“Got it,” said Garvey as they headed for their respective rooms . . .
Trask did as he’d said: put his bags in the room he was sharing with Ian Goodly, told the precog about Samuels, was about to go and speak to the rest of the team when Garvey walked in without knocking. The telepath’s face was pale, and his expression grotesque even for him.
“Boss,” he said, staggering a very little, “Samuels is in his room. He didn’t answer my knock so I used a skeleton key. I . . . I think you better come and see this for yourself. He won’t be going anywhere soon, or ever, and whatever he’s already done or said he definitely won’t be speaking to anyone else.”
Feeling gooseflesh creeping on his arms, Trask said, “What are you telling me? He’s . . . what, dead?”
“More than just dead.” Garvey gulped, his colour beginning to turn from grey to green. “I mean, his brains are hanging out of his ears and his eyes are on his cheeks! Shit, he’s so . . . so contorted, twisted! I think it maybe took him some time to die. He must have been in absolute agony, and yet the poor dumb bastard didn’t even scream.”
“Didn’t even scream?” said Trask. “How do you—?”
But Garvey was stumbling toward the bathroom. Throwing the door open and fighting the rising bile, he turned and said, “He . . . he couldn’t have cried out because . . . because his mouth is welded shut!”
Then he kicked the door shut behind him, and Trask and the precog heard the sounds of his throwing up . . .
Millie Cleary was knocking at the door. Trask let her in, asked if she was okay. Her face was strained, worried, with that telltale bruised look around the eyes that spoke of an abuse of her talent, the fact that she’d been pushing it.
“I was trying to contact Paul,” she said. “I wanted to see if he knew why everything was so—”
“So quiet?” said Trask.
“Yes.” She nodded. “But his thoughts . . . they were a mess! Full of horrible things! He’s here, isn’t he?”
“Yes, I’m here,” Garvey answered shakily, still stumbling, wiping his mouth on a towel as he left the bathroom. “And I think that for now I’m going to stay here. This isn’t any kind of place where I’d want to be on my own.” He found a chair and flopped down into it.
Trask tried to call reception on the telephone, but there was no answer. “Damn!” he said. “I want to contact these Swiss specials. Maybe I can get them on their room numbers.”
And Garvey reminded him, “That’s six through nine.”
Trask tried each of the four numbers. Again, no answer.
The precog Ian Goodly was at the window looking out on the square. “Isn’t that Herr Alpenmann?” he said. “It seems he’s in a bit of a hurry.”
As Trask crossed to the window a knock sounded and Millie let the techs in. Entering ahead of Alan McGrath, Graham Taylor started to say, “I was trying to test the outside lines . . .” But feeling the tension he at once fell silent.
“And?” said Trask, peering out of the window.
“They’re down,” said Taylor. And looking from face to face he asked, “What’s going on?”
Trask barely glanced at him. “Go get Chung and the rest of the team,” he said, then looked out of the window again. And to Goodly: “Yes, that’s Alpenmann.” At which the figure down below turned to look up at the windows, saw Trask, went wide-eyed and almost fell into the driver’s seat of a car.
In the time it took Trask to get his team fully assembled Alpenmann’s car had left the village and was accelerating away, heading west across the valley. And in that direction—
“There’s just the one road out that way,” said the precog. “And that’s the road to Schloss Zonigen.”
“Alan.” Trask turned to McGrath. “Get your binoculars. See if you can follow his headlights. I want to know for sure where he’s going.”
Next he turned to David Chung. “David, get downstairs, see if there’s anyone left in this fucking place. No, wait a minute—don’t go on your own. Graham, you go with him—after you’ve put your crossbow together!”
And then to Millie Cleary: “I’m sorry, Millie, but you’ll probably be hearing a lot more profanity, and not just from me. Under certain circumstances, decent vocabularies tend to go out the window.”
Millie shrugged and under her breath, faintly and shakily, said, “Oh, well then—fuck it!”
