Image of the Beast

  The green light was with them and with Childe, who was about a block behind. His rear tires hit the curb of the island and one wheel went over and there was a crash. He supposed his right rear fender had struck the traffic light, but it did not seem to impair the operation of the car. He shot after the other two cars, though he wondered why he was risking his limb and life. But the fact that they were trying so desperately to get away, that they had deliberately led him astray from that road up to the house on top of the hill kept him going.

  Nevertheless, when the car turned west onto Wilshire Boulevard, he began to think strongly about giving up the chase. They had gone through a red light without stopping and by the time he reached the intersection, he saw their taillights a block away. They were still casting out great sheats of water.

  He continued after them, increasing his speed. He did not know what he would do if he caught up with them. Four against one? And at least one of them, and probably all four, was a being with some very strange and deadly powers. He remembered Hindarf's words.

  At Wilshire and San Vicente, the two cars went through a red light two seconds after it had changed. Two cars coming south on San Vicente met them. The lead car slammed broadside into Fred Pao's automobile, and the car behind the lead car smashed into its rear. The car following Pao rammed into his rear. A moment later, Childe's car, turning around and around on the wet pavement, slammed its rear into the car that had been following Pao's. The whole mass, five cars jammed into each other, swung around like a five-pointed star, around and around.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 28

  "Very well, Forry," Heepish said. "If you want it that badly..."

  He bowed and made a flourish. Forry felt his cheeks warming up. He said, "Do I want it? It's mine! I paid for it with my money! You stole it, like a common thief!"

  "No common thief would touch it," Heepish said.

  Forry, deciding that absolutely nothing was to be gained by standing there, plunged on ahead. The others opened a way for him, and Heepish even ran up and opened the door for him.

  "See you, Forry," he said.

  "Yeah. In jail, maybe!"

  As soon as he was in his own house, Forry placed the painting on the wall and then checked the doors to make sure they were locked. The Dummocks had not come home yet, so he decided to stay and sleep on the couch that night. Then he remembered that he was supposed to get the latest edition of Vampirella out. He had completely forgotten about it!

  He made himself some coffee and went into a rear room, where his "office" was. He worked away steadily until 2:30, when he heard a slight noise somewhere in the house. He rose and started out of the office when the lights went out. That was all he needed to put him hopelessly behind schedule!

  He fumbled around in the desk drawer for matches, which he did not think he would have, since he had never smoked. Finding none, he groped through to the kitchen. The pantry shelves were filled with books and magazines. He did not eat at the house but took all his meals out or ate at Wendy's. The icebox, except for some cream for coffee and a few goodies, was filled with microfilm.

  As he felt around in the porch room for a flashlight, the lights suddenly came back on. He continued until he found the flashlight. If the power failed again, he would work by its light.

  On the way back to the office, he looked into the front room. The Stoker painting was gone!

  There was no time to stand around and think. He put on his rainhat and raincoat and rubbers and walked as fast as his heart would let him out to the car. He got into the big green Cadillac and backed out into the lake which Sherbourne Drive had become. He went as fast as he dared and within two minutes was before Woolston Heepish's. Fred Pao, the painting in his arms, was just turning away from the car.

  Forry blasted his horn at him and flicked his brights on. The Chinese was startled and almost dropped the painting. Forry cried out in anguish and then lowered the window to shout at Pao.

  "I'll call the police!"

  Pao opened the rear door of the car and shoved the painting into it. He ran around to the other side, got in, and the motor roared. His Mercury took off with a screaching of tires and sped towards Olympic. Forry stared at him for several seconds and then, biting his lip, took off with a similar screeching of tires. At the same time, he honked furiously at the Chinese. The man was taking his beloved Dracula where he could hide it until the search was up. And then Woolston Heepish would receive it!

  But not if Forrest J Ackerman, the Gray Lensman of Los Angeles, had anything to do with it! Just as Buck Rogers trailed Killer Kane to his lair, so FJA would track down the thief!

