Эрл Гарднер - The Human Zero. The Science Fiction Stories of Erle Stanley Gardner

He rolled over to Professor Wagner.

“I’m cutting your ropes,” he hissed in a shrill warning, audible over the crash of the storm.

Click slit the ropes. “Come on,” he ordered.

The professor arose, followed.

The two fugitives slipped out into the darkness. Instantly they were drenched to the skin. Yet the rain was warm, almost tepid. The fog still swirled through the moisture. The trees steamed, and the darkness was that of a foggy night.

“I believe these fellows can see in the dark,” said Click. “Better keep to the shadows. Let’s try ducking into the first shelter we can find.”

A doorway loomed before them. So dark was it that they were almost upon it before it became visible.

They dived inside.

“Here’s where I find a spear,” promised Click, as he groped about.

Of a sudden his groping hands touched clammy human skin. He jumped back, bracing himself for attack.

There was a guttural exclamation from the darkness.

“Gluckner!” exclaimed Click.

“Ja, ja,” came eagerly from the darkness.

A sudden inspiration seized Click; perhaps the man spoke French. And Click knew a little something of that language. His execution was atrocious, but it had served to get him by before.

He tried to bring his mind to work upon his slender vocabulary. The result was a few stuttering words that ventured upon the darkness and were abruptly swallowed in an enthusiastic burst of voluble French from the German.

Click gave a sigh of relief. Why hadn’t he thought of French before? But the events had been so exciting, so unusual, and Badger had been so ready with his flow of German that it had entirely escaped his mind that the German would very probably know French.

Click interrupted the rapid flow of words and ordered the man to speak more slowly.

“Ask him what is the trouble,” said Professor Wagner.

Click tried to frame the question.

Gluckner caught the idea and answered it slowly in simple words.

“Rain. Once a month it comes; sometimes oftener. It is in those times that the people from the dark side attack. They have eyes that see well in the dark. The natives of this side see but indistinctly. I see not at all. These men see through the fog, but not the darkness. You understand?”

Click gave a swift translation.

“Yes, yes,” purred the pleased professor. “Now ask him about the satellite. Is it true there is a small satellite? And ask him—”

Click interrupted. “How about the girl? Where is she?”

The German grunted.

“The girl? You do not know? The wife of the man Badger? She was the ransom price given to the chief for the liberty of that man.”

“What?” yelled Click.

The German repeated. “She becomes the wife of the chief. Otherwise he could not have her for a wife. He could take her, but that is against the law. Captives can be slaves, but not wives. So the man Badger sells his wife to the chief for his liberty. It is not that which one should do, but—”

From the rain-soaked darkness without came a fierce yell of wild menace. There was the sound of rushing bodies.

“The night people! They come. It is bad.”

A body staggered against the doorway. A huge shape blotted out what little gray light seeped through this opening.

Click could hear the sound of a blow, a mortal groan. Something slumped to the floor.

He had a vague sense of something rushing toward him.

He hurtled forward, driving his right in a swing, slipping his knife in his left hand.

The right connected. There was the jar of impact, a whoosh as one who has had his breath knocked from him, and then great hands clasped the wrist that held the knife. The weight of a body was thrown against him.

From the darkness he heard the German’s voice.

“They are big men, these people of the night. Beware their fangs. They tear throats with their teeth, these night men.”

Click sensed the warning, flung himself backward.

In the darkness there was the gnashing sound of fangs clashing together. Hot breath was on his throat, steaming in his nostrils.

He flung his right across and over. The blow landed on the creature’s jaw, staggered him. Click tried to free his left, and then felt himself beaten to the ground.

Rushing shapes swept through the hut as football players thunder down a field.

The inert bulk of his adversary fell on him, shielded him. He could hear spears thudding into the ground, heard men falling to their death. The smell of blood was in the steaming air. The rattle of dying men sounded above the pelting roar of the rain.

Click squirmed, twisted, finally worked his way out from under the enormous body that had covered him. His hand encountered a spear thrust into the ground. He pulled it out, staggered to a corner of the hut, braced himself for attack.

But the conflict had swirled out of the hut, gone on to a more remote portion of the village.

“Professor,” he called cautiously.

There was no answer. The interior of the hut was silent.

Click felt his way forward. His feet encountered a body. His hand stretched out in exploration. Instinctively he knew it to be one of the night people. The body was huge, cold, clammy. A spear was driven clear through the breast, well into the ground.

His hand encountered another body; this time it was the night man he had knocked out with his swinging punch. The man stirred slightly.

Click’s hand went over the features. He shuddered as he felt the mort slime of wide open eyes, staring straight up, unconscious. The eyes were as big as the palm of his hand.

He pushed on. His hand encountered the side of the stretcher. He felt for the German. He encountered the outlines of the huge body, the gnarled limbs with their twisted joints. He felt for the head, and drew back in horror.

Evidently it had been some species of war club that had finished Herr Gluckner. But he was finished, completely and conclusively finished.

A sudden horror rippled Click’s spine.

“Professor! Professor!” he called, raising his voice, shouting as loudly as he could.

There was no answer.

His feet stumbled upon a body. His exploring fingers encountered clothes. It needed but a second to complete the identification. It was the body of Professor Wagner, and he was quite dead, the entire top of the head crushed by a terrific blow of a war club.

Then, over the pelting of the storm, over the hissing sound of the rushing water, the rattling leaves, the swaying, groaning branches, came a sound that was unmistakable. It was the crisp crack of a rifle. Again and again it sounded. Then there was silence once more.

Click flung himself out into the pouring darkness. Water sloshed about his ankles. The green slime of the forest had washed down to the ground, turning it into a soggy mass of slush upon which his feet slipped.

There was nothing to give him the faintest sense of direction except the general idea which he had of the location of the rifle shots. About him in the darkness there was a vague sensation of rushing forms. Occasionally he could hear grunts, groans, blows.

A spear hissed through the darkness, thudded into the bole of a tree. That spear could not have missed his body by more than inches.

From behind him sounded a wild yell, running steps. Instinctively he ducked forward, half spun, collided with a tree trunk, flung himself around it.

There was a puff of explosive sound and something spattered the tree trunk with a peculiar suggestion of vicious force. Click realized it must be a mushroom-poisoned missile from a blow gun.

He whirled, made for the dense forest, then cut in a zigzag, floundering through wet ferns, crashing into slimy trees, constantly inundated with the torrential downpour that emptied itself from the black heavens.