Image of the Beast / Blown

  Budler or so mangled it that it could not be used for a

  balloon. His head went spinning over and over toward

  the corner, where Colben, turned upside down by the

  weight of his hair, and the valve on the back of his

  neck, stood on his head.

  There were a number of women, only four of whom

  had the right length or color of hair for Sybil. Despite

  this, he inflated all of them. When he had blown up the

  last one, he was panting as if he had run a half-mile

  through the smog. The effort was only partly responsible.

  He had been so certain that the last one would have

  Sybil's features.

  He sat down and sipped on another glass of water.

  There were thirty-eight skins at one end of the room.

  Most of them were upside down, but a few had fallen

  against the others and leaned one way or another.

  The light from a lamp in the corner shone through many

  of them so that they seemed a mob of drunken ghosts.

  The draft from the air-conditioning moved them back

  and forth a little as if they were phantoms of the

  drowned.

  Thirty-eight. Twenty-five males. Thirteen females. Of

  the males, fifteen were Caucasians, seven were Negroes,

  three were Mongolians or Indians. Of the females, nine

  were Caucasians and four were Negresses.

  All were adult. If any had been children, he would

  not have been able to endure it. He would have run

  screaming down the hall. He thought he was tough, but

  he would not have been able to stand the sight of the

  inflated skins of children.

  As it was, he was angry and sick. More angry than

  sick at the moment. What were they planning on doing

  with these … these corpse-balloons? Fill them with

  hydrogen and send them flying over Los Angeles?

  That was probably exactly what they would do. It

  would be on a par, no, would surpass, the effrontery of

  the films.

  He rose and took a bottle of vodka by the neck and

  went back to the doorway of the room in which he had

  left Mrs. Grasatchow. She was sitting up and vomiting.

  Blood was still trickling from her nostrils. On seeing

  Childe, she snarled and managed to lift herself to her

  feet. Blood and vomit smeared her immense belly.

  "You'll beg me to kill you!" she screamed.

  "Why will I?" he said. He stepped inside the room.

  "Before I kill you, I want you to tell me why you did

  that to all those people? And why did you strip off their

  skins?"

  "I'll rip your balls off!" she shouted. She charged him

  then; he braced himself, the bottle lifted high. But she

  stepped on the turd and her feet shot up and ahead of

  her and she fell heavily on her back. She lay there, groan-

  ing but seemingly knocked out. He hit her, once, on the

  side of her head with the bottle she had dropped and

  then locked the door to the room. The bottle in one hand

  and her purse on the other arm, and his penis sticking

  out—what a hero I make! he thought—he entered the

  room in which he had first been chained.

  But he came out of it at once and went into the

  recreation room. He needed evidence. The police

  wouldn't believe much of his story after he told it, but

  they would have to believe that a part of it was true when

  he showed them Colben and Budler. And another picked

  at random who might turn out to have been reported

  missing.

  The deflation was as ghastly as he had expected. The

  air hissed out, and Budler and the woman shrank

  like the witch on whom Dorothy had thrown water. But

  Colben—he always was slippery—got away and shot

  around the room, butting into several of the phantoms

  and knocking them heads over heels. He came to rest

  draped over the bar. Childe pulled him off the bar then

  as he had pulled him away several times when he was

  living. He rolled him up and stuffed him into the purse on

  top of Budler's head and the red-headed woman.

  The section of wall opened for him after a number of

  experiments of running his hand along the juncture of

  the blocks which Dolores had pressed. He stepped inside

  with a pencil-flashlight taken from the purse. The sec-

  tion swung shut behind him, and he began walking

  slowly. The passageway was warm and dusty and narrow.

  It led past several rooms, each of which had a one-way

  mirror but no entrance that he could detect. They were

  similar to those lining the other hallway, A stairway con-

  fronted him. He walked up this uneasily, although he

  did not think that it could be a trap, since he was so

  deep in the earth. But he could not be sure. At the top,

  he was in a passageway which offered him two routes.

  There were prints in the dust, a long pointed shoeprint

  which he presumed was the baron's and those of a dog's

  or a wolf's. The latest led to his right, so he decided to

  follow them. One way was as good as another, and

  something had to decide him.

  His flashlight showed him several squares in the walls.

  When he opened these, he saw through one-way mirrors

  into a number of rooms, one of which he thought he

  remembered. It was a Louis Quatorze bedroom, but it

  did not seem quite like the one he remembered. It did

  have an entrance through the paneling. He took it and

  after stepping softly around it and looking into the bath-

  room, knew this was not the same room. The queer

  disturbing mirror was missing. He started to open the

  door to look out into the next room or the hallway but

  thought better of it. He placed his ear against the wood

  and was glad that he had done so. The murmur of voices

  came through the wood.

