Midnight Grinding (23 page)

Two hissing pops signaled the activation of the second and third projectiles. “Let’s get out of here!” said Deckard.

By the time they reached the front door of the courthouse, they could hear the creaking and crackling of the wall supports dissolving away and collapsing beneath the weight of the upper floor. They glanced back only once before escaping to the open space of the town square, and the sight they witnessed was truly a horrifying one. A rolling cloud of the yellow gas was snaking its way down the hallway, leaving a trail of structural damage in its wake.

“The one who shot that stuff through the window!” Bud suddenly said. “Where is he?”

He was answered by the brittle report of a gunshot. He and Sam Biggs turned to see Agents Forsyth and Deckard rushing to a dark form that lay beneath an oak tree. They joined the FBI men just as they were holstering their guns and cuffing the man’s hands behind his back. The tall, dark-haired man in the gray coveralls had been hit once in the calf of his right leg. Next to him lay the injection tool that the late Alan Becket had described. No one went near the thing or picked it up, afraid that they might accidentally trigger another lethal dose of Tyrophex-14.

A moment later a thunderous crash sounded behind them and they turned. The Bedloe County courthouse had completely collapsed, its lower supports chemically eradicated by the spreading cloud of vaporous enzyme. All that was left were bricks and blackened file cabinets. As for the destructive mist that had wreaked the havoc, it drifted skyward and dissipated in the cool night air, soon becoming diluted and harmless.

***

“Well, we finally got the story,” called the voice of Richard Forsyth. “And believe me, it turned out to be a lot worse than we first suspected.”

Sam Biggs and Bud Fulton looked up from their coffee cups as the two FBI agents entered the lounge of the federal building. It was almost midnight and the pair had been at it for hours, interrogating the man who had been responsible for the deaths of Jasper Horne and Alan Becket. From the weary but satisfied expressions on their faces, the county sheriff and the rural vet could tell that they had finally cracked the killer’s shell and gotten the information they wanted.

Forsyth and Deckard got themselves some coffee and sat down at the table. “First of all, the suspect’s name is Vincent Carvell,” said Forsyth. “He’s a white-collar hit man; a trouble-shooter that hires out to major corporations and takes care of their dirty business. And it seems that his latest client paid him very generously to help keep Tyrophex-14 a big secret.”

“Exactly who was his client?” asked Bud.

“A major corporation whose name you would instantly recognize. We would reveal it, but unfortunately we can’t, due to security risks,” said Forsyth apologetically. “You see, this corporation manufactures some very well-known products. In fact, it is responsible for thirty percent of this country’s pharmaceutical and household goods. What the public doesn’t know is that its research and development department also does some government work on the side. Mostly classified projects for the military.” The older agent sipped his coffee and looked to Deckard, passing the ball to him.

“Although we can’t give you specific details,” continued Deckard, “we can give you the gist of what Tyrophex-14 is all about. You see, this corporation was doing some work for the Defense Department. Their scientists were attempting to develop an enzymatic gas to be implemented by the armed forces. It was originally intended to be used for chemical warfare in the event that similar weapons were used against our own troops. But the Defense Department pulled the plug on the project when the corporation’s scientists perfected a gas that dissolved any type of matter, organic or otherwise, with the exception of metal and stone. Tests showed that it was very unstable and difficult to control, so the project was quickly terminated and hushed up.”

“But what the Defense Department didn’t know,” said Forsyth, “was that this corporation had already produced quite a large quantity of this destructive chemical, which had been labeled Tyrophex-14. They did a battery of tests, unbeknownst to the federal government, to see if it had any practical commercial use. And, obviously, they believed they had found it. Maybe their intentions were good at first. Maybe they actually believed that they had discovered a solution to the earth’s garbage problem. But, ultimately, they failed to seek the proper approval and chose to market it covertly. That was when the unstable properties of Tyrophex-14 got out of control…and began to kill innocent people.”

“And they hired this hit man to hush things up?” asked Sheriff Biggs. “He killed Jasper Horne and Alan Becket, just to cover this corporation’s tracks?”

“Yes, and he would have killed us too, if we hadn’t escaped from the courthouse. Carvell figured he could erase the threat of discovery if the investigators and the evidence vanished in a cloud of Tyrophex-14.”

The thought of having come so close to death cast an uneasy silence over the four men. They thought of the blackened hull of Jasper’s pickup truck and the rubble of the Bedloe County courthouse, and thanked God that they hadn’t fallen victim to that corrosive monstrosity that had been conjured from the union of raw elements and complex chemical equations.

