Tornado Alley (2 page)

The boy sat down and spread his legs.

"And how is your good health?"

The boy looked startled. The doctor had never said anything like this before. The doctor leaned forward with a lewd leer.

"Had any good dreams lately?"

"Well yes, as a matter of fact, I have. I've been dreaming about you, Doctor Fisher."

"How exciting. And what did you dream?"

"This." He dropped his hand on the gun butt.

Give him time to get his prints on it, the doctor thought. The boy whipped the gun out. A rain of bullets threw him back in his chair, blood spurting from his mouth. A look of utter disbelief on his face, he slumped from the chair, dead. The doctor reached for the phone...

The bullets matched. The doctor was even a local hero, but not to the clinic administrators. An Old West shoot-out, in his consulting room ... killed a patient ... unthinkable. They were more than prepared to accept his immediate resignation.

Doctor Fisher felt good.

dead-end reeking street

"I want to prepare you, Doctor. Well, you see, they have grown something in him. It's alive, it's—"

"Enough of that rot. Where is his tent? You wait outside."

A few seconds later the doctor tottered out, looking like he had just been kicked in the crotch.

"So you've seen it?"

He nodded, shuddering. "Something between a centipede and a plant, growing in his intestines, spreading its roots."

"We could poison it, maybe? With an injection?"

"Ticklish business. It's tapped into Reggie's bloodstream, poor chap. Well, it's either that, or—"

We looked at each other and understood. Luckily, we had some rotenone. The doctor filled his syringe and we went in. The stench was enough to knock a man flat on his ass, it got into your throat and your lungs and gagged you.

Oh God, now we can see it, moving around under his skin. We give him a knock-out dose of morphine and largactil.

A quick slash and a grab with pliers, and he has the horrible red head—the creature was stirring and writhing and roots and heads sticking up everywhere. He shoved the syringe in and drove it home, then the needle was torn from his hand and he leaped back.

"Get out of here, it's spitting eggs!"— and larvae and in fact Reggie lost all human semblance as the heads and roots protruded from every inch of his body, spurting out larvae with transparent needle teeth.

I paused only to shoot Reggie in the head. Then we ran for our lives, but we were too late, we were covered with the larvae, digging into our eyes and nose and every orifice eating their way in...

But we were survivors. We bathed in kerosene which serendipitously was to hand. Like any mutant organism, this was incredibly susceptible to biologic and chemical agents, being without immunity—a whiff of kerosene and my nose is clean. The tent and the ground around it we converted into a pool of cleansing fire. Unthinkable to make camp here.

We walk until fatigue and darkness call a halt. After a dinner of tinned meat, Wilson lights his pipe.

"He must have stumbled onto something."

"You mean that hell-creature was conceived in a laboratory?"

"Afraid so, old thing."

"Then none of us are safe!"

"Afraid not, old bean. You know what makes a jumping bean jump? It's the jumping bug inside it."

"What do you propose?"

"We will find the laboratory and destroy it."

"What with? Three handguns and a shotgun?"

"This complete Shakespeare is impregnated with state-of-the-art implosion agents. Much more destructive than the extroverted, out-going formulations."

"How activated?"

"In several ways. If captured and facing ... you have but to say: Out! Out! brief candle, or the book can be activated by remote telepathic control."

"Do you know where the laboratory is located?"

"Of course. I have my orders, and the co-ordinates."

"Well, let's go."

We set out at dawn. End of a dead-end street—that is what we are looking for.

1) Three leads. High walls. A sort of face on a bladder.

2) A museum. I was in a room with exhibits—no exits. Look down to my right and I see an open space ahead, and a sunlit wall about one hundred feet away. Something wrong about the wall. It is a painting. A painted wall. It is not really ouside the museum.

3) The dead-end reeking street, stinking of rotten time and light.

the FUs

The old householder is awakened by someone beating on his door.

"Oh God," he moans, "another drunken Indian." He slips on his army jacket and drops a snub-nosed Charter Arms revolver—the one that killed Lennon—in the side pocket. He leans against the wall for a moment, feeling a sharp pain in his left arm and shoulder.

"Go away. I'll call the police."

"Won't get here in time to do any good. You ruined my daughter."

"We'll be there right away, sir." The door is about to give way. The householder stands about eight feet away from the door, gun leveled. Sirens approaching.

The door gives way. The Indian rushes in with a baseball bat, his eyes wild, like an enraged horse. The squad car screeches to a stop outside. The householder shoots the Indian in the leg. The Indian falls, groaning, and rolls on his side.

