Brian Lumley - Psychomech 03, page 25
Alive, yes! She could not - hardly dared to - believe it. She was mad or going mad. The terrors of the night had snapped her mind's last thread of sanity.
LYNN . . . LYNN . . . LYNN, the voice in her head was a whisper now, a receding echo. LOVE . . . LOVE ...LOVE...
'Oh, and I love you too!' she cried. She made to go to him, cowered back. She could not, was not able. Not yet.
Cold with terror, and naturally cold, she hugged herself. There would be a frost tonight. What was she to do?
BLANKETS . . . CAR.
Was the car here? She went out on to the verandah. Under the pines to one side of the cabin, a dull glint of silver in the starlight. She collected Suzy's blankets from the back of the Mercedes and went back indoors.
FIRE.
She found matches on the shelf with the crockery and oil lamps; the matches were dry, and by some miracle they still worked! She dropped a flaring match into the potbellied stove, closed the door. A moment later and a warm glow told her that the fire had taken. Things were looking better.
But Richard, floating like that. . .!
She began to shiver again, wrapped a blanket round herself, dragged the door shut. Feeling a little easier -having mainly accustomed herself to the situation - she looked about the cabin. She took down the oil lamps, shook them, heard oil sloshing in their squat bodies. Lifting a glass chimney, she lit a wick crisp as paper and watched it start to draw the oil. Then she lowered the chimney and lit the second lamp.
What with the glow from the crackling fire in the stove, and the yellow light of the lamps, Richard's own peculiar radiance seemed damped down a little. It didn't frighten her so much. Lynn began to breathe a little easier; her heart's thudding slowed beneath her ribs. She swallowed hard once or twice, looked about the room again. The old armchairs had large square cushions for seats and backs. They had gone a little mouldy underneath but were still serviceable if you weren't too particular. She had neither time nor circumstances to be particular. She stripped the chairs down, lay the cushions on the floor lengthwise and draped them with a blanket.
Gulping, she then approached Richard's body where it floated motionless above the table. She touched him. His flesh was icy cold - cold as the tomb itself!
'Richard,' she said. 'Please! I can't stand seeing you doing . . . thatr
His gaunt face changed not at an, his eyes remained closed - but slowly his body moved, floated over to the makeshift bed, lowered itself until the cushions took its weight.
'Oh, thank God!' Lynn breathed. 'Thank God!' She took up the edges of the blanket and folded them over him. The blue glow was contained, only his cadaverous face remained lit by that eerie foxfire.
The bed she had made for him was too long. She pulled out the bottom cushion and tossed it on to one of the chairs. The cabin was beginning to warm up, the flue of the potbellied stove starting to glow red at its bottom. Suzy curled herself up close to the stove, but her eyes continued to watch Richard across her paws, never wavering.
Lynn dragged the chair with the cushion close to the warmth, flung herself down in it. She warmed her feet in the curl of Suzy's body for a moment, then jumped up again. 'God, oh God! What am I doing"! I have to get a doctor. . .'
NO!
She started, turned towards him where he lay unmov-ing, his eyes closed in his pale, sunken, blue-glowing face. 'Richard, I have to get a doctor or you'll die!'
NO.
'But-'
I HAVE TO REST. NOT TALK - REST! STAY. WATCH. NO ... DOCTOR . . .
'Richard, I'm frightened!' She began to cry, flopped into her chair.
SLEEP.
'Oh, sleep, sleep!' she giggled hysterically. 'How can I possibly sleep? I -'
SLEEP. This time he ordered it.
And at once she slept.
And Suzy kept watch . . .
In the middle of the night Lynn awakened. The oil lamps burned on; the fire was low; Suzy had not moved, nor Richard. His face was still bathed in blue light. He lived.
She had noticed a small stack of moss-grown logs close to the verandah. They had been cut for the stove. Now she went out and brought an armful in, piling them quietly on the floor. The last two logs went straight into the stove. Then Lynn sat down again and Suzy uncurled herself, came and put her head in her lap. The bitch looked at her questioningly.
