Spawn of Hell (23 page)

She peered intently, studying the diagram. Her eyeshadow stood out garishly on her face. “Nothing,” she said. “What’s so strange about this?”

He pointed to a spot designating a staircase. “See the arrows. One marked UP, one marked D W N—for down?”

She looked at him as if he had stated the more-than-obvious.

“So it’s a staircase. What about it?”

He stood up with a smug look on his face. He always liked knowing more than librarians, and although Miss Elden, as she had pointed out earlier, was not a librarian, she was the closest thing to it in town. “Why would a basement need stairs going
down?”

“Hmm. I see what you mean.” She scratched her nose with a fingertip. The nail was cracked.

“It wouldn’t. Unless there was a sub-basement.
Voila!”
He slipped another unwieldy piece of paper out from under the one they’d been pursuing. “The floor plan for the sub-basement. Which, for some reason, was never built. Or should I say, never finished. It was dug out, all right, as I saw for myself the other day. But the walls, the stairs, were never constructed.”

Miss Elden was not impressed. “Why didn’t you just say that? You could have just showed me the second floor plan. Why did I have to look over the first one and play guessing games with you?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “This is all very interesting, Mr. London, but it’s five past five and I’d like to get home before midnight this evening.”

Harry loved having people’s undivided attention, something which Miss Elden no longer intended to give him. He sighed, and began to roll up the diagrams. “I do wish I could take these other papers with me, study them overnight.”

“Now Mr. London,” she said, walking towards the coat rack by the door. “Would you want me to get into trouble? Tomorrow is soon enough for all that, I’m sure.”

He began putting the material back in the drawer from which it had come. “Why do you suppose they failed to complete the sub-basement? “

“I don’t know,” the woman replied wearily. “Maybe they just changed their minds. Maybe they decided they didn’t need it. Or ran out of money. Does it make that much difference, Mr. London?”

“No. No, I suppose not. Uh, I don’t mean to keep you waiting, but it will take a while for me to put all these things back.”

“Just leave them in the cardboard box on the table,” she said. “I’ll put them away in the morning. Or better yet, I’ll set them aside for you so there won’t be all that fuss and bother getting them out again tomorrow.”

He did as she had instructed. “Thank you very much, Miss Elden.” He walked out of the room with a jaunty step, and nodded good night. Behind him he heard her flicking out the light and locking up. Out in the street, the town was quiet, the air still. He didn’t know if it was the weather giving him the sudden chills, or something else lodged in his subconscious that he could neither explain or, for the moment, understand.

He went into the very next building, the police station. He would tell Walters what he had discovered, although —as Miss Elden had so charmingly suggested—it seemed without significance. At least he knew that the “cavern” under the Forester Building had been man-made, with a purpose in mind. It did not explain why it stretched out far away from the building, nor why it even extended slightly under the foundation of his own hardware store. Something had widened the basement far beyond its original dimensions, but he could not imagine what.

Joe Walters was not in the sub-station, and Cecelia told Harry that Hanson was out and Stevens was taking a nap in the back. He left and decided to go home and take a nap of his own; he was awfully fatigued—all that running around today, he supposed.

He made himself a small supper, watched TV for an hour, and fell fast asleep in his easy chair. When he woke it was nearly ten o’clock.

He felt like driving back to the police station, having a chat with Joe. Besides, he had a sudden craving for a milkshake in the diner. Felt like some company, too. He missed Jeffrey. Ordinarily he would have called him up, invited him out for a beer. But now . . . it sure was lonely. He would have gone to see Paula, but he knew she had to work things out by herself eventually and she might as well start now.

There was little activity in the police station, as was usually the case, although a knot of tension seemed to run through the air, invisibly binding Stevens, standing nervously by a table in the corner, with Cecelia, still behind the switchboard, doing overtime. The woman nearly lived there. Stevens’ face was anxious, as if he were waiting for someone or other to walk in or call on the radio.

“Anything wrong?” Harry asked.