***

A couple of nights after the collapse of the county courthouse, Bud Fulton sat alone in his den, stretched out in his recliner and sipping on a beer. The room was dark and the nightly news was playing on the television, but he wasn’t really paying very much attention to what transpired on the screen. Instead, he thought of the phone call he had received at the clinic that day. It had been Sheriff Biggs, filling him in on the results of the FBI’s midnight raid on the shadowy corporation responsible for manufacturing the deadly chemical gas known as Tyrophex-14.

Sam had told him that the raid had taken place discreetly and that it would remain a secret matter, solely between the federal government and their unscrupulous employee. The FBI had failed to say what sort of steps would be taken to see that the project was buried and that experimentation in that particular area was never explored again. But Agent Forsyth had volunteered one last bit of information, albeit disturbing, to repay Biggs and Fulton for keeping silent on the delicate matter.

Forsyth had said that the records of the corporation had listed twenty 50,000 gallon tanks as being the extent of the chemical’s manufactured volume. But when the federal agents had checked the actual inventory, only seventeen of the tanks had been found on the company grounds.

Bud drove the sordid business from his mind and tried to concentrate on the work he had to do tomorrow. He was scheduled to give a few rabies and distemper shots in the morning, after which he would head to the Pittman farm to dehorn a couple of bad tempered bulls. Somehow, the simple practices of rural veterinarian seemed downright tame compared to what he had been through the night before last.

Bud finished his beer while watching the local weather and sportscast. He was reaching for the remote control, intending to turn off the set and go to bed, when a news anchor appeared on the screen again with a special bulletin. Bud leaned forward and watched as the picture cut away to a live report.

A female reporter stood next to a train that had derailed a few miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. Firemen milled behind her and the wreckage was illuminated by the spinning blue and red lights of the emergency vehicles that had been called to the scene. The reporter began to talk, informing the viewers of the details of the train derailment. But Bud Fulton’s attention wasn’t on the woman or the story that she had to sell.

Instead, his eyes shifted to the huge tanker car that lay overturned directly behind her. He prayed that he was mistaken, but his doubts faded when the TV camera moved in closer, bringing the details of the cylindrical car into focus.

Bud’s heart began to pound as he noticed a wisp of yellow vapor drift, almost unnoticed, from a rip in one of the tanker’s riveted seams. And on the side of the ruptured car, were stenciled a series of simple letters and numbers. To those on the scene, and in the city beyond, they meant absolutely nothing. But to Bud Fulton they were like the bold signature of Death itself.

And its name that night was Tyrophex-14.

SCREAM QUEEN

Sometimes there is a fine line between fandom and obsession. It’s okay to appreciate a person’s talent or expertise in a certain area—be it literature, music, or the performing arts—but when that interest turns into an unhealthy compulsion, that’s when things start getting out of control. Every now and then, the obsessed individual pushes the envelope too far. They end up straying beyond the constraints of the red carpet and actually knocking on the subject’s front door. And that can sometimes be more dangerous for the eager fanboy than for the target of his infatuation.

The images on the screen were black and white, grainy with too many dropouts. The sound was bad, harsh and scratchy. The music was even worse. Too melodramatic. The scene was set somewhere up in the California mountains: a lot of boulders, dry grass, and scrubby underbrush.

Ted Culman lay on the full-size bed, naked, his eyes glued to the nineteen-inch TV. The landscape was unremarkable—the backdrop for countless low-budget movies made in the fifties and sixties. The only distinguishing factor about the old flick appeared a moment later, rounding a boulder and walking up a dusty mountain trail.

Ted sunk into the pillows at his back, as if settling into the cockpit of a jet fighter. He was in control now. The hand that rested on his belly crept toward his groin. Soon it was fisted around him, stroking. He was already aroused.

The woman who appeared on the screen was a real beauty. Average in height, but noticeably buxom, her breasts swelling behind the cloth of her checked blouse. She was platinum blond, much in the style of Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield. Her lovely face was partly obscured by too much lipstick and partly by a pair of white-framed sunglasses, circa 1956. Ted studied the woman’s lower region: flaring hips encased in skintight white slacks, long shapely legs, and tiny feet slipped inside simple sandals.

The woman on the screen made her way up the lonesome pathway, her hips swaying like a pendulum, her delicate jaw working on a gob of Wrigley’s spearmint gum. Ted’s hand quickened as a muffled roar sounded from off-screen and caused the woman to whirl in her tracks. An atrocious-looking swamp monster—all dangling latex and bulbous tennis ball eyes—leapt down clumsily from a neighboring boulder, its thick arms extended in menace.