'I think so,' Lynn said. 'I think he'll be all right.'
The new logs in the stove hissed, crackled, took flame.
The hissing continued.
Suzy whined, her soft eyes going to Richard.
Lynn looked, too.
The hissing did not come from the stove. A puff of smoke drifted up from the blanket where it covered Richard's chest.
Lynn was up and across the room in three jumps. She jerked back the blanket. . .
The smoke curled from his jacket near the top pocket. She opened his jacket with fingers that shook, jerked up his polo-neck, his vest. She forced the garments up under his armpits. High on his chest was a hole in the centre of a circular blue bruise. The smoke came from there.
Holding his clothes up under his chin, she watched, her eyes riveted on the bullet-hole in his chest, her mouth open. The hissing grew louder. Something bubbled up, filled the hole, started to flow over. It looked like mercury. Lynn touched it with a trembling forefinger. It burned!
She snatched back her finger. A thin trickle of molten lead ran across Richard's rib cage, smoked where it dripped on the blanket beneath him, puddling there as it cooled. His ribs were unmarked. The blue bruise was fading even as she watched, the hole sealing over.
The other Richard was taking care of him . . .
Day Five
Daily Mirror.
SHOCK FIGURES!
More than 1,600,000 people, men, women and children, in the British Isles, now suffer from the so-called and so far incurable 'mind-plague'. The number is not known exactly, but reliable sources have it that the problem is now of epidemic proportions. The government has been lobbied to give an accurate assessment of the situation, but so far it would appear they are taking a softly-softly approach.
New offices in Whitehall have been opened where staff studies in 'Statistics and Strategy' are said to be proceeding satisfactorily, but no further information is yet available. Mr Charles Ingram, Minister for Mental Health and Care Co-ordination, could not be drawn on the subject. There are however rumours of the imminent fruition of a long-term joint UK-USA project for a 'cure' or 'prevention' in the form of an oral immunization similar to the birth pill of the mid-20th Century. It is believed that final tests are now in progress . . .
Tokyo Times:
Tang Asai Oshito, Nipponese Head of State, has now approved the organization of vigilante groups for the protection of the populace from mind-plaguers. These 'V-Groups' will be organized through local government; recruitment and swearing-in will commence today at police stations throughout the Nipponese Nation, on all four major islands and lesser islets. The principal aim will be to confine gibberers in pre-determined secure areas, and to keep them there under guard. These are of course
emergency measures only, and as conditions change so procedures may be altered to suit new situations. Total support for government policies is anticipated; after today, anyone found to be harbouring mentally diseased persons will be liable to the most severe punishment. . .
The Organ (Johannesburg):
Violence is flaring again along borders unmanned for more than ten years. So-called 'refugees' are flooding the country from the plague-pits of the North. The mind-plague has come among us and all white South Africans must surely recognize its source. The Organ makes no bones about it and will speak out as of old: the time for action is now
In order to stem the flood of potential pest-carriers, our President, Mr Joachim van Hechler, has ordered a thin red line of paramilitary volunteers in support of the much run-down and hardpressed regular forces already setting up along the northern approaches - and this journalist for one stands firm behind a right and proper course of defensive action.
However:
Black mind-plague enclosures in the very heart of our homeland are steadily approaching saturation point; empty only a week ago, they are now beginning to overflow! We have already witnessed the results of a mass breakout in Odendaalsrus - where last evening 9,000 blacks raped, looted and murdered their way through a predominantly white township, killing as many of their own as they did of ours - and while yet the horror of this sinks in, we cannot help but conjecture upon the results of similar disasters taking place in the major cities.
If more need be said, then let it be this:
The mind-plague is incurable; the Black Condition is unchangeable and always has been, despite certain government policies of the last fifteen years; the answer is simple and obvious to all but blind men and fools. We are breeding horror! Each enclosure and stockade is a running sore whose pus can only infect us all.
In the old days men knew how to deal with such matters and were unafraid. You could treat a village for dysentery, but plague-towns were put to the torch! And is this plague any different?