“Sure is,” Stevens replied. He looked pale and sheepish, as if he’d doomed the town by oversleeping. “Hanson has disappeared. Can’t get him on the radio. He called in hours ago and said he was headin’ for the old caves to see if he could find a search party that hadn’t reported back yet. He should have come back by now.” He then told Harry who the missing men were.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Harry said. He knew both patrolmen well, knew Hanson could take care of himself. “Probably having the time of his life rollin’ those old boys back home. Each of ‘em must have polished off a six-pack or two. They’ll have their heads handed to ‘em when their wives get hold of ‘em.”

“Probably,” Stevens said, offering a weak smile. “Their wives, and the parents of those kids, keep calling up, too. Nothing we can do. Too damn dark to search anymore.”

“Still haven’t come home?” Harry asked.

“Not hide nor hair of ‘em out there,” Stevens replied. “And now I don’t even know what Chief Walters is doin’. Don’t know why he’s sticking his nose underground when things are hoppin’ up here.”

“Where did Joe go?” Harry queried, sitting down on the nearest desktop.

“Down into the hole in the Forester Building. Said he wanted to investigate it some more. That was a hell of a long time ago. He set out of here like a bear on fire headin’ for water. Don’t know why he had to go runnin’ off like that. Something seemed to be on his mind.”

“He went down alone?”

“He told me to stay in the office in case something came up. Said somebody’s gotta be here. With Hanson up and gone that someone’s gotta be me.”

“How long has Joe been gone?”

“A few hours. Right, Cecelia?” The lady nodded in agreement. She kept trying to raise Hanson on the radio without success.

“Hell. I don’t know whether I should go down after the Chief or ride out and see what happened to Hanson. To make matters worse, there was a big explosion over in Boonton. They got the state police, the county sheriff, the Jactaw police pickin’ up the pieces. Literally. They can’t spare a single man until tomorrow. They said half the cops are out huntin’ down an arsonist.”

“Oh boy.” Harry felt very afraid all of a sudden, frightened for himself and all of them. He was bothered by the fact that Walters had gone down there, where they’d found the body—alone—and had not come back yet. He made a hasty decision.

“Hank. He placed his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Go over to the diner and round up a few fellows. Bud. Charlie. They’re all over there now, I bet. Take them out to the woods just to see what’s up. Hell, at least a couple of them can go with you. They got nothing better to do. While you’re out looking for Hanson, I’m going after the Chief.”

“Wait a minute, Mr. London. If the Chief went down there—armed—and hasn’t come back after all this time, do you think it’s wise for you to go down there by yourself?”

“Lend me a gun then.”

“Better than that. I’ll go with you.”

“Hank, someone’s gotta keep those old-timers in line. Besides, you might have to give Hanson some help if you find him.”

The boy bit his lip with indecision, wondering what to do. The kid hadn’t even had this job that long. Harry knew what he was thinking:
What would the chief want me to do? Go with a gang of old sots after another member of the department? Or go look for him?

Harry could tell that Hank was troubled at the idea of sending another “old man” down alone into an abyss that might have already trapped one person, as well as claimed the life of Jeffrey Braddon. “You stay here, Harry,” the patrolman said. “You’re trustworthy. Something’s happened to Chief Walters and I’ve got to find out what. No need for you to get involved.”

“Remember your own words, son,’’ Harry reminded him. “The Chief had a gun. Didn’t do him any good, if the worst has happened. Let me go with you. Cecelia can hold down the fort.” Though with that explosion in Boonton, it was unlikely the woman would be able to call for help if an emergency arose.

“That’s right, Hank,” the dispatcher said, putting on a brave front.

“All right, Harry,” Hank said. “You can come with me.” He grabbed two rifles from the supply closet, shouting over his shoulder, “Know how to use one of these?”

“Yes, I know how to use one of those.”

“Just in case,” Hank said grimly.

“Just in case.”

Harry waited at the entrance of the Forester Building while Stevens organized a bunch of civilian “deputies” at the diner and sent them out to the caves at Hunter’s Mountain. Hank arrived fifteen minutes later, his face tense with worry.

Each of them, in their own way, had faced more clearly dangerous and frightening situations than the one awaiting them below; or so they thought. Harry had been in combat during the Korean War. Hank had disarmed a liquor-besotted townsman who had been threatening to murder his cowering wife and children. They did not know if anything, aside from rats and bats, was down there to give them the slightest alarm.

