Spawn of Hell (24 page)

The urgency in the man’s voice came back to haunt him. London had seemed like a nice, quiet, rational man. What could have affected him so but something of major importance? He must have found out
something.
David couldn’t simply shrug this off. For Anna’s sake, he had to see it through. He sat up again, wondering what to do.

Could the man have meant for him to come to his home? That could be it. Or the Forester Building? Perhaps his hardware store. David picked up the phone again and asked for the operator. “Can I help you?” a woman’s voice replied. David asked to be connected to Harry London’s place of residence. No, he did not know the address. A few moments later the line was ringing. There was no answer. David then tried the number of London’s store. Again there was no answer.

He wrestled with his conscience, wondering if he should wake Anna and ask her what to do. He was not about to wander around the town at this time of night looking high and low for Harry London. Perhaps the man would realize his omission and call him back. Yes, of course. When David didn’t show, London would call again.

The phone call and its implications kept nagging at him while he tried to get back to sleep. Anna stirred and he kissed her. His arms about her, he felt wearier and wearier. Sleep was only seconds away.

But the memory of London’s voice troubled him to the last.

The Main Street Diner, open twenty-four hours, had always been a gold mine. Just as the footsteps of the giggling kids and late-night revelers faded away down the steps, the dawn would break and in would walk the truckers and farmers. Harry London hung up the phone in the booth in back, and rubbed his forehead with two pinching fingertips. He leaned back and relived the experience of the past few hours, and wondered if somehow the world had gone crazy.

He and Stevens had gone down there, down into that hell-hole, down into the sub-basement. Through the cavern, into one of the tunnels. Like Chief Walters before them, they’d even found that ghastly living pool.

Harry was shivering so badly from the memory of it all that he was hardly able to stand. The waitress on duty, a middle-aged redhead named Sarah, saw him stagger out of the phone booth and stumble to the nearest counter seat. “Are you all right, Harry?” she asked. He threw her a reassuring look and asked for a cup of coffee. While he drank, he reviewed the evening’s terrible occurrences.

First he had gone to the police station. He had been so incoherent, had been stuttering so badly, that Cecilia had taken one look at him and practically ordered him home and into bed. He had tried to make her understand, but it had been a losing battle. She had told him that none of the men sent to look for Patrolmen Hanson had come back, so she’d already called the State Police again. Only they were still so busy with the Boonton explosion and its after-effects that it would be some time before anyone would be free to come to Milbourne. She’d been worried, plenty worried, but she’d not been able to make head or tail out of what he was yammering about. “Go home. Go home and wait,” she’d said. She’d asked again and again what happened to Hank and the Chief, but Harry just wasn’t able to get the words out. He ran out of there with her hollering after him, telling him to come back, to give her some news of the man she’d worked with for nearly seventeen years.

Harry had run through the empty streets, trying to calm himself down, to stop his teeth, his tongue, his lips from quivering, his arms and legs and knees from shaking. He had stood in front of Cecelia blabbering away, realizing that she hadn’t been able to understand one word—not one word—of what he was saying.
God— make the shaking stop. Why can’t I stop shaking?
he had thought. Did it have something to do with the puncture wound in his leg? The whole limb was throbbing from the knee to the ankle. He’d been injured and he could feel an alien substance spreading like cancer through his veins.

He ran to his store, but realized with a shock that his key ring had fallen out of his pocket sometime during the night, that there was no way he could get inside short of shattering a window. He had calls to make, important calls. He needed silence, privacy, to make them, to compose himself. Cecelia would not have let him near the phone, let alone given him the peace and quiet he needed to think straight, to put his thoughts in order. He had to get inside, get to a phone. He thought of running to his car, driving home, but even if he had been in any condition to drive—and he wasn’t—both door keys and ignition keys were now lost below the earth.

