Justin Richards - The Death Collector

The creature that had been Wilkes made no reply. Made no movement that might show it understood. Held him firm as Lorimore laughed and stretched out his arm triumphant.

‘Now we have the power. Now it happens!’

The howl from outside might have been his monstrous creation agreeing with him.

‘Now what happens?’ Sir William shouted above the roar. ‘What lunacy? What madness?’

Lorimore did not answer. Sparks showered down from the wires above, fizzing in the rain. The metal bowl was glowing white hot, the stone itself a dull red.

‘Now!’ Lorimore shouted. He threw the final lever.

When the monster had lunged out of the foggy dawn, bearing down on George and Eddie, they were ready for it.

There had been a guard patrolling just inside the main gates of the house, but George had quickly dealt with him. Even as the man fell to the ground, stunned unconscious, Eddie heard the baleful cry of the creature further off in the grounds.

‘Sounds like we still have company,’ George said. He checked that he had done no lasting harm to the man at his feet, then straightened up. ‘Now that I’ve had a good look at it, or as good as we can hope for without being bitten in half, I have an idea of what we can do.’

They crept through the thinning fog towards the house. Eddie guessed that Lorimore intended to work on his fossilised dinosaur egg. But before they went searching for that, Eddie had a job of his own to do. He was carrying a wooden crate, awkward but not heavy. He held it carefully, not wanting to unbalance or damage the delicate apparatus inside. The clock that he and George had spent several hours discussing, designing and adapting.

‘How do I look?’ he asked George as they approached the front door.

George nodded. ‘Fine,’ he decided, pulling down Eddie’s cap so the peak obscured his face almost completely. ‘Keep your head down. In every sense.’

Afterwards, they crept warily round the house, keeping to the grass to avoid making a noise on the gravel driveway, making for the large room at the back. The light was on, and that seemed to be where Lorimore and Blade had come from when they went to tend their monster. George had explained what he wanted Eddie to do when the creature found them, as they were both sure it would. Strangely, George seemed to be looking forward to the moment. Eddie was less keen.

For a while they watched through the laboratory window. They saw Lorimore and Blade examine the ship. They saw Liz and Sir William join them, and hoped their friends could guess what George’s modifications had done. Sir William had seen the clock before, and Liz had seen the mechanism George had built to hurl a ball bearing across the room, if only briefly, at the theatre. Eddie recalled how she had done little more than glance at it, but he said nothing.

Then the monster came at them. Bathed in the full moonlight, for the first time they could clearly see the enormous creature that roared up above them. They could see the metal jaws lined with fossilised teeth; the machined claws that slashed down towards them; the steam from the engine snorting out through exhaust pipes set into its head. The creak of hydraulics and the clanking of machinery as the huge creature — part automaton, part prehistoric recreation; part metal, part bone — lumbered towards them.

The ground shook. Greasy vapour swirled round the creature’s monstrous head. Machine oil dripped from its jaws and the roar of its engines shattered the night. Razor-sharp metal claws split the air as an arm of overlapping steel plates hurtled mercilessly towards Eddie and steam enveloped him in a fog of terror.

He shouted and waved, trying to draw the creature’s attention. It had seen him before, had been given his scent. He hoped it could be drawn again.

As the monstrous beast lunged down at Eddie, George disappeared into the fog behind it. Eddie pictured him climbing on to the thing’s tail. Making his way up the slippery metallic scales of its back. Reaching for the pipes and connections and joints.

The steam burned on Eddie’s cheeks as the creature closed in again. He rolled desperately to one side. But this time the beast anticipated him. Its metal jaws opened wider than Eddie could have believed was possible. The head slammed down, teeth thudding into the ground either side of Eddie’s head.

Then — nothing.

The creature seemed to sigh. The steam drifted away, as if dispelled by the shafts of dawn light that were breaking through the fog above the dew-drenched lawn.

‘Are you all right in there?’ George called from the other side of the creature’s head. Now it was just a mass of metal and bone, like an exhibit in the British Museum, or one of Lorimore’s dead display animals. ‘Shan’t be long,’ George called. ‘Just a few adjustments, though I confess I don’t understand the half of how this works, how it is controlled. It must have some reasoning ability of its own and we know it can see and smell. But there are a few things I can do. Then it needs to get up steam again, which will take a few minutes. I had to open the safety valve and relieve the pressure.’ He was shouting to be heard above the rumble of thunder. The first rain was starting to fall.

Eddie ignored him, concentrating on crawling and clawing his way out from the monster’s mouth and into the pallid light. He sat shivering in the mist.

‘There, that should do it.’ George sounded pleased with himself, wiping his hands on his coat as he jumped down to join Eddie. ‘Ideally I’d have scuppered it completely, but all I can do now is vent the steam. Once the pressure builds up it’ll be off again. Albeit with some adjustments, a few re-routed pipes and doctored valves.’

Eddie’s voice was trembling almost as much as his body was. ‘It’ll have to do,’ he assured George.

Just as the shots rang out, and one of the smaller panes of glass in the laboratory shattered and fell.

‘Any moment now, I reckon,’ Eddie said.

George nodded. He glanced back at the creature. ‘My modifications took longer than I had hoped. Are you ready?’ His face was grave. ‘I think we’ll have to do this without the help of our mechanical friend.’

Things had started so well. Eddie had grabbed the egg from within Lorimore’s apparatus. George could already imagine Liz’s grateful smile. Maybe even a thankful hug.

But then the clanking metal nightmare that housed the mortal remains of his old friend Albert Wilkes had grabbed George and held him tight. Held him so he could see Lorimore with his revolver pointed at Liz, and Eddie forced to hand over the smooth, oval-shaped stone.

All the while George pleaded with Albert. Begged him to remember who he had once been, that George was his friend, that Lorimore had done terrible things to him.

‘I know you can hear me, Albert,’ he said urgently. ‘I know there’s something left. You contacted us — at the seance. Remember? Somehow you were able to move the upturned glass. You knew we were trying to help. Knew, and did something about it. Somewhere, somehow, on some level you still have a soul — a conscience. Use it! Help us!’

But it seemed to have no effect. There was nothing left, George realised. It was simply a machine, with enough remaining intelligence to obey Lorimore’s orders, but no more than that. The blank white eyes stared back at George, unblinking. No flicker. No recognition. Nothing.

George finally shouted at Wilkes in frustration: ‘Let me go!’

‘Now!’ Lorimore shouted in victory as he pushed home the last of the three levers in front of him.

And the metal claws that were eating into George’s upper arms suddenly relaxed their grip, and he realised he was free. Was the thing that had been Albert Wilkes confused? Did it think — in whatever way it could think — that its master had ordered it to let George go? Or had George’s pleas finally hit home? Was there somewhere deep inside the rotting cadaver a vestige of memory of who he had once been?