  The keyhole let him hear more clearly but not clearly

  enough. After turning off all the lights in the room, he

  turned the knob carefully and eased the door open. The

  voices came from the end of the hall. He could see part-

  way down it but not far enough to see the speakers.

  The voices were identifiable, except for two. These could

  be Chornkin's and Krautschner's, since they had not

  spoken when introduced or at the dinner table. They

  could also be those of newcomers.

  "… much energy from Magda, as I said before,"

  Igescu was saying loudly. He seemed angered and,

  perhaps, a little frightened. "I think Dolores had gathered

  enough around her to take tangible and enduring shape,

  enough to render Magda powerless for a moment and

  suck her almost dry. She didn't kill Magda but she came

  damn close. And then Glam, that damn fool! he deserved

  what he got! But then what can you expect from his

  kind? Glam fucked her, although I'd warned him often

  enough what might happen. I think he thought he was

  safe. But the very act of fucking gave her energy enough;

  she came to and found Glam in her, how she hated him!

  And you saw Glam!"

  The strange male voice interrupted softly, Childe could

  not understand
what he was saying. Igescu's reply was

  loud enough.

  "Yes, Magda got the energy but not enough! She's

  stuck in stasis, and she won't get out unless she kills

  another! Which will mean someone here, in this house!"

  The strange female voice spoke then; it was even

  softer than the male's. Igescu said, "Childe would do it!

  I had other plans for him, but I can give them up! We

  have to find Magda first and get her to Childe! Other-

  wise … !"

  "Dolores?" Mrs. Pocyotl said.

  Childe could almost see the baron's shrug. The

  baron said, "Who knows? She's X! A dangerous X! If

  she can do that to Magda, she can do that to any of us.

  But I doubt that she could attack more than one of us

  at a time and I think she'd have to surprise us, just as

  she must have surprised Magda! So, we'd better hang

  together, as …"

  A shout interrupted him. Footsteps sounded. The group

  was going around the corner and down the stairs to the

  cause of commotion. More shouts. He swung the door

  wider and peeped down the hall. The only one there was

  Bending Grass, who leaned his stocky form against the

  wall and cocked his head to look down the stairway.

  Then somebody called his name and he disappeared.

  Childe ran down the hallway to the only door opened.

  This was by the head of the steps, and the group had

  been assembled outside it. He stuck his head in. The

  room was strange, looked more like a movie director's

  idea of a Turkish harem than anything else. There were

  rugs and drapes and cushions and ottomans and even a

  hookah and a dresser so low that Magda must have had

  to sit cross-legged while she looked in the mirror. There

  was a marble-lined bath sunk level with the floor. It

  was almost large enough to qualify as a small swimming

  pool. Beyond it was a low marble enclosure which pre-

  sumably had served Magda as a bed, since it was piled

  with cushions and pillows and canopied with many silk

  veils.

  Glam's black soft-leather boots stuck out over the en-

  closure. Childe walked swiftly in, past the bath, which

  was full of cold water, and looked over the marble railing.

  Glam had died with his boots on. Also, his pants. He

  had stripped off his shirt and undershirt and pulled his

  pants down around his knees, but he had been too eager

  to bother taking all of his clothes off.

  There was blood on his pants and much blood on his

  body. Blood had spurted out from his ears, nostrils, eyes,

  mouth, anus, and penis. Something had violently

  squeezed him. The ribs were caved in; the arms were

  flattened; the hip bones had been pushed inward toward

  each other. Not only blood had been expelled from every

  aperture. The contents of the bowels and about six feet

  of the bowels themselves had been pressed out of his

  anus.

  Near the bed, a section of wall stood open. Whether

  Magda had taken this or Igescu had opened it to see

  if she had taken it, Childe could not know. But he

  could not linger long here; his route of escape was sud-

  denly no longer a matter of choice. Voices announced

  the return of the others. He might have had time to slip

  back through the door and up the hallway, but he did

  not dare chance it. He went through the opening in the

  wall.

  Before he had taken a dozen steps, he was seized.

  He groaned with a despairing ecstasy and braced him-

  self with both hands against the walls while he spouted

  and shook. Afterward, he cursed, but he could do noth-

  ing about his condition. He walked on. His penis still

  stuck straight out and slightly at an upward angle, like

  the bowsprit of a ship. The cone was working within him.

  God knew how long its effect lasted, how long it would

  take to melt entirely away.