He ran around in circles on the sidewalk in front of his store. Had anyone seen him they would have thought him drunk or bereft of his senses, and they would not have been entirely wrong. He dashed around, whining like an animal, wishing he could think clearly, talk lucidly, know instinctively just what to do. God—he had a raging fever. Again he thought that the injury he’d sustained must have been responsible.

He could not wait, the town itself could not wait for the State Police to arrive. They were going to be tied up for hours, might be stuck there at the scene of the explosion all night, as Stevens had said. Even if he had successfully communicated the danger, the incredible circumstances, to Cecelia, no one would have believed him. Not Cecelia, not the Police. Who could he call? He tried as hard as possible to organize his thoughts, to shut out the horrid sounds and grisly sights he had seen beneath the ground. Dwelling on what he’d seen—even for an instant—would surely drive him into madness. Already he was on the edge, gibbering away like a gibbon, his speech a mindless babble.

Something had to be done. Something had to be done
now.

Only one place in town was open at that hour. The restaurant. He ran to the diner, nearly falling to the ground in his haste, and dashed inside the comforting lighted interior. He could not stand to think of the dark, let alone be in it. Bright lights, like these—that’s what he needed. It was a slow night at the diner, and much to his dismay the few patrons inside looked too young, too tired or too drunk to be of service. He ignored the waitress and stormed into the telephones in back. Tugging out what little change had not already fallen from his pocket, he started calling people, strong, reliable people. Those who lived nearby, who could and would help him.

He had a great deal of difficulty making himself understood. But by that time he had at least calmed down enough to be able to make his words reasonably intelligible. A couple of men were very old friends, and were worried about the state he was in. They promised to come posthaste. One of these was Bill Spooner, who owned the gas station. Ignoring Bill’s protestations— Bill didn’t think Harry sounded capable of speaking, let alone walking—London insisted that he meet him at the station. He told the other men he called to meet him there, too, although most of them thought he was drunk or nuts or playing a practical joke they wanted no part of at that hour in the morning. He didn’t call the parents of the missing teenagers. He was sure the youngsters were dead, and he simply could not bring himself to tell their families. Not now, certainly. He called David Hammond as a last resort.

The sound of Sarah’s voice interrupted his ruminations. “I think you oughta get on home and sleep it off,” she smiled, giving him a wink. “I think you were out with your friends tonight, eh?”

His friends? Would they come? He didn’t even want to think about doing what needed to be done by
himself.
He drained his coffee cup and left a dollar bill on the counter. He pulled himself off the stool, rising to his feet with stops and starts until he stood as straight as he could manage.

“Harry,”
Sarah scolded. “Are you all right? Want me to call a doctor?”

Harry ignored her and hobbled to the door, stepping out hastily into the night. The waitress saw him run down the street towards the gas station as if the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. “Drink sure makes some people spry,” she said, then went back to cleaning the counter.

Harry stood in the chilly air waiting for the men to gather, wondering if any of them had taken his garbled pleas seriously. He was counting on years of friendship and mutual respect to pull him through. How would he get them
down
there, he thought, once they got here, if they got here? How would he ever convince them to follow him back to that fetid underground, that horrible pool? What would he say to them?

He stood there by the pumps, the seeds of the plan that had grown in his mind while on the telephone sprouting out now into something that, to his fevered mind at least, made perfect sense. He tried to keep his mind off the past few hours. He tried not to think of him and young Stevens wandering for what seemed like days through tunnels and passages, in and out of rocky chambers covered with slime, breathing foul air, recoiling from the stench. And then finding that voluminous cavern, with its horrid lake and the things inside it. The bones, the horrible bones, and that one repulsive shape lying in a heap near the water, with bits of flesh still on the ribs, what was left of the ribs, and the pieces of clothing, parts of the uniform, and young Stevens had screamed, had gagged at the realization of just
what
that was revealed in the light from his hand. And Harry had nearly passed out then and there, as when he’d discovered Jeffrey’s body.