The Organ speaks out, before it is too late, and asks this question:
Where are today's torch-bearers?
Watchdog! (USA):
THE PILL: PURE POISON?
Acting on allegations so serious that they could not be ignored, the owners and editors of this weekly journal last night took unprecedented steps in their on-going fight for the freedom of the spoken and printed word. This followed the covert approach to these offices yesterday of a senior chemist from the recently established and Government-funded Yonkers Institute for Mind-Plague Studies, who came to us with a story so terrifying in its implications that we ordered an immediate investigation.
But while our reporters were stone-walled at Yonkers -while our tele- and video-phone switchboard turned redhot from our largely ignored and unanswered outgoing calls -and while Professor Lon Zebber himself (our informer) was being arrested by FBI agents at his home in White Plains and removed to parts unknown, our own chemists were already working on the samples we had been given.
Their findings were such that despite threats from sources we cannot at this moment of time reveal, we changed our newsprint overnight to bring you this article; and our readers are asked to forgive us if the quality of this leader is not of our usual high standard. But you may now judge for yourself whether or not it was worth it.
The alleged 'pill' they are working on atvYonkers is not a pill at all - not as we were led to believe - but it will certainly cure The Gibbering. Indeed, it will 'cure' just about anything! Naturally we are loath to give the names of our team of chemists (suffice it to say that their credentials are impeccable) but the results of their analysis 'of the pill must be made public at once!
And then all you readers, just like us Watchdogs, will want to know the answers too - and we mean right now!
Quote: 'What this stuff is,' (say our scientists, after working half-way through the night) 'is simply a very efficient poison. It could be manufactured in the form of pills, certainly - or as a liquid, even as a gas. Whichever, it's a sure-fire killer!'
And they went on to say: 'Do you remember Hitler, the gas chambers? Well, World War II is some way back now, but if we had to name this stuff we think we'd take a lead from what was done over there in Germany all those years ago - except that this stuff is far superior to anything the Nazis ever had. What would we call it? Would you believe, "Zyklon C . . ."?'
Which is why Watchdog asks, as will every single one of its 200,000 readers: What the hell is going on here?'
Phillip Stone stopped reading and tossed his newspaper aside. It was the Mail, and probably as conservative as ever. He suspected that the figures were in fact far more serious than was being reported. 1,600,000? That sounded on the low side to him, and his mind went back to the files he had seen in J. C. Craig's office three days ago. That had been Sunday, and already it was Wednesday.
His video-phone interrupted his train of thought, buzzing determinedly.
Stone was not in a good mood. Following long-established habits, which came into play quite automatically whenever he was having an off period, he left his end of the two-way vision system 'off until he knew who he was speaking to. Why should he let some complete stranger gawp at him like he was a monkey in a glass cage? And conversely, why should he have to look at some stranger's ugly mug?
His mood was dictated by the fact that he had been 'let down', and he fully expected that the caller would be Albert Gill with some totally unacceptable excuse for not keeping their morning appointment. Gill was the most infuriating man! This was to have been their fourth - and possibly their last - session, but the psychiatrist was already more than an hour late. It was particularly galling because he had promised that this time it would all come together: finally, he would be able to tell Stone what he wanted to know.
Actually, Stone had scarcely believed him. It had seemed to him that Gill was stalling, that he was finding it more difficult to fathom Stone's mind than he had anticipated. The tubby little psychiatrist had seemed to grow more confused from day to day; the answers he was getting seemed to confirm something, but not what he wanted them to confirm; the fantastic 'fictions' in Stone's subconscious mind were stronger, or had been more strongly implanted, than the real facts he was trying to dig out.
Paradoxically enough, Stone was just sufficiently contrary to enjoy Gill's confusion; the complexities of the case had taken a lot of the initial wind out of the psychiatrist's sails. On the other hand, Stone was more than ever aware of the passage of time. His sense of urgency had been increasing with every session, but Gill had stuck to his guns and refused to tell him a single thing until it could all be laid out for him, cut and dried. Infuriating!
