Keith Laumer - A Plague of Demons

We took a table near the far side of the wide, mosaic-floored, softly-lit room. A smiling waitress in leis and a grass skirt took orders for martinis. Across the room, a group of dark, bowlegged men with flamboyant shirts and large smiles strummed guitars.

Felix glanced around contentedly. “I think perhaps we’ve overestimated the opposition, John.” He lit up a dope-stick, blew violet smoke toward an ice-bucket by the next table. “Another advantage of rocket travel is the champagne,” he remarked. “We can be nicely oiled by the time we fire retros over Kennedy—”

“While we’re overestimating the enemy, let’s not forget that he has a number of clever tricks we haven’t quite mastered yet,” I put in. “Getting out of Tamboula is a start, but we still have the problem of contact when we reach the States. We won’t accomplish much hiding out in back rooms over tamale joints, sneaking out at night for a pictonews to find out what’s going on.”

Felix nodded. “I have some ideas on that score. We’ll also need a quick and inconspicuous method of identifying ‘human’ aliens. I think I know how that can be done. We can work with the radar albedo of the alien skin, for example; it must be a rather unusual material to withstand puncturing steel doors.”

He was smiling again, looking happy. He leaned toward me, talking against a strident voice from the next table.

“I’ve been working for twenty years, preparing for what I’ve termed a ‘surreptitious war,’ based on the premise that when the next conflict took place, it would be fought not on battlefields, or in space, but in the streets and offices of apparently peaceful cities—a war of brainwashing techniques, infiltration, subversion, betrayal. It’s been in the air for a hundred years: a vast insanity that’s kept us flogging away, nation against nation, race against race—with the planets at our fingertips…”

Something was happening. The music was changing to a sour whine in my ears. The chatter at the tables around me was like the petulant cries of trapped monkeys in vast, bleak cages.

Felix was still talking, jabbing with a silver spoon to emphasize his points. My eyes went to the double doors fifty yards distant across the brittle-patterned floor. Beyond the dark glass, shapes moved restlessly, like dim shadows of crawling men…

I pushed my chair back. “Felix!” I croaked.

“… could have established a permanent colony of perhaps five thousand. Carefully picked personnel, of course—”

“The door!” My voice was choking off in my throat. The air in the room seemed to darken; tiny points of light danced before me.

“Something wrong, old boy?” Felix was leaning forward, a concerned expression on his face. He looked as unreal now as a paper cutout—a cardboard man in a cardboard scene.

Far across the room, the doors swung silently open. A staring corpse-pale face appeared, at the level of a man’s belt. It pushed into the room, the long, lean bristled body pacing on legs like the arms of apes, the fingered feet slapping the floor in a deliberate rhythm. A second beast followed, smaller, with a blacker coat and a grayish ruff edging the long-toothed face. A third and fourth passed through the door, both rangy, heavy, their long bodies sagging between humped shoulders and lean flanks. The leader raised his head, seeming to sniff the air.

“Felix!” I pointed.

He turned casually, let his gaze linger a moment, then glanced at me with a slight smile.

“Very attractive,” he said. “You must be recovering, John, for a pretty face to excite you—”

“Good God, Felix! Can’t you see them?”

He frowned. “You’re shouting, John. Yes, I saw them.” I was aware of faces turning toward me at the surrounding tables, eyebrows raised, frowns settling into place. I reached out, caught Felix’s arm; his face contorted in a spasm of agony.

“Felix—you’ve got to listen. What do you see coming through that door?”

“Four young women,” he said in a choked voice, “very gay, very sweet. Would that I had time…” His face was paling. “John, you’re breaking my arm—”

I jerked my hand back. “They’re aliens, Felix! The dog things I saw in the ravine! Look again! Try to see them!”

The leading demon had turned toward us now; the white face was fixed on me as it came on, steadily, relentlessly, stalking unnoticed along the aisle between the tables where diners laughed and talked, forking food into overfed mouths.

Felix turned, stared. “They’re coming toward us,” he said in a voice thin with strain. “The first young lady is dressed in yellow—”

“It’s a thing like a tailless dog; a skull-face, stiff black hair. Remember the ear?”

Felix tensed; an uncertain expression crept over his face. He turned toward me.

“I—” he started. His features went slack; his head lolled, eyes half-open. The music died with a squawk. Conversation drained into silence.

The first of the monstrosities quickened its pace; its head came up as it headed straight for me. I leaned toward Felix, shouted his name. He muttered something, slumped back, stared vacantly past me.

“Felix, for God’s sake, use your gun!” I jumped up, and my knee caught the table; it went flying against the next one. Felix tumbled back, slammed to the floor. I caught a momentary impression of dull-faced patrons, sitting slackly at tables all around. There was a quickening slap of beast-hands now as the leading thing broke into a clumsy gallop, closing now, red eyes glinting, the black tongue lolling from the side of the wide jaws as it cleared the last few yards, sprang.

With a shout of horror, I swung my right fist in a round-house blow that caught the monster squarely in the neck, sent it crashing across a table in an explosion of silver, glasses, and laden plates to go down between tables in a tangle of snowy linen. Then the second demonic thing was on me. I saw dagger-teeth flash, ducked aside, caught a thick forearm, feeling the flesh tear under my hand as I hurled it aside. The beast whirled, squealing thinly, reared up seven feet tall—

I struck at it, saw its face collapse into pulped ruin. It fell past me, kicking frantically. The last two attackers split, rushed me from both sides. I ran toward the one on the left, missing a swing at its head, felt the impact of its weight like a feather mattress, the clamp of teeth on my arm. I staggered, caught myself, slammed blows at the bristled side; it was like pounding a saddle. I struck for the head then, saw skin and flesh shear under the impact, struck again, knocked an eye from its socket—

And still the thing clung, raking at me with its pale hands like minstrel’s gloves. I reached for its throat with my free hand, whirled to interpose its body between me and the last of the four creatures as it sprang; the impact knocked me back a step, sent the attacker sprawling. It leaped up, slunk around to the left of a fallen table to take me from the side.

At that moment, to my horror, the music resumed. I heard a tinkle of laughter, an impatient call for a waiter. Beyond the crushed head at my arm, with its single hate-filled eye, I caught a glimpse of the animated faces of diners, busy forks, a raised wine-glass—

“Help me, for the love of God!” I roared. No one so much as glanced in my direction. I ripped at the locked jaws on my arm, feeling bone and leather shred and crumble. With a sound like nails tearing from wood, the fangs scraped clear, shredding my sleeve; the long body fell back, slack. I threw it aside, turned to face the last of the monsters. Baleful red eyes in a white mask of horror stared at me across a table ten feet away where a man with a red-veined nose sniffed a glass thoughtfully. On the floor at my feet, Felix lay half under the body of a dead demon.