop multiplying. If they ever get the idea to start singing in unison, the sound-waves will topple every man-made structure on earth. Oh, there’s no end to the possibilities.

  But meanwhile, Sandy and I will stay here, where it’s safe and quiet. Here, in Bodyland, in the one hiding-place that we can depend on.

  We’re back in the womb.

  Some day, when it’s all over, we may venture out again, just to see what happened. Right now I like it here, and I’m not about to move. The way things are now, Drool can have his world.

  It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there . . .

  The Chaney Legacy

  This story is dedicated, with gratitude, to Harlan Ellison.

  Nobody thought Dale was crazy until the trouble started.

  True, he’d been a film buff ever since he was a kid, the way other youngsters sometimes get hungup on baseball, football, or even chess. If they follow their hobby into adult life such interests can become an obsession, yet no one thinks it’s a sign of insanity.

  In Dale’s case his studies led him into teaching a course on film history at the university, which seemed sensible enough. Certainly he appeared to be normal; he wasn’t one of those wimpy professors seen in comedy films aimed at the junk-food generation.

  Actually Dale was rather attractive. Debbie Curzon thought so. She was a newscaster on local radio where she met and interviewed many of the stud celebrities in sports or films; Dale must have had some charisma for her to choose him as a lover.

  The two of them might have ended up together on a permanent basis if Dale hadn’t leased the Chaney house.

  That’s what the realtor called it—“the Chaney house”—although Dale couldn’t verify the claim and the ancient escrow was clouded. The place was really just a small cottage halfway up Nichols Canyon in the Hollywood hills. Huddled amidst a tangle of trees and underbrush on a dirt side-road which turned to quicksand during the rainy season, the weatherbeaten frame dwelling offered no exterior charm or interior comfort. Debbie’s reluctance to share it was understandable, but once he found it Dale couldn’t wait to move in.