As Chung and Taylor were leaving, McGrath reentered; going to the window, he looked through dual-purpose binoculars—standard and infrared—to scan the road out of the village toward the pine-clad, scree-littered slopes at the base of Schloss Zonigen. “Aye,” he muttered, adjusting the focus on the binoculars. “There he goes—the shrivelled wee shit! Nae doubt in mah mind but he’s off tae see his masters.”
“Or if not his masters as such,” said Garvey, “the ones he fears—the ones he daren’t think about—who have ordered him not to think about them!”
“Which means,” said Trask, “that they know about us. Certainly they know we have telepaths, and it’s possible they know we have other talents, too. And they’re not on their own, these maniacs, creatures, whatever they are. Maybe the entire village knows about them! If so, they’ve probably recruited other spies, like Alpenmann; also guards, soldiers, and enforcers. And as for Schloss Zonigen: that place up there looks almost impregnable!”
Then, glancing from face to face, he said, “It’s high time we talked to our Swiss special counterparts. They really should have contacted us by now. Let’s face it: you don’t need to be a member of Mensa to know that this place is all wrong! Paul, and Alan, you are with me. Alan, first we’ll get your crossbow from your room. The rest of you stay here; wait for Chung and Taylor to get back, then come looking for me. I’ll be talking to Swiss Special Forces—if I can find them!”
As Trask and his two went into the corridor, Garvey said, “Boss, I’m sorry about what happened in there just now.”
“Oh?” said Trask, innocently. “So what happened?”
“You know what I mean,” said Garvey. “My throwing up and all. But when I saw what someone had done to Samuels—the way he’d been disfigured—it brought back too many bad memories.”
“Of Johnny Found?” said Trask. “What he did to you on the night the Necroscope nailed him? Paul, that’s perfectly understandable. If I were in your shoes I know I’d feel the same. So forget it. Anyway, it’s not unlikely that you’ll be throwing up again before this is over. We all might!”
Trask wasn’t a precog, but on this occasion he could well have been . . .
They knocked on the doors of rooms six, seven, eight, and nine, and got no answer. Then outside number nine, on Trask’s orders, Garvey produced his skeleton key, fumbled it into the lock, and stood back. Garvey wasn’t a coward, far from it; but as strong and athletic as he was, the telepath had had enough of shocks for now.
Trask and McGrath entered the dark room, switching on the light as they went, and Garvey followed on behind. Just inside the door, however, Trask came to such an abrupt, startled halt that his companions almost bumped into him.
“What is it the noo?” said McGrath, his voice husky.
Trask moved slowly forward toward a table with drawers, a television, a telephone, and desk space on the nearside of the TV set for writing, with room underneath for the writer’s legs. The chair that would have fitted that space was on its back in the middle of the floor, and what looked like a huge pink pancake was draped over the desk area, its folds hanging loosely down the side and front of the table. Halfway down the height of the table, the hanging portion of the pancake had separated into two flattened extensions with a small mass of scarlet material between them. The scarlet stuff dripped one last droplet of red even as Trask and the others stared in total disbelief. Another long segment of the pink stuff was draped over the top of the TV, and an ugly bulge of the same material looked about ready to sink into the two-inch gap between the table and wall. “God A’mighty!” said McGrath then. And, “Jesus
Christ! Is that what ah think it is? But no, it cannae be!”
But it was. The flattened ugly bit against the wall wore a tuft of black hair and a face without a mouth yet with teeth on the outside. The “extensions” were arms and legs. A bit of torn linen dangling from the red, central area was all that remained of a pair of underpants.
Then, as Trask took a stumbling pace to the rear his movement caused this . . . this monstrosity—all that was left of a man—to slither like so much wet dough off the table, buckling into neat, boneless folds on the floor. And there where it fell and folded up on itself, its impact splashed sticky red dollops from a great pool of partly congealed blood, unrecognized until now because its colour was a near-perfect match for the carpet.