  Pao's car swung west on Olympic. Forry started to go through the stop sign, too, but had to slam on his brakes as a car going west on Olympic, sheets of water flying from its sides, honked at him. His car skidded and slid sidewise out onto the main boulevard. The oncoming car swerved and skidded also, turned around once, and ended up still going westward. Forry straightened out the Cadillac and ran it as if it were a speedboat. Waves curling out on both sides, he passed the car he had almost hit and then continued building up speed until he saw Pao's taillights going right on Robertson. He went through a red light, causing two drivers to apply their brakes and honk their horns. He chased Pao up Robertson and down Charleville Boulevard. Despite its multiplicity of stop signs, neither stopped once. Then Pao turned up to Wilshire, went westward back to Robertson, up Robertson, through all intersections with stop signs and signal lights, red or green, and skidded right on Burton Way. He ran a red light going to San Vicente and so did Forry. In the distance, a police siren whooped, and Forry almost slowed down. But he decided that he could justify his speeding and, even if he couldn't, a fine would be worth it if the cops caught Pao with the stolen goods. He hoped the cops would show up in time. If they didn't, they might find one dead Chinese.

  Pao continued down San Vicente, ran another red light at Sixth, with Forry two car-lengths behind him. Despite their recklessness, neither was going over forty. The water was too solid; at higher speeds it struck the bottom of the car like a club.

  At Wilshire and San Vicente the light was green for them, but two cars raced through the red; and Pao hit the lead car broadside. Forry applied his brakes and slowed down the car somewhat, but it crashed into the rear of the Chinese's car. His head hit something, and he blacked out.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 29

  Childe was half-dazed. After the screaming of metal, the crashing and ripping and rending of metal, and the shatter and tinkle of glass, there was a moment of silence--except for the rain and a siren in the distance. Some of the cars still had operating headlights, and these cast a pale rain-streaked halo over the wreckage. Then a huge black fox leaped onto the top of his hood, paused to grin through the windshield at him, leaped down onto the street, and trotted off into the darkness behind Stats Restaurant.

  The police car, its siren dying, pulled up by the cars, and two officers got out. At the same time, a big dog--no, a wolf--passed by him, also on the way to the rear of the restaurant.

  An officer, looking into the cars, swore and called to his partner. "Hey, Jeff, look at this! Two piles of clothes in this one and another pile in this car and nobody around that could have worn them! What the hell is this?"

  The policeman had a genuine mess in more ways than one. No one seemed to be dead or even seriously hurt. Childe's car was bashed in in the front and side but was still operable. The car of a Mr. Ackerman had a smashed radiator and would have to be towed away. Pao's car was destroyed. The others were leaking badly from the radiators and could not be driven far.

  One policeman set out flares. The other still could not get over the abandoned clothing. He kept muttering, "I've seen some freak things, but this tops them all."

  Another patrol car arrived after ten minutes. The officers determined that no one needed to be hospitalized. They took down the necessary information, gave out some tickets, and then dismissed the participants. The c
ase was far from over, but there had been so many accidents because of the rain and so many other duties to perform that the police had to streamline normal procedures. One did say that Mr. Pao and Mr. Batlang would be sought for leaving the scene of an accident. And if the clothes meant anything, they might be arrested for public nudity, indecent exposure and, probably, would be subjected to a psychiatric examination.

  One of the passengers in the car said that they must have been dazed He knew them well, they were responsible citizens, and they would never leave the scene of an accident unless they had been rendered half-conscious in a state of shock.

  "Maybe so," the policeman said. "But you have to admit it's rather peculiar that all three should take off their clothes--slide out of them the way it looks to me--and run away. We were right behind you, and we didn't even see them leave."

  "It was raining very heavily," the passenger said

  "Not that heavily."

  "What a night," the other policeman said.