But Jeffrey Braddon
had
died.

And Joe Walters
was
missing.

And both Hank Stevens and Harry London were more afraid than they’d care to admit.

David didn’t know what had awakened him, but suddenly his eyes were open and he was rubbing them, trying to adjust to the darkness, trying to clear his head. He felt Anna’s soft body lying next to his, her long hair spilling onto the pillow, his chest, the blanket. He bent down and touched her forehead lightly with his lips. He felt very glad to be alive.

This is the scene, he thought, where the lover wakes up all contemplative and anxious for a cigarette. Only he didn’t feel like smoking so he was stuck with contemplation. He was still too tired to think in lucid sentences; he simply lay back and let the images and thoughts float through his head, bits and pieces of memory here, fragments of conversation there, pictures of the past. He In the remembrances wash over him: their lovemaking; her warmth, her tears; the lonely house where her brother had lived; the deserted shack at the outskirts of town where the old man should have been, but wasn’t; the restaurant, coffee with Harry. Everything came rushing, rushing through him, without chronology or focus. The pictures and thoughts turned around in midstream, in mid-sentence, jumbling together in strange patterns. Everything seemed distant, yet intense. He reached down and touched the top of his sex, longing for her in that way once again.

He was becoming sleepy again, drifting off slowly, listening to the sounds of her breathing, when he was jarred awake by the telephone. He tried to reach it before the ringing disturbed Anna’s sleep—luckily the phone was on the night table by his side of the bed—but he could hear her stirring under the sheets, sighing in that perplexed manner that the half-awake have. His fingers found, caught, the receiver. As he lifted it to his ear and the ringing stopped, he saw the luminous dial of the wristwatch he had taken off and left on the night table. Two a.m. Who was calling at this hour? Who knew they were here?

“Hello?” he said.

“Hello. David, is that you?”

“Yes.”

“Thank Goodness. I was hoping you’d stayed the night. Luckily this is the only motel in town.”

David knew who it was before the man confirmed it: Harry London. There was a strange quality to his voice. He was gasping out his sentences, speaking abnormally fast.

“Are you out of breath?”

Harry didn’t answer, but said, “Listen. I found something . . . something under the building. I know what killed Jeffrey. You must come. I’ve been calling everyone and no one will believe me. We need more men.”

David struggled to clear his head, to understand what the man was raving about. And he
was
raving, of that there was no doubt. There was a manic, almost hysterical edge to his voice; it had climbed to the upper register, a pitch of panicky fear, as if London were on the verge of losing his mind and were fighting desperately for his sanity.

“What are you talking about?” David asked. Had the man gone crazy? It was two a.m.! Was he drunk?

“They got Officer Stevens. Killed him. Hanson’s disappeared. And the Police Chief is gone.
Will you come?”
He almost screamed the last few words. David was sure that Anna, struggling under the blankets at the rim of consciousness, could have heard it where she was.

“Come
where?
You said you knew what killed Jeffrey. Can you tell me?” It was hopeless. The even-tempered Mr. London had turned into a lunatic within the space of several hours. He simply would not answer the questions put to him.

“You won’t believe,” London cried. “You must see. See with your own eyes. WE NEED MORE MEN!”

David wasn’t used to having veritable strangers talk to him that way, not at this hour, not without proper explanation. Helplessly he said: “Listen. Would you care to talk to Anna about all this? I don’t know what—”

“No! Someone must help me destroy them! You must come!
Will you come?”

The man sounded as if he were about to split a blood vessel. To placate him, David said, “Yes, I’ll come.”

“Good. Hurry. You must hurry.”

And then the line went dead.

“The fool!” David said aloud. “He hung up!” London had pleaded with him “to come,” but had neglected to tell him
where
he was supposed to go! The idiot! It was just as well, David thought, as he replaced the receiver. He had no desire to crawl out of bed in the middle of the night only to put himself at the mercy of a man who—for some reason—was out of his head. Lord only knows what London, in his condition, might have done to him. It was nice and warm and comfortable here in bed with Anna beside him. She was half-awake now. “Who was that?” she murmured. Should he tell her? No, she’d only be upset for nothing. There was nothing they could do now. David told her to go back to sleep, and cuddled up beside her.