David Chung, Graham Taylor, and the rest were now gathered in the corridor. Coming to the door, the locator began to speak: “There’s a cook in the kitchen—an old lady in a dirndl and a fancy hat—singing away to herself as she works. I don’t think she’s entirely with it. And there’s a waiter laying out cutlery, food, and wine in the dining room . . .” Chung paused for a moment, then came to stand beside Trask and went on: “There didn’t seem to be anyone else around. While the cook seems okay, maybe just a bit strange, the waiter’s as jumpy as a cricket, and . . . what the hell!?” He had finally seen what the others were staring at.
“Hell is the right word for it,” Trask agreed then, backing away and taking the others with him.
And hard-man McGrath whispered, “This poor, poor bastard! And all o’ his juices bled oot frae his privates. But for God’s sake, where’s his bones?”
“They’re under the bed,” Trask choked the words out as he lifted the corner of a coverlet and something white showed. “It looks like they . . . like they simply slipped out of him!” Then, letting the coverlet fall, he growled, “The other rooms: go and try them, but go in twos. As of now no one is to do anything or go anywhere on his own. Paul, you stay here with me.”
The six were only too glad to leave Trask and the telepath alone in that awful room, and as they left Garvey said, “I appreciate this, boss. Thanks for putting your faith in me.”
“No problem,” said Trask. “Anyway, I reckoned I’d probably be safe since you’ve already thrown up on me once tonight.” For a brief moment he forced a faintly sardonic grin—
—But only for a moment, until something made a soft bumping sound in an old-fashioned wooden wardrobe in the far corner of the room beside the window!
36
Garvey jumped six inches, said, “Shit!” and stumbled two paces backward out into the corridor. Quickly recovering, he called out after Tech Taylor. “Graham, bring that crossbow back here!”
Feeling utterly defenceless without a weapon, Trask nevertheless steeled himself to step over the human remains and the darkening pool of blood that lay between the TV table-cum-desk and a pair of single beds, toward the now threatening wardrobe. Taking the loaded crossbow from Taylor, Garvey leaned over the red mess on the floor and passed the weapon to Trask. With his finger on the trigger, the latter moved closer to the wardrobe.
Almost there, he called out, “Okay, whoever’s in there—you have just five seconds to—”
At which the wardrobe’s twin doors flew open, revealing a wild, babbling man! His hair was a tangle over twitching features, and his eyes, rapidly blinking, were almost starting out of a face white as death. In his hands he held an ugly-looking submachine gun! But it had been pitchdark in the wardrobe, and the relatively bright lighting in the room had temporarily blinded him. Also, one of the wardrobe’s doors partly blocked Trask from his view. Making inarticulate sounds he staggered forward, swinging his weapon in a threatening arc.
Trask’s reflexes were good, and likewise his talent. He at once saw “the truth” of the situation: that this man wasn’t his enemy. Bringing the crossbow’s tiller up he knocked the machine gun aside and hurled himself forward, using his weight to throw the wild-eyed man back into the teetering wardrobe. And letting go the crossbow to grab the other’s gun barrel, Trask simultaneously head-butted him, which finished the job.
By then Paul Garvey had joined him. The telepath wrestled the machine gun from the stranger’s slack grip and helped Trask climb out of the wardrobe’s wreckage. Trask came, dragging the dazed, bloodied wild man with him.
“He’s terrified,” said Garvey, “in shock, didn’t know what he was doing. Look, the gun’s safety is still on! Total funk. I failed to read him in there simply because there was nothing to read! Even before you headbutted him his mind was a blank, and now he’s in denial—of everything!”
Trask heaved the man across the bed, told Taylor, “Hold on to him. If he looks like he’s going to start raving again, give him a good crack on the jaw. I reckon he’s one of our specials, God damn it!”
The rest of the team had meanwhile regrouped in the corridor, where locator Chung was gurgling and gasping, determined not to be sick, and Ian Goodly was looking more gaunt and cadaver-like than ever. “The other rooms,” said Goodly, his piping voice at least an octave higher than normal, “are more or less the same as this one . . . with variations. But you really don’t want to know what they are. We found six dead men.”