Then they heard the movement in the water, and only quick thinking and the blasts from Stevens’ gun had saved them. They backed away, using the flashlight only now and then, afraid to reveal their position to the creatures sliding slowly out of the lake. Just once, just
once,
Harry wanted to dare to turn on the light full strength, and shine it onto the water, to get one good clear look at what they were. He had seen so little before, but enough to know that nothing of their kind had swum in the seas or walked on the lands of earth before. He had seen that they had had long bodies, thick like sausages, and heads of some kind, separate from the trunk, but he had not caught a glimpse of arms or legs, if they had any. There appeared to be appendages of some kind sticking out of the back and . . . even if he’d had the time and opportunity to look, he wondered if he really would have. He knew only that he might have paid the price for his curiosity. One good look might have frozen him to the spot in horror, making him fit game for the monsters as they advanced. He realized that at some point he had dropped and lost his rifle.

Then Hank had stumbled, and they were separated. Harry had heard an outcry, and suddenly the boy’s flashlight had come on full, and there in the glow was a terrifying sight. They were all over him, several it seemed, only the outline of their shapes visible in the light. Blood seemed to be gushing from torn limbs and neck wounds. Then the boy was covered completely and the flashlight was crunched under the weight of one of the things, and all was darkness again. But not before Harry had glimpsed the way out. The boy was beyond help; all Harry could do was run back through the tunnel to safety. Before he could get away cleanly, he felt a painful jab in his leg, and knew that one of those awful creatures had bitten or stabbed him somehow. He screamed and pulled away, afraid to suffer the same fate as Stevens.

So he had run and run and run, not ever looking back, stumbling along the corridors etched in stone, through the greasy, slimy rock, over boulders and down dark tunnels, until he’d reached the Forester Building sub-basement, and then the outside at last.

He heard a noise now. Footsteps. He turned and saw Bill Spooner—the first one to arrive. Bill was a big man, loud and malevolent to strangers, but warm and boisterous with friends. Harry London was in the latter category, and had been for nearly three decades. The big, bear-like man came over to Harry on short, rapid steps that belied his heavyset appearance.

“What is it, Harry?” he called as he approached. “What’s the matter, pal?”

Harry gesticulated wildly, trying to make himself understood. The fever had infested his entire system by now. “Gas. Get your gas cans out. We must set fire to them, to the whole cavern. The pool.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I believe the viscous liquid will prove flammable; we’ll set the very slime they’re covered in on fire.” What Bill Spooner heard roughly translated as:
I beve viki kid vepor flabble.

“Harry, you’re not making any sense!”

Harry, as unsteady on his feet as he was with his tongue, told him the whole story, described what he had seen as best he could. By enunciating very carefully and speaking at a crawl, he was able to form recognizable syllables with his lips. He could tell from the look on his face that Bill Spooner didn’t quite believe him, though.

“Don’t you see?” he pleaded. “The cavern with the pool must connect somehow with the caves at the base of the Hunter’s Mountain. That explains what happened to the children and all the others.

“You must believe me!”

Only one thing made Bill decide to check out Harry’s incredible story. The mention of the missing kids. Spooner was Sam Withers’ closest friend. He had spent half the night remembering Dora Withers’ tears, wondering if he should have gone out again in the woods to look for both her husband and her boy. He was sure Sam was still out there, wandering around in the darkness, but knew that he would just have to sit tight until the sun came up and the search parties could see their way around. He wondered if he should call up the woman now, tell her Harry’s story. But no, it would be cruel to bother and frighten her at this hour with such a cockamamie tale. That was why he didn’t rouse any of his other friends. If this turned out to be something Harry’s mind had created out of the depths of his imagination, the fewer people bothered by it the better. But if there was any chance it was true, it had to be looked into, that much was certain.

Only two other men answered Harry’s desperate summons, only two out of all the people he’d called. They arrived to see Spooner and Harry carrying several cans of gasoline to the back of Bill’s battered pickup trunk.

Bill went over to the two new arrivals. “Harry thinks he’s found out what happened to those kids. And to Sam Withers.”