  Almost, he decided to hide in the passageway near

  the still open panel and eavesdrop. But every second he

  was in this house meant recapture and death, and he was

  frightened because of what had happened to Glam and of

  what the others had said about Magda. Frightened was

  not strong enough. He was close to panic. And this was

  strange, because the terror should have taken from him

  any sexual stimulation whatsoever. Under these circum-

  stances, he should have been unable to retain an erection.

  But there it was, independent of his other feelings, as if a

  switch had been thrown to place his genitals on a sepa-

  rate circuit. The cone, whatever it was, must not only

  be the prime mover of his state, it must also be the prime

  feeder. It had to be furnishing the energy to keep man-

  ufacturing all this spermatic fluid at such an extraordi-

  nary rate of speed. Generally, when unusually stimulated,

  when first in love, or sometimes when the marijuana hit

  him just right, he could have three or four orgasms

  within several hours. But, usually, one or two in an hour,

  and he was done for four or five hours. He had some-

  times twitted himself with being the most undersexed

  private eye in history, without, of course, really believing

  his self-deprecation. But now, he seemed to be a foun-

  tain with a never-ending reservoir. And, of course, he

  would be so in a situation where it was the last thing he

  wanted.

  Thus, when he thought he was far enough away from

  the paneling, he turned on the flashlight. And he saw

  the white figure of Dolores - coming toward him. Her

  arms were open and she was smiling. Her eyes were

  half-lidded but bright, and two patches of wetness shone

  on her thighs. It seemed to be his misfortune to encounter

  overlubricating women. However, after a century and a

  half of enforced abstinence, she could not be blamed.

  She barred his way. She was solid flesh enough, no

  man knew that better than he, yet he hesitated to attack

  her. The fate of Magda was warning enough. Moreover,

  there was the chance that if he did what she wanted, he

  might work off the effect of the cone. It was just possible.

  And he thought that he probably had no choice, anyway.

  So he put down his purse, turned off the flashlight, and

  dropped his pants. She pulled him down on her and he

  put his penis in swiftly and began to thrust without pre-

  liminaries of any kind. He had hoped that he would come

  at once, but even though he now had her soft wet flesh

  around his penis, and though the pleasure was somewhat

  heightened, he was unable to disengage himself from the

  automatic effects of the cone.

  At length he came and then, when he tried to pull

  himself away, he found himself unable to. Her arms

  looked feminine and soft enough and felt so, but she had

  the strength of a python in each.

  Thinking of pythons made him think of Magda, and

  he became even more alarmed. If she came upon them

  now, she would have him helpless … those coils …

  Glam … He shuddered even as
he began to pump again.

  His skin had turned cold and his hairs felt as if they

  were bristling in the static of terror. His anus was a dot

  of ice, a bull's eye for Magda if she crawled up behind

  him and raised her head to unloose a hammer stroke.

  He groaned and muttered, "I must be out of my mind,

  I'm really believing that crap!" and then he groaned

  again, this time because he was coming once more.

  It was no use. Lying with Dolores was not canceling

  or even diminishing the effects of the cone. And he was

  certainly not stupid enough to bang away at her for the

  sheer pleasure of it while his life was in danger. Especially

  since he had had enough of this "pleasure" to last him

  for a long time.

  He tried to break loose. Her arms did not tighten, but

  they also did not relax. He was not going to get out until

  he had satisfied her or was unable to keep an erection,

  and she was not going to be satisfied for a long time and

  he did not know how long he would last, but he suspected

  that it would be for hours and hours.

  Remembering what he had done to Mrs. Grasatchow

  during the fight, he bit down upon Dolores' nipple. His

  bite did not take the nipple off, but it was painful enough

  to cause her to open her arms and to scream. He was out

  of her embrace and had jumped away to where she could

  not reach him, pulled up his pants, stooped to pick up

  the flashlight and purse, and was running down the pas-

  sageway, before she had stopped screaming.

  The noise, of course, would be heard in Magda's room

  if the paneling were still open, and they would be in-

  vestigating. His flashlight beam bounced up and down

  and then went off into darkness at a corner. He stopped

  and probed around. Apparently, he was at a dead end,

  but he did not believe it. Shouts behind him sent him

  into a frenzy of tapping and poking against the wall to

  activate whatever mechanism moved this section. He felt

  somebody brush his shoulder, somebody spoke in Span-

  ish, and a white arm reached past him and touched a

  cornice. Another arm pushed in on another cornice. The

  blank wall became a blank darkness in which the thin

  beam was lost. A hand pushed him on through—he