The Incredible Melting Man (7 page)

They seemed to share a secret joke in this and both began to laugh. Harold was persuaded and they climbed out of the car and moved towards the fence.

“What are we going to put them in?” whispered Harold.

Helen archly lifted her skirt, making a cradle for them with the material.

“Here,” she announced, pleased with herself.

Harold caught hold of her and kissed her.

“Not now, you naughty old man,” she whispered coyly. “Later, when we’ve picked the lemons.”

He gallantly held up the wire of the fence while she ducked through. He followed her, but as he bent his knee joint gave a loud crack. They both melted in a fit of giggles like schoolchildren.

“Sh!” scolded Helen, when she’d recovered. “Someone’ll hear us.”

They walked hand in hand down a narrow clearing between the trees. The young moon seemed to smile down on them. Helen rested her head on his shoulder and for a while they just sauntered along oblivious of everything but each other.

Harold stared wistfully up at the moon. “Your Judy’s husband has something to do with that, doesn’t he?” he asked eventually.

“With what?” asked Helen dreamily.

“With sending people to the moon.”

Helen murmured softly and Harold continued with his train of thought.

“Shouldn’t be allowed,” he complained.

“Why not?” asked Helen, who couldn’t believe that anything could be wrong on an evening like this.

“It spoils the romance,” he said. “The moon is just for lovers like you and me.”

Helen snuggled closer, “Lovers indeed!” she chided gently, longing to hear more. “Who said anything about lovers? We’re just a couple of moon-struck old codgers. We passed that sort of thing long ago.”

Harold tightened his grip on her waist. “Who’s past it?” he said, blowing gently on her neck. “Not me.”

Helen sighed contentedly and they ambled on.

A faint stirring came from the bushes beyond the trees. Harold stopped. “What was that?” he whispered. They both listened.

“I heard nothing,” said Helen, fitting his arm round her waist again. “Go on telling me about—about the moon.”

Harold had grown nervous, but he allowed Helen’s mood to soothe him.

“I think it’s wrong of them to send men to the moon,” he said. “I like to think of it all empty up there, mysterious. Men spoil things, they mess things up. We’ve made a big enough mess of things down here without going into space to contaminate things.”

Helen thought about this. “I don’t think our Ted would allow that sort of thing to happen,” she said. “Judy says he’s very conscientious. She says he spends a lot of time worrying about his work. Take this recent trip—”

“Sh!” interrupted Harold. “There it is again.”

They both strained to catch the sound. The bushes were stirring again.

“It’s only the wind in the trees,” said Helen. “Why are you so nervous?” She giggled. “It’s because you’re not used to being alone in the dark with me. That’s it, isn’t it?”

But Harold’s body was rigid. On the breeze came a panting sound. This time Helen heard it.

“Come on,” urged Harold. “Let’s get out of here.”

He grabbed Helen by the arm and pushed her in front of him. In that moment a shadow rose out of the bushes emitting a savage snarl.

They ran frantically through the trees. Their pursuer seemed to hug the ground, remaining concealed, only a dark panting shape blundering noisily through the undergrowth. They ran like they’d never run, hearts in their throats.

He pushed her through the fence. As he followed, ducking low under the wire, it emerged from the shadows and sprang at him. A dark shape hit the fence and he felt hot breath on his face. As he twisted his body out of the way he heard the snap of teeth coming together. Then it seemed to become ensnared in the wire.

Helen had the car door open for him and he scrambled into the seat beside her. As he slammed the door the dog disentangled itself from the fence and leapt up at the window. It bared its teeth at them and began to bark noisily. Harold revved up the engine and roared off, leaving the creature to chase after the car for a few yards before stopping in the road, returning, and sniffing curiously at the spot where the car had been parked. Then it disappeared quickly back into the orchard.

They collapsed in nervous laughter and relief.

“A bloody guard dog,” shouted Harold. “I wondered what the hell was after us.” He laughed loudly. “He must have been a bit long in the tooth not to catch up with us.”

“You speak for yourself, Harold O’Brien,” wheezed Helen. “You were miles behind. If it hadn’t been for me getting the door open in time, you’d have been torn to shreds.”