Urgency, conflicting emotions, frustration - in combination, they were explanation enough for Stone's mood. But when the voice on his phone introduced itself as that of Police Sergeant Weston at the Dorking police station Stone had respect for the law. He had been a lawman himself - of sorts - once over. He switched vision 'on' and sat back, staring half-apprehensively at the screen. This could be anything, but there were certain things it was more likely to be. For instance, something to do with Richard.
The grey smog of hazy lines snapped into sharp focus; background detail was mainly lost but the face on the viewscreen came up sharp-etched. 'Weston, sir,' that face repeated, unsmilingly. 'Good morning - and thanks for vision. It helps to be able to see who you're talking to.'
'There are conflicting opinions on that, Sergeant,' said Stone. 'Often it hinges on the subject of the conversation. I'm Stone, Phillip Stone. What can I do for you?'
Weston was maybe twenty-eight or -nine, looked solidly reliable, highly intelligent. While still youthful, his face was nevertheless strained, overworked, worried. A young face and mind rapidly growing old. All the services were suffering. The Gibbering was stretching them like so much warm putty. Police, fire, prisons, hospitals . . . asylums. Even the Armed Forces. Stone snorted at that last thought: 'Armed Forces', that was a laugh! In his day they had been forces - and forces to be reckoned with, at that. But now they had become so run-down as to be little more than government auxiliaries.
The face on Stone's screen frowned. Weston must think his derision - which had obviously showed on his face -was directed at him. Well, let him think it! 'Did you want something, Sergeant?' Stone asked again.
'Yes, sir, possibly,' Weston answered, leaning back a little way and out of focus, turning his head to look at something off-screen, then coming back again. But at least this had given Stone the chance to check out the other's smart blue uniform with its three stripes, complete with bright whistle-chain disappearing into top left-hand pocket. Weston's movement had been quite deliberate: while ostensibly he sought something, he had displayed his badge of office, the regalia of his authority. It didn't faze Stone at all.
'Mr Albert Gill,' said Weston. 'A friend of yours, sir?'
That did faze him.
'I know him professionally,' said Stone, sitting up straighter. 'Why?'
'Appointment with you this morning, sir?'
'He had, yes - and he's late!' Stone's heart gave a lurch. He was counting on Gill. A great deal might be counting on Gill. What was all of this? Weston saw the query on his face and didn't keep him waiting.
'I'm sorry, Mr Stone,' he said, 'but I'm afraid he's not going to make it.'
Oh, Christ! What now? 'Something's happened?'
'Accident, sir. Went off the road. I'm afraid he's knocked himself about rather badly.'
'But he's alive?'
'Oh, yes, he'll live - but it was a close one. He's in hospital here in Dorking. Broken neck.'
'Good Lord!' Stone chewed his lip. 'A long job, then? When will I be able to see him?'
'Visit, you mean?' Weston's gaze was even. 'You're not . . . related, sir?'
Stone had had that question asked him before. His heart sank.
'You're telling me I should get myself a new psychiatrist, right?'
Weston nodded.
'Mind-plague?'
Again the nod.
Stone slumped down. 'How did you get hold of me?'
'Appointment book in Mr Gill's pocket,' Weston answered. 'He had your appointment down for today at 8:30 - your name and address, too.'
'Yes, of course. Sergeant, about the accident -'
'We're calling it an accident, naturally,' Weston cut in. 'We haven't had time yet to decide on categories for mind-plague cases, Crimes? Acts of God. It's difficult
'I can see it would be,' said Stone. 'But the car - was it a write-off?'
'No, not at all. We're having it towed in for a mechanic's check and report. Have to get things right, you know? Sort of what came first, The Gibbering or the crash? But from what we know, it seems he must have suffered an attack while driving. He began to swerve between the lanes - other drivers had to avoid him - and then he just ran out of road. Not going too fast. Jumped a ditch and turned over. He was wearing a seat-belt, of course. He got caught up in it. It was probably his own weight that broke his neck . . .'