And coming forward, a big-eyed Millie Cleary said, “But we also found some of these in two suitcases, and plenty of ammunition to go with them.” She carried a standard 9 mm automatic in one hand and an ugly-looking machine gun like the one they’d already seen in the other. Unable to conceal the shudder in her voice she continued. “This one”—hefting the machine gun—“is mine!”
“Okay,” said Trask, “we’re all together now and we’ll stay that way. Grab your stuff and we’re downstairs, everybody. This place has just become our HQ. Paul and Alan, bring our newfound friend with you.”
“My name,” said that one in English with a German accent, as Garvey and McGrath brought him out of the room between them, “is Norbert Hauser. And you . . . you must be Benjamin Trask?”
“Call me Ben,” Trask told him. “Are you okay?”
The other shouldered himself erect, tried to free himself, but Garvey and McGrath hung on to him. Hauser managed to lift a hand, fingered his bloodied nose. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he said. “But it feels like you were trying!”
“Don’t go looking for an apology from me,” said Trask. “If you’d been right in your head I might have been dead! But your weapon was still on safe.”
“Huh!” said the other. “And that’s not all: it wasn’t even loaded! I didn’t have time before . . . before I . . . well, before things got on top of me. That was something that never happened before. Shock, like your friend here said.”
At which Paul Garvey nodded and said, “His mind’s still on the fritz, disordered. But he’s gradually coming out of it.” It was the second time the telepath had commented on Hauser’s mental condition. Swaying a little, Hauser looked at him, frowned, and said:
“My mind is on the . . . ?” And then: “Ah, yes—of course—I understand! Your reputation has preceded you, Ben Trask. You and your people. I didn’t believe any of it until now.”
Trask nodded, considered the talents surrounding him, also his own, and thought, Norbert, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
“Will you let go of me now?” Hauser looked at Garvey, then at McGrath. “I can manage, I think.”
Trask gave them the nod, but as they released Hauser he at once staggered and almost fell.
Trask shook his head, said, “Norbert, I don’t think you’re quite ready.” And to the men flanking him. “Help him downstairs. We’ll see how he gets on. Bring those weapons and all the ammunition you can find. Now come on, everyone. Let’s move it!”
Downstairs, they could smell cooked food. Trask said, “I don’t suppose anyone’s very hungry right now, but whatever we’re in for we really don’t want to be facing it on empty stomachs. No alcohol, but we should all have at least a bite to eat. David, where’s the dining room? Lead the way . . . no, never mi
nd, I’ll follow my nose.”
But the locator did lead the way—down a pine-panelled passage with doors leading off—to a large, well-lighted room with a long, pine-topped table in the central floor space. The table was now laden with local specialities: a tureen of steaming bean soup, wild pig on a carving platter, various sausages, nuts and fruit, breads, wine, and an urn of black coffee.
The waiter was there, too, and dressed for the occasion. An older man with slicked-back hair, long sideburns, and a large nose on a long thin face, he was in evening dress, had a napkin over one arm, and wore a long white apron tied at the waist. But instead of waiting on he was seated in one of the chairs at the table. Chung had earlier described him as “jumpy as a cricket,” but that no longer applied. Now he simply sat staring at something, with a tic jerking in the corner of his mouth.
Approaching him, Trask and the team saw what he was staring at—which stopped them dead in their tracks.
Regular as clockwork, something was dripping from the high ceiling directly into the big soup tureen, and it was something red. The tureen’s fancy doily was splotched where muddy liquids had splashed out of the bowl. The eyes of the entire team, including Norbert Hauser, turned up to stare at the ceiling, where a bright red blotch was slowly spreading outward from its central focus.
And the precog said, “I . . . I think I know this. It’s from one of the rooms. His bottom half was lying naked on a bed; the rest of him was slumped off the bed, with his head touching the floor. The slumping half had peeled itself and was very bloody. I was paired up with Millie; I didn’t want her to see too much so we didn’t stay—but I swear I thought he was dead!”
“Then tell yourself that he was,” said Trask, nodding. “He probably was, and it’s just that it’s taken this long for it to find its way down here. It doesn’t run like it’s fresh.”