Стюарт Стерлинг - The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

“I don’t get it,” I said. “What’s the idea?”

“I dunno,” he said. “I thought they were all crazy — and then I thought I’d go crazy when I found what was happening to me. That old man talking to me by the hour about his dirty heathen gods, and how he’d been to India and Egypt and Tibet and Africa and learned all there was to know about everything. And how the great crystal springs of truth could only come from eternal pain and punishment. And then he’d stand there with his eyes wild and talk and yell stuff I couldn’t understand while that brown-skinned devil whipped me! Ten days I’d been there and only fed half the time — and I got the idea from things he said that there’d been others before me and if I died there’d be others after me. I was going nuts. A day or two more was about all I could have lasted. I knew I didn’t have a chance. I was just Joe Clark, on the bum and nobody even knowing I’d drifted into California. Mister, what’s all this about anyway?”

“Joe,” I said, “I’m not sure about it all myself. After we get out of here, we can sit down and put the pieces together.”

“We’ll get out now! Hell, we’re as good as out!”

“There’s a fence around here that a monkey would have a hard time climbing over,” I said.

“And the top wire is charged with electricity, I was told. Or warned. The gates are chained and guarded. Figure the percentage yourself.”

“What sort of a place is this? Ain’t there any law around here?”

“Sure there is,” I said. “If we can get past that fence and down the mountain to Hollywood. Keep your fingers crossed until then.”

We had been talking under our breath as we hurried across the smooth clipped lawns toward the cabin I’d occupied. The gate was in that direction. I didn’t want to get any further away from the gate. And I looked around for a parked automobile that we might have a chance of taking.

It was Trixie who said huskily: “Over there, Mike! Running towards us!”

I looked over to the left and saw ghosts!

They looked like ghosts at any rate. Haifa dozen of them running across the lawns toward us. They’d evidently been heading for the shrine when they spotted us. They were coming without warning other than their white togas against the night.

“Scram!” I jerked out. “Toward the gate! It’s the only way out I know! If there’s only one man there we can handle him very easy! Save the cartridges in the gun!”

We were already running. Thank heaven, Trixie’s sharp eyes had spotted them soon enough to give us some start. I expected them to start shooting; but they didn’t; and then I remembered the club the guard had carried around my cabin and decided they didn’t go armed with guns. Maybe someone thought the brand of fanatics around the place weren’t to be trusted with guns. Clubs would do just as well most of the time — and they wouldn’t be heard outside the estate by strange curious ears.

We ran. I ran too, weak and wobbly as I was. The idea of being caught and locked up in one of the padded cells was enough to bring double strength.

“Don’t leave him!” Trixie panted to Joe Clark. “He’s wounded and almost helpless!”

That to a man who’d been through ten days of hell as had this Joe Clark. But he didn’t have any idea of leaving us.

“Gimme that club!” he blurted at me.

So I gave him the club. I had the knife left. Trixie had the gun. That only made the odds two to one against us — if you could forget we were a woman and two half-dead men.

Down through the black, lonesome shadows under the trees, with the crunch of our steps the only sounds.

They made no noise; they didn’t even shout; but twice when I looked back the flutter of their white togas was there in grim ghostly pursuit.

Then the gate, with the floodlights glaring from the stone gate posts and the stout iron gates closed. The guard was there, the same big guard with the bulging muscles and curly brown beard.

He had heard us coming or was expecting us. He stood there before the gates in the full glare of the floodlights, holding a club ready for trouble.

“Gun!” I gasped to Trixie.

She shook her head. By the way her eyes had kept turning to me, she expected me to fall any step.

Joe Clark sprinted ahead. It might have been fear or fury; he went ahead anyway despite all he’d been through. He charged that burly guard as if it were all in the day’s work.

They came together swinging clubs. I swore helplessly as Joe Clark reeled aside from a blow on the head.

“Don’t try it, Mike!” Trixie cried.

But I’d have tried anything. I had the knife. I kept going.

So did Trixie. She darted in front of me and brought the gun up before I realized what she was doing.

He was a bearded, fanatical, challenging figure as Trixie ran in close and pulled the trigger. And he screamed and collapsed like a sawdust dummy that had lost stuffing.

Trixie had shot his knee — little Trixie who went to target practice two and three times a week when she had the chance. I’d kidded her about it — and look now.

The guard was howling, writhing on the ground when I reached him. The gate key on a length of thin chain was attached to his belt. I tore it away.

Trixie had turned and fired a shot as I whirled to the chain and lock that held the gates. Joe Clark had jumped to her side on unsteady feet.

My hand was shaking so that I had to try twice to get the key in. Trixie fired another shot. Maybe it was the last one in the gun. I hadn’t looked at the clip. And when we were outside the gate — then what?

Hollywood and help were miles away. What chance did we have after all? I wouldn’t be able to stagger another quarter of a mile.

Trixie fired a third shot as I got the lock open...

Joe Clark howled: “Keep back or we’ll shoot every damn one of you!”

“Come on!” I yelled as the gates swung open.

And I looked back over my shoulder and saw four of them scattered out and coming after us. And Trixie’s voice was agonizing in its helplessness.

“The gun’s empty, Mike! What can we do?”

“Run!” I said. “Duck off in the woods beyond the light! Clark and I will hold ’em!”

“No!” Trixie gasped, and I knew she meant it.

One of them yelled in triumph as they burst through the gate after us. We were almost out of the lighted area when Joe Clark’s hoarse cry of despair drove sick helplessness right through me.

“More of ’em ahead!”

I saw the two figures charging up the road toward us.

“Get over in the trees!” I cried... and a moment later I yelled: “Wait! They’re not trouble!”

Lew Ryster had been wrong. I had been wrong. Jake Dennis and Larry Sweet were the finest fellows in the world. I loved them — I’d always love them after that moment when I recognized them running up the road toward us, guns in their hands and looking for trouble.

Jake Dennis fired a shot in the air and waved the gun threateningly as they came close.

“What the hell’s going on here? Hands up!” And then Dennis recognized me and bawled: “It’s that doublecrossing little Blaine guy! Look at him! So help me I never seen—”

“Hold it, Jake!” Larry Sweet snapped. He turned to me. “What’s all this about? Who are those comics who ran back through the gate?”

“Turn in a riot call and collar the whole bunch!” I panted. “It’s murder and torture, kidnapping, blackmail and God only knows what! It’s big — and you’ll have to move fast to get everyone!”

“It’s a laugh by the way you three look!” Jake Dennis sneered. “I knew Ryster was stalling when he said he’d work with us. I knew he had a slick trick up his sleeve. And when you flew to Chicago I had a buddy in the department there pick you up and keep an eye on you. What d’you think of that?”