  Childe tried to talk to the others in the accident, but only Forrest J (no period) Ackerman would reply. He seemed very concerned about a painting in the rear seat of Pao's car. He had removed it shortly after the police had arrived and put it in the back seat of his Cadillac. If the police observed this, they did not say anything. Now he wanted to get it back to his house.

  "I'll take you as soon as they let us go," Childe said. "Your house isn't far from here; it won't be any bother."

  He did not know what Ackerman's part in this was. He seemed to be an innocent victim, but then there was the transfer of the painting from Pao's car. How had Pao gotten hold of it? Also, there seemed to be two Paos. Were they twins?

  Forry Ackerman told him something of what had happened on the way to his house. Childe became excited, because he had met Woolston Heepish when he was investigating the disappearance of his partner, Colben.

  Childe decided that he would appear to go along with Ackerman's story. The man seemed to be sincere and genuinely upset and puzzled by what had happened. But it was possible that he was one of the Ogs, as Hindarf called them. It was also possible that he was one of the Tocs.

  When he drove up before Ackerman's house, he looked at it through the dark and the rain, and he said, "If I didn't know better, I would think Heepish lived here."

  "That man deliberately fixed his house to look like mine," Forry said. "That's why he's called 'the poorman's Forry Ackerman,' though I don't think he's so poor."

  They went inside and, while Ackerman hung the painting, Childe looked around. The layout of the house was the same, but the paintings and the other items were different. And this place was brighter and more inclined to science-fiction subjects than Heepish's.

  When Forry stepped down off the sofa with a satisfied smile, Childe said, "There's something wrong about this accident, other than the disappearance of Pao. I mean, I was chasing Pao in one car and the three men with him in the other. Yet you say you were chasing Pao, too."

  "That's right," Forry said. "It is puzzling. The whole evening has been puzzling and extremely upsetting. I have to get the latest issue of my comic book out to my publisher in New York, and I'm far behind. I'll have to work twice as fast to catch up."

  Childe interpreted this as meaning that he should leave at once. The man must really be dedicated to his work. How many could go back to their desk and work on a piece of fiction about vampires when they might have been associating with genuine vampires, not to mention genuine werefoxes and werewolves?

  "When you get your work done, and you're ready to talk,?" Childe said, "we'll get together. I have many questions, and I also have some information you might find interesting, though I don't know that you'll believe it."

  "I'm too tired to believe in anything but a good night's sleep, which I'm not going to get," Forry said. "I hate to be inhospitable, but..."

  Childe hesitated. Should he take up more of this man's time by warning him? He decided that it would be better not to. If he knew what danger he was really in, he would not be able to concentrate on his work. And knowing the danger would not help him in the least unless he believed in it and fled from this area. That did not seem likely. Childe would not have believed such a story if he had not experienced it.

  He gave Forry his phone number and address and said, "Call me when you're ready to talk this over. I have a lot to tell you. Maybe together we can get a more complete picture."

  Forry said he would do so. He conducted Childe to the door but before he let him through, he said, "I think I'll take that painting into my office with me. I wouldn't put it past Heepish to try again."

  Childe did not ask why he did not call the police. Obviously, if he did, he would be held up even more in getting out Vampirella.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 30

  Herald Childe did not get home until seven in the morning. The rain had stopped by four-thirty, but the canyons were roaring streams. He was stopped by the police, but when he explained that he lived off the main road, he was permitted to go on. Only residents could use this section of Topanga Canyon, and they were warned that it would be better if they stayed away. Childe pushed on--literally--and eventually got to his driveway. He saw three houses that had slipped their moorings and moved downhill anywhere from six to twenty feet. Two of the houses must have been deserted, but outside the third a family was moving some furniture and clothes into the back of a pickup truck. Childe thought momentarily about helping them and then decided that they could handle their own affairs. The pickup truck was certainly more equipped to move through the high water than his low-slung car, and if they wanted to break their backs moving their sofa, that was their foolish decision.

