Greg Cox - A Touch of Fever

She hung the bag on the swordfish while she tried to figure out where the head belonged. A tall metal vault was open nearby. She peered into the vacant cavity, which struck her as way too large for one little shrunken head. Glancing around, she spotted an empty space on a shelf across from the vault. A slick red puddle had formed atop the shelf and was now dripping over the edge. A draft carried a sickeningly salty aroma. Claudia’s nose wrinkled in disgust. Was that actually… blood? That couldn’t be good. She cautiously approached the shelf. A crimson drop fell onto the gory puddle, and she traced its origin to an overflowing marble bathtub one level up, which was itself directly below… John Chapman’s overturned pot-slash-hat.

Apple cider dripped from the pot into the tub, which overflowed onto the empty shelf where the shrunken head must have been. A torn electrical cable had been gnawed apart. “Jinkies.” Darting eyes reconstructed the entire, improbable Rube Goldberg scenario. This was what happened sometimes when you piled so many unpredictable artifacts in one place; in a way, it was a minor miracle that they didn’t get more accidental chain reactions. Had this one been playing out ever since she and Leena had called it quits the other day? How long had it taken to fill up Elizabeth Bathory’s bloody tub? Long enough, apparently. The rolling metal ladder was right where she’d left it.

Anxious to put things right before another artifact got triggered, she shoved the ladder into place. A quick dash up the steps brought her to Johnny Appleseed’s capsized pot, which was lying on its side. The cider dripping from the pot was a lot less gross than the blood spilling from the tub below. Hopefully, she could staunch one flow by fixing the other. All she needed to do was set the pot right side up again… just like so. She made sure the pot was resting securely this time. The cider stopped dripping into the tub below. There would be no more trickling transubstantiation. “Okay, that’s better.” They’d have to drain the Blood Countess’s tub later. Artie couldn’t stand the sight of blood, so she was surely going to get stuck with the job, but she figured that could wait until she could put on a full hazmat suit sometime-or maybe talk Leena into helping her. The tub wasn’t overflowing anymore. That was enough for now, right? She surveyed the scene from the top of the ladder. Had she missed anything? She traced the disturbance from the pot to the tub to the shrunken head to the gnawed wires to… the empty metal vault? What was supposed to be in there, anyway? She squinted but couldn’t make out the label from atop the steps. One thing was sure: the missing artifact had been big . Maybe it was time to update Artie? She took out her Farnsworth, then hesitated. How exactly was she going to explain this to him? On second thought, perhaps she should go check out the vault first, just to find out how much trouble she might be in. The more information she had, the less upset Artie would be… hopefully. “Please, let it not be anything too dangerous. Like maybe an arthritic old mummy or something?” Another shadow fell over her. A bizarre caterwauling that sounded like a roar, a growl, and a squawk blended together nearly caused her to jump out of her skin. She looked up in time to see a huge winged creature swooping at her. “Yikes!” Her reflexes were on a roll today. She ducked in time to escape the sharpened claws or talons passing directly over her head. Another few inches and she would have been scalped by whatever had dived for her. But the surprise attack startled her enough that her Farnsworth slipped from her fingers. It crashed to the floor several feet below. Exposed and vulnerable atop the ladder, she scrambled down the steps and took cover beneath the rolling metal stairs. “What the pterodactyl was that?” She peered up through the metal slats at what appeared to be… a totem pole? The carved Native American objet d’art circled above her like an immense timber bird of prey. Red-and-black paint colored the bestial heads and bodies of a thunderbird, a mountain lion, and a grizzly bear, stacked atop each other like some sort of weird surgical hybrid. Ten clawed limbs were extended below the tripartite beast. Its wingspan was at least ten feet across. Three pairs of feral eyes glared down at Claudia. The bear and the lion bared their respective fangs. A hooked beak snapped at the air. Not a friendly relic, she was guessing. The bird cawed loudly. Defying both aeronautics and gravity, the totem soared high above the shelves. Claudia glanced over at the open vault, which was just the right size. She figured there was a reason the vicious-looking totem was kept locked up. “Okay,” she asked herself.

“Now what?” There was no point in calling for help. The Warehouse was too big and Artie’s office too far away. Even if he could hear her, which was highly unlikely, he’d need a telescope to see what was going on all the way out here. She might as well be on the far side of the moon. Where was her Farnsworth? Peeking around the side of the ladder, she spotted it lying on the floor too many feet away. She kicked herself for dropping it before. Now how was she supposed to send out an SOS? The totem was still on the lookout overhead, its claws and talons ready to slash at her again. The Farnsworth taunted her, tantalizingly out of reach. Should she risk making a dash for it? The totem didn’t give her a chance. With an ear-piercing squawk and a couple of roars, it swooped down at her again. The bear on the bottom slammed into the top of the stairs and it spun away from Claudia, leaving her exposed. The ladder’s wheels collided with the fallen Farnsworth and knocked it under a shelf, where it disappeared from sight. Her heart sank. “Really? My karma’s that bad?” So much for calling for help. No way was the totem going to give her a chance to go digging around under the shelf, groping for the lost device.

Running for her life took priority at the moment. Hands over her head, she sprinted down the aisle. Adrenaline kicked her into gear. High above her, the totem executed a graceful turn and came gliding after her, the thunderbird’s wooden talons extended ahead of its snapping beak. Claudia wondered which part of the totem was the hungriest: the bear, the puma, or the bird? “No fair!” she protested. “Three against one… sort of!” She tried not to panic. It was just an artifact, after all, albeit a particularly antisocial one. There were ways of handling it. What would Artie do at a time like this? She looked around frantically for the nearest emergency neutralizing station.

There had to be one somewhere around here, just for unfortunate incidents like this. She remembered Artie pointing them out the first time he gave her the nickel tour. “Searching, searching… there!”

What looked like a coiled fire hose hung upon a support column, next to a circular metal handle. NEUTRALIZING STATION, a convenient label read. FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY. Just what the doctor ordered! She made a beeline for the hose and tugged on it with both hands. The dusty hose refused to budge; it probably hadn’t moved in years. “C’mon,” she pleaded with the stubborn mechanism. “Don’t be like that! Not now!” A hard yank finally got it unspooling. Squeaky gears whined for oil as she pulled the hose away from the pillar. “That’s it, baby. Keep on coming!” The totem dived at her. Talons, claws, and fangs raced each other to rend her tender flesh. The thunderbird’s fearsome screech hurt her ears. The bear and the mountain lion were eager for their turn. Their gaping jaws slathered impossibly. But Claudia was ready for them. She aimed the hose at the oncoming creature, holding it up with one hand while the other spun the metal handle next to it. The valve stuck at first, but then it rotated freely, opening the tap. A pump beneath the floor chugged to life. The hose stiffened in her grip. Instead of water, a thick stream of purple goo sprayed from its nozzle. “That’s more like it!” She directed the goo at the totem.