Harold chortled and glanced into the rear mirror to see what had become of the dog.

Two swollen red eyes watched him, unblinking.

SIX

T
HE JOINT
parted with a snap and as it twisted there was the creak of tearing gristle. It came suddenly loose in a spurt of hot juice, bringing with it the skin which stripped bare the white flesh of the breast.

“A leg, General?” invited Judy as she held the chicken above the plate.

The General nodded hungrily. He was ravenous after his spell in the fresh air. It made a welcome change from being stuck behind an office desk. Pity they couldn’t organise an operation like it every day, provided they could finish off with a meal like this to come back to. He grunted happily as he swamped his plate in rich brown gravy and set to.

Ted ate sparingly and Judy not at all. The doctor was too tired to eat and his wife too worried about the two empty places at the table. Where could Mom and Harold have got to? she thought miserably. An accident? He was getting much too old to handle a big car like that, and it wasn’t a bit reliable.

She excused herself once more and went to the telephone. Again there was no answer from the apartment.

She walked disconsolately back to the table and sat down. Ted reached for her hand and gave it an encouraging squeeze. She smiled back at him weakly.

“Super, Mrs Nelson. Or can I call you Judy?” called the General from behind a mouthful of food. His lips glistened with chicken fat.

Judy smiled politely and offered him another helping of chicken. He accepted readily. More corn and gravy followed. She felt ill watching him shovel it away.

Her self-control suddenly broke. She stood up from the table, tears in her eyes. Ted was at her side in an instant.

“What’s the matter, love?” he asked.

The bones of her fingers gleamed white as she pressed her hands against her face in distraction.

“I’m sorry,” she apologised. “It’s just . . . well, first Steve, and now my mother. I just can’t take it, Ted.”

General Perry had put down his knife and fork. A trickle of grease ran down his chin.

“What about Steve, Mrs Nelson?” he demanded.

Ted protested, but the General interrupted him.

“Doctor Nelson,” he said, puffing out his chest so that his napkin fell to the floor, “in an emergency like this you’re under my direct command. I thought I’d made it clear that this operation was strictly classified and that no information was to be divulged to anyone.”

Ted was coldly furious. “For Christ’s sake, she’s my wife.”

“That does not exclude her from my orders.”

“Sod your orders!”

The General’s face turned red. The glistening droplet of fat shook on his chin. “I could have you up on charges for this, Nelson.”

They stood confronting one another, Judy looking on in amazement, almost on the point of hysteria.

The door bell rang. Judy dashed out of the room and flung open the front door. Her flood of relief was checked. It congealed to panic when she saw the uniformed figure of a police officer.

“Oh, no!” she cried.

“I’m afraid you must prepare yourself for some bad news,” began the officer.

Ted was just in time to catch his wife as her knees buckled and she fell to the floor.

After putting his wife under sedation and leaving her asleep in bed, Nelson followed the General out to the police car. As they joined the highway he could see the lights of the lab burning in the distance where Loring continued with their work. He prayed to God he’d find something. There were less than eleven hours before the launch. And now this had to happen.

The car had travelled less than a mile from the base when they rounded a bend and saw the flashing warning lights of the accident unit. Harold’s Buick was in the ditch at the roadside. The headlights still burned.

The police had touched nothing. The gory feast was just as the thing had left it. In the road was an arm, gnawed through to the bone. Ted recognised a charm bracelet that still hung round the wrist.

The interior was like an abattoir run by amateurs. Blood was splattered everywhere and still trickled down the windows. The flies had smelt it and were having a field-day. The torn carcasses of the two ageing lovers were scattered about the leather upholstery, shining with slime as if a huge slug had squatted on them. The air reeked of the warm sweetish smell of blood mingled with the sweat of panic.

Nelson had to walk away and lean on the roadside fence, fighting down the nausea that welled up in his stomach. Steve had been a friend, he kept telling himself. If they ever had a baby, Steve was to have been the godfather. They’d been thinking of asking him as soon as he got back from the flight.