That was when Ted closed his eyes and let his imagination take over. As his hand went on autopilot, Ted imagined himself to be the shuffling creature. But there was no menace in his monstrous eyes, only desire—a desire shared by the woman he confronted. In a matter of seconds, his claws had torn past her blouse and bra, tossing tatters of cloth and elastic away until her breasts were exposed. The nipples stood out, pink and hard. She reached out for him and soon they were on the sandy earth. His claws went to work again, hooking past tight cloth, rending it easily. She lay beneath him, completely nude now. They embraced hungrily, a melding of human and alien flesh. Ted felt his bestial member jut from his loins, searching, aching passionately. The woman writhed hungrily against him, then he was there, surrounded by warm wetness.

Ted felt himself quickly reaching the brink. He opened his eyes. The blonde’s lovely face filled the screen, just as he had anticipated. Her sunglasses had been knocked askew and one eye stared straight into the camera. Then those luscious lips parted and a shrill scream powered up from out of her throat. But in Ted’s ears it was not the shriek of terror that it was intended to be. Instead, it was a cry of unbridled ecstasy.

Pleasure shot through him, exploding at the base of his spine, causing his hips to buck slightly. Then, a second later, it was all over. The scene had changed. Ted was watching a pipe-smoking scientist explaining a screenwriter’s theory of evolution, while Ted’s penis shriveled in the palm of his hand.

Ted paused the VCR with the remote control, while his other hand shucked a tissue from its box and sopped up the juices of his passion. After the strength had returned to his legs, he hopped off the motel bed and walked into the bathroom. He tossed the damp wad of tissue into the toilet, then cranked up the shower and stepped in.

As he bathed, he smiled to himself, recalling the scream of the monster’s blond victim. No one could break the decibel level like Fawn Hale. Oh, many had tried, but none had managed to surpass…at least not in Ted’s opinion.

Fawn was well-known and appreciated by aficionados of horror and science-fiction cinema, particularly the cheaply made features of the fifties and sixties. Fawn was considered by the majority to have been the premier scream queen of that era, very much the way Bettie Page had become a cult favorite in the realm of nostalgic pinups. There had been dozens of others, some even more beautiful and bustier than Fawn. But none had possessed the lungs she had. For sheer expression of horror and vocal power, the actress had no equal. Ted remembered the first time he had heard Fawn scream. He had attended an all-night Halloween fright fest at a run-down theater off campus. Fawn’s shriek had overloaded a couple of the theater’s main speakers. They had popped with a burst of ozone, incapable of accommodating the high frequency of Fawn’s famous cry.

Just thinking about it made Ted horny again, but he ignored the impulse and finished his shower. He had someplace to go that morning, someplace very important. It was so important, in fact, that he had driven nearly two thousand miles just to get there.

Ted toweled off and then dressed. He left his suitcase behind, but unhooked the VCR and took it with him. He didn’t want to risk the chance of the maid ripping it off when she came to clean his room. He also took the cardboard jacket of the tape that was still in the video player. The movie was creatively titled
Curse of the Swamp Monster
and sported a black-and-white shot of the beast in all its low-budget glory.

He stepped outside and locked the door behind him. Ted looked around for a second. The Days Inn he had checked into the night before was off an exit on Interstate 24 in the heart of Tennessee. There was only one reason why a California grad student would waste his spring break and make a cross-country journey to the land of the Grand Ole Opry and Jack Daniels, and that reason could be summed up in two words.

Fawn Hale.

Ted walked to his car—a restored ’69 Mustang convertible—and opened the trunk. He set the VCR next to a cardboard box full of videotapes. All were the kind of schlock horror flicks Ted thrived on—the outrageously bad classics of Edward D. Wood and Herschell Gordon Lewis. And two out of three of them featured Fawn Hale and her bloodcurdling scream somewhere between the title and the ending credits.

Before he closed the trunk, he picked up a copy of
Filmfax
that lay on top of the box. It was an article in the movie magazine that had been responsible for his journey south. The story chronicled the history of a dozen popular scream queens and, in the portion devoted to Fawn, had laid the key to a mystery that had bugged Ted for several years. After Hale had retired from films in 1968, she had left Hollywood and seemingly vanished off the face of the earth. But, according to the article, Fawn had returned to her hometown of Cumberland Springs in central Tennessee.

That single tidbit of information had been a revelation for Ted. Fawn had almost become an obsession to him, creeping into his sexual fantasies lately. His dorm room was papered with posters and glossy photos of the B-movie blonde, while Ted’s dreams were filled with bizarre images of Fawn being seduced by the monsters she had shared the screen with. It wasn’t long before Ted began to imagine himself inside those garish suits of latex and fur, conjuring screams of pleasure from the actress, rather than ones of horror.