  Another car of the same year and model as the others was parked under the branches of the oak tree. The water flowing down the street was up past the hubs of the wheels. So strong was the force of the current, it sometimes lifted Childe's car a fraction of an inch. But at no time was more than one wheel off the ground.

  He parked the car in the driveway. The garage floor was flooded and, besides, he wanted the car to be available for a quick takeoff. He was not sure that the water pouring off the cliff and drowning his backyard would not lift the garage eventually. Or, if the cliff did collapse, it might move far enough to smash the garage, which was closer to the cliff than the house.

  He unlocked the door and locked it behind him. He started to cross the room when, in the pale daylight, a shapeless form rose from the sofa. He thought his heart would stop.

  The shapelessness fell off the figure. It was a blanket which had disguised it. For a moment, he could not grasp who was standing before him. Then he cried, "Sybil!"

  It was his ex-wife.

  She ran to him and threw her arms around him, put her face against his chest, and sobbed. He held her and whispered, over and over, "Sybil! Sybil! I thought you were dead! My God, where have you been?"

  After a while she quit crying and raised her face to kiss him. She was thirty-four now, her birthday had been six days ago, but she looked as if she had aged five years. There were large dark circles under her eyes and the lines from nose to mouth had gotten deeper. She also seemed thinner.

  He led her to the sofa and sat her down and then said, "Are you all right?"

  She started to cry again, but after a minute she looked up at him and said, "I am and I'm not."

  "Is there anything I can do for you?" he asked.

  "Yes, you can get me a cup of coffee. And a joint, if you have one."

  He waved his hand as if to indicate a complete change of character. "I don't have any pot. I've gone back to drinking."

  She looked alarmed, and he said, hastily, "Only a shot very infrequently. I'm going to school again. UCLA. History major."

  Then, "How did you find this house? How did you get here? Is that your car out in front?"

  "I was brought up here by somebody--somebodies--and let into the house. I took off the blindfold and looked around. I found my photograph on your bed
side table, so I knew where I was. I decided to wait for you, and I fell asleep."

  "Just a minute," he said. "This is going to be a long story, I can see that. I'll make some coffee and some sandwiches, too, in case we get hungry."

  He did not like to put off hearing what had happened, but he knew that she would not want to be interrupted after she got started. He did everything that had to be done very swiftly and brought in a tray with a big pot of coffee, food, and some rather dried-out cigarettes he found in the pantry. He no longer smoked, but he had gotten cigarettes for women he had brought into the house.

  Sybil said, "Oh, good!" and reached for the cigarettes. Then she withdrew her hand and said, wearily, "I haven't smoked for six months, and my lungs feel much better. I won't start up again."

  She had said this before and sounded as if she meant it. But this time her voice had a thread of steel in it. Something had happened to change her.

  "All right," he said. "You left for your mother's funeral in San Francisco. I called your sister, and she said you'd phoned her and told her you couldn't get a plane out and your car wouldn't start. You told her you were coming up with a friend, but you hung up without saying who the friend was. And that was the last I heard of you. Now, over a year later, you show up in my house."

  She took a deep breath and said, "I don't expect you to believe this, Herald."

  "I'll believe anything. With good reason."

  "I couldn't get hold of you, and, anyway, after that horrible quarrel, I didn't think you'd want to ever see me again. I had to get to San Francisco, but I didn't know how. Then I thought of a friend of mine, and I walked over to his apartment. He only lived a block from me."

  "He?"

  "Bob Guilder. You don't know him"

  "A lover?" he said, feeling a pinprick of jealousy. Thank God that emotion was dying out, in regard to her, anyway.

  "Yes," she said. "Earlier. We parted but not because we couldn't stand one another. We just didn't strike fire off each other, sexually. But we remained fairly good friends. Anyway, I got there just as he was packing to leave for Carmel. He couldn't stand the smog anymore, and even though the governor didn't want people leaving, he said he was going anyway. He was glad to drive me all the way into San Francisco, since he had some things to do there."