Door bursts open and wild-eyed cops rush in, guns drawn. Seeing a man in an army-type jacket Officer Mike assumes it is the intruder. He doesn't waste time. Pumps three shots in. Householder clutches his chest and falls. Mike turns away, grimly holstering his gun.

"We got him."

"Are you badly hurt, sir?"

He puts a solicitous hand on the Indian's back. It's good P.R. Slowly the Indian turns toward them, his face blank with pain and shock. They start back in horror. "Oh God," they moan in unison. Marv, the older partner, gives the agreed-upon sign. Ambulance siren in the distance.

"Let me handle this; just back me up."

They help the Indian into a chair.

"You're a hero!"

"He was a communist."

"Good thing you shot him, and we are deputizing you."

The cop shoves the gun into his hand. Sirens getting closer. The Indian looks down at the gun with stupid incredulity. Cops helping me into a chair? Handing me a gun? Ambulance turns the corner, two houses away. Slugs rip into the Indian's chest.
Πο time for finesse. They kick over tables, pull over a bookcase. One tosses a chair through a window as the ambulance screeches to a stop.

"It was hairy, Boss, real hairy. The Injun went bonkers, grabbed Mike's gun and shot the householder. As God's my witness, he had the strength of twenty men. I warned him that we were police officers, but he leveled the gun at us and I was forced to shoot."

"The Chief will see you guys now."

"Is this your report?"

"Yes Chief, that's it."

"Stinks like buzzard puke."

"What's wrong with it, Chief?"

"Well for starters, nobody could have done what you say happened. Bullet angles are all wrong."

"Aw, Chief

"Besides, the householder didn't die."

"Didn't—" He caught himself in time. "Well, that's marvelous," he said with a horrible smile. "Guy shot in the chest like that could get things all twisted around."

"He was wearing a bullet-proof vest. He had a heart attack, but he's all right now and screaming for your blood: 'Not only do I have to protect myself from drunken Indians but also from insane fuck-up cops—fucking FUs!'"

"Chief, I swear to fucking Christ I saw a drunken Indian standing there with a gun in his hand, clear as I'm seeing you now."

"And what else did you see? The gates of heaven? Jesus fucking Christ awarding you the Golden Prick for bravery? Well, you two clowns have had it this time. You're nothing but FUs, the both of you."

"Well Chief," says Marv, smiling and wriggling to ingratiate himself, "sure we're FUs; that's why we got on the force in the First place. A gun and a badge can cover a lot of FUs."

"All right, boys. I'm going to give you a chance to square yourselves."

"We'll do anything, Chief, anything."

"It's hairy, boys. One big drug bust. On this one, it's shoot first and remember, dead men tell no lies. Ketch?"

"Running with it, Chief."

"You can pick up what you need at the arsenal. I suggest Ithaca pumps with number four shot."

The FUs exit. The Chief smiles. He is taking out a columnist who's been riding his ass, and a roomful of liberal bleeding-hearts, vocals by Joan Baez.

Will the FUs get a third chance? Will the FUs strike again?

Book of Shadows

Doctor Hill picked up a slip of paper and cleared his throat.

"You don't have to beat around the sagebrush with me, Doc. It's cancer, isn't it?"

Afternoon sunlight through Venetian blinds fell on the speaker, like prison bars ... a slender, elderly man in a shabby gray suit, a heavy cojoba-wood cane between his thin knees, a senior citizen like you see sitting on park benches or playing shuffle-board. But the eyes behind steel-rimmed spectacles glittered with disquieting gaiety, with a remote, chilling happiness. The man smiled.

"After all, Doctor, we have known each other for a long time."

A long time. Doctor Hill was perhaps the only man in Boulder who knew that the man sitting across from him had once been the best shootist in the West. Not the fastest gun, but the surest.

"Yes, it's cancer. Of course it might be operable . . . have to go in to make sure, but—"

"You doubt it."

"If it was my stomach, I'd say no."

"These surgeons are knife-happy ... worse than Mexicans."

The doctor knew that Lee Ice was well-read—in fact, a learned man. But it amused him sometimes to talk like an illiterate redneck.

"Well, how much time would you say? I mean, how much time in which I can get around?"

A spasm of pain twisted the man's body, and he leaned forward onto his cane.

The doctor shrugged. "A month, perhaps two ... I'll give you a prescription. You know how to use a hypodermic?"