After reading the article, Ted simply couldn’t put it out of his mind. The closer spring break grew, the more maddening the knowledge of Fawn’s whereabouts seemed to be. Finally the thought of driving to Tennessee crossed his mind, lodging there like a splinter. It was during the day of his last class that Ted had made his decision. He took seven hundred dollars out of the bank, packed up his suitcase and VCR, and hit the road. He knew it was foolish and against his better judgment, but he had still gone. Now, three days later, he was only a short distance from his destination.

Ted closed the trunk, taking the magazine with him. He climbed into the Mustang’s bucket seat and sat there for a long moment. Across the main highway—which boasted several other motels, an Amoco station, and a McDonald’s—was a post bearing two signs. The upper one pointed west and read MANCHESTER—15 MILES. The one underneath pointed east and proclaimed CUMBERLAND SPRINGS—7 MILES.

Well, what’re you waiting for, Culman?
he thought, feeling a little nervous.
You came this far. Seven miles more and you’ll be able to get this out of your system for good.

He took a deep breath to calm himself, then put the Mustang in gear and pulled out onto the highway.

***

The town of Cumberland Springs could scarcely be considered one at all. It consisted of only a church, a post office, and an old-timey general store with a couple of ancient gas pumps out front. A few white clapboard houses were scattered around the main buildings, but that was about the extent of the little hamlet.

Ted stopped at the general store, which was called Roone’s Mercantile, and bought himself a honey bun and a Dr. Pepper for breakfast. After he had paid for the food, he regarded the man behind the register. Oscar Roone was a lanky man of sixty with bushy eyebrows and a perpetual scowl on his weathered face. Ted debated asking the man for directions, then decided that it wouldn’t hurt.

“Excuse me, but could you tell me how to get to the Hale place?”

The old man glared at the overweight boy with the shaggy brown hair and glasses.

“Why in Sam Hill would you wanna go way out there?” he asked.

Ted was at a loss for an answer at first. He shrugged. “I just have some business there, that’s all.” Nosy old bastard.

Roone looked like he’d bitten into a green persimmon. He opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind. “You go on down the highway here about a half mile, till you pass the Knowles farm. You’ll know the place. The barn’s got ‘See Rock City’ painted on its roof. Well, you take the next turnoff, a dirt stretch called Glenhollow Road, and head on that way for three or four miles. The Hale place is the first house on the right.”

“Thanks,” said Ted. He gathered up his purchases and made his way past the tightly-packed aisles of canned and dry goods, eager to be out of the shadowy store and back into the sunshine. He glanced back only once and saw the old man staring at him peculiarly. As if he wanted to ask Ted something…or maybe tell him something.

He quickly gobbled down the honey bun and chased it with the soda. Then he started his car and headed farther eastward, trying to keep Roone’s directions fresh in his mind. He found the Knowles farm without any trouble and turned down the dirt road, even though there was no visible sign marking it as being Glenhollow.

Ted drove down the rural road, his hands clenching and unclenching the steering wheel. The day was beautiful and the dense woods to either side of him were green and cool. Birds sang in abundance from overhead and the air was rich with the scent of honeysuckle, but those things failed to soothe his frazzled nerves. He felt none of the control he had felt earlier that morning, when he had masturbated to the monster movie.

It seemed like an eternity, but he finally reached the first house on the right side of Glenhollow Road. Ted parked the Mustang next to a drainage ditch, a hundred feet from the structure. It was a simple, two-story farmhouse that looked as if it hadn’t been treated to a good roofing or paint job for ten or twelve years. Tall oaks surrounded the house, and the yard was knee-high with weeds. Standing at the side of the road was a single mailbox with the name HALE painted on the side, nothing more.

It was at that moment that Ted Culman wondered exactly what he was doing there. Exactly what had he had in mind when he left California? Had he come to simply tell her how much he appreciated her movies and ask for her autograph? Or was there more to it than that? Ted thought about the fantasies he had been indulging in lately, but they concerned the Fawn Hale of the past. The woman had been nearing her forties when she retired. She would be in her sixties now, drawing Social Security and soaking her teeth in a glass by her bed.

The thought made Ted feel a little nauseous. He had the sudden urge to make a U-turn in the country road, retrieve his suitcase from the motel, and head home. But he knew if he did that, he would always wonder about Fawn and the meeting he had aborted out of sheer panic. He took a deep breath and, climbing out of the car, started up the driveway to the Hale residence.

As he crossed the unmowed yard, he began to wonder if anyone even lived there anymore. The front porch was littered with dead leaves, and many of the house’s windows were broken, most notably those of the upper floor. The steps creaked beneath his feet as he approached the front door, and beyond the storm door he could only make out darkness. From the other side of the screen drifted a scent of mustiness and decay, the odor of a house that had not been aired out in a very long time.