He looked at the moon as it rose above the branches of the lemon trees. It was a pale rictus. What, in the name of compassion, had gone on out there to turn a gentle civilised man into a demented beast? What fury had possessed him?

Mars the god of war, with his attendants Fear and Panic. Deimos and Phobos, trailing havoc and destruction across the skies. Had the ancient astronomers who named the planet had some dreadful premonition? For hours he’d studied the pictures from the unmanned probes to prepare the crew for what to expect. He’d seen only the red desert, cold and dead. He thought of the huge amoeba-like cells they’d found on the nurse’s body. Somewhere amongst all that lifeless dust, they’d been waiting. Only Steve remained to tell them how it had happened, what they’d met during their long radio silence.

But it was growing more hopeless by the minute. The appalling mutilation of the two old folk shrieked of just how hopeless. He’d never been very close to Helen; they’d had their differences. But lately, since she’d met Harold, she’d been so much better. She’d found the happiness that had eluded her in earlier life. And she’d been so excited about the baby, Judy had called her Gran the other day.

He groaned aloud when he thought of his wife. Poor Judy, she was never going to be able to take this, never. And she was sure to get to know that it was Steve who did it. They couldn’t keep it quiet much longer.

He felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. It was the sheriff, looking pale and grim.

“A bad business, Doc,” he said. “I’m very sorry.”

Blake moved closer, lowering his voice.

“Listen, Doc,” he said. “You’d better tell me what’s going on around here, before there’s no one left in this town.”

Nelson looked nervously over his shoulder towards the car and the figure of the General.

“I can’t do that, Neil,” he replied. “It’s classified.”

The sheriff’s face hardened.

“People are dying with the most terrible wounds and you give me that official line. What is this, Doctor Nelson?” He laid heavy emphasis on the word “doctor” so that Nelson winced with the barb of his sarcasm.

“Look, Neil,” pleaded Nelson, again glancing towards the General. “Can’t you see I’ve got my hands tied?”

“You need them handcuffing,” hissed the sheriff.

“Why?” protested Nelson.

“Because for two pins I’d run you in for aiding and abetting a criminal.”

“Criminal? There’s no criminal.”

“Then who the bloody hell did this?” exploded Blake.

The General was casting suspicious glances in their direction as Blake’s angry voice reached him.

Nelson felt sick. Why should he carry on this stupid game any longer? It was time people knew the truth, that the mission had been a disaster. Keeping the astronauts in quarantine all that time with bogus medical reports. Covering up the fact that two of them had died. Pretending that Prometheus Two would be a success. He was sick of being an accomplice to a con trick that pulled the wool over the world’s eyes and pretended that the great American space programme was infallible. It only safe-guarded the jobs of pompous and dangerous idiots like Perry who were prepared to risk lives, more lives than they knew, for their own selfish ends. No, he’d had enough. Let Perry carry on the pretence from now on.

“Look, Sheriff,” Nelson said stiffly, making sure his voice would carry as far as the General. “If you want to know any more answers I think you’d better have a word with the General.”

It brought Perry over right away. Nelson introduced them and stood politely and silently aside.

Blake was still angry and shocked enough about what had happened in his own town to be unintimidated by the military man’s lofty status.

“What brings you down here on the eve of the launch, General?” he asked bluntly.

“It’s a security matter, I’m afraid,” replied the General blandly.

“And are they a security matter?” asked Blake, pointing towards the bodies in the Buick. He made no effort to disguise his anger.

The General was at a momentary loss. “I suppose you could say so,” he said shakily.

“Then since I’m in charge of the security of the people of this town and they were two of its citizens, do you mind telling me where I come into your security arrangements?”

Blake was a good six inches taller than the General and despite his slighter build he towered over him menacingly.

Again Nelson found himself extracting a perverse delight from the situation, and the General’s discomfiture. Perry was in a genuine dilemma. He couldn’t put the town under martial law until the troops arrived from Hale. At the moment he was the only soldier here. He’d need the sheriff’s co-operation for at least the next hour until they came.

The General gave Nelson a steady look and drew the sheriff aside. Nelson overheard something about having the situation under control before they disappeared from earshot.