Karl Wagner - Why Not You and I?

“I don’t understand,” Moore managed to stammer. “What’s happened? Who are you? I thought…”

The figure extended a black-gloved hand. The long fingers held out a small metallic object, gleaming like gold. It was a copper-jacketed 9 mm. slug, grooved from the rifling of a gun barrel.

Moore reached uncertainly for the bullet. The black fist closed over it, and a cruel laugh stopped his movement.

“That bullet killed you, Compton Moore,” came a mocking whisper. “Have you forgotten?”

“Killed…?”

“You no longer wanted your life, Compton Moore,” the derisive voice continued. “You threw it away. But I have use for your life, Compton Moore — and so I have claimed you.” Moore felt his brain whirling in a vortex of madness. He remembered — vividly remembered — the black despair, the decision, the gun against his temple, the shot exploding his consciousness into dissolving agony, the disembodied vision of his corpse… His fingers clutched the arms of his chair, clinging to reality.

“ What are you!”

“But I’ve already told you, Compton Moore. I am Dread. And you are my creature.”

The masked face gazed down at him, lips drawn in a demonic smile. “You thought to die, but I forbade it. What you would cast away, I have claimed. You are mine, Compton Moore. You will obey me without fail — whenever and whatsoever I command. My will is yours and your life is mine, nor shall you again die except by my will.”

The gloved fingers held the grooved bullet before his swimming vision. “Through my power I have altered fate,” the sibilant voice continued. “Fate ordained that this bullet should blow out your pitiful brains. But the hand of Dread has halted fate and plucked the fatal bullet from its course. For so long as it is my will, this bullet shall remain in timeless limbo. For that space, Compton Moore, you shall live to serve me well.

“But listen well, Compton Moore! Fail to obey me — let your heart even think of rebellion — and this bullet will complete the fatal mission on which you yourself have sent it!”

A sudden flame of desperate rebellion stirred through him, and Moore recoiled like a cornered, terror-stricken animal. Clumsily he grabbed for the bullet. Satanic laughter mocked him, as the black-gloved fist checked his lunge with a numbing blow — and Compton Moore sprawled into oblivion.

A knocking at the door aroused him. Automatically Moore picked himself up, pulled his thoughts together. He ran his fingers unthinkingly through his disarranged blond hair — then with a start glanced at his hand. No — no blood, no gobbets of brain and shattered bone.

His head ached. The liqueur? Absinthe was treacherous. On the tile hearth lay the broken glass. The ice cubes were only starting to melt. Beside the chair lay the Luger. Its barrel felt warm. Shuddering, he dropped it into the pocket of his lounge jacket — not daring to check the clip.

The knocking persisted, more forcefully.

Dully he turned toward the door. Something rolled beneath his slipper. Something brass-bright. It was a fired 9 mm. Parabellum case.

“Oh, my God…” Moore swayed, caught himself.

The knocking was louder.

Like an automaton, Moore stumbled to the door. His mind refused to grapple with anything more than the need to answer that summons. He fumbled with the knob.

The door swung open. The full moon was bright in the yard.

John Chance stood on his threshold.

Compton Moore uttered a strangled cry, and the cold circle of the moon swung like a pendulum. He would have fallen — but John Chance leapt forward and caught him.

“Steady, old fellow!” muttered Chance, supporting him as he crumpled. “I’m sorry — I should have prepared you for the shock!” Like a bouncer with a belligerent drunk, he swung the loose-kneed man around and marched him to the chair he had just quit.

Moore collapsed where he left him — slumped in shock, his soul tottering on the edge of madness. Even the most ordered mind can endure only so much stress before fragmenting into gibbering insanity, and Moore had never been considered a stable personality. Without recognition, his staring eyes watched Chance fumble through the clutter of empty bottles about the liquor cabinet.

“Oh.” Moore heard his voice speak in slow tones of understanding. “Oh. So you’re dead too, John. Is Kirsten here with us?”

Chance looked up at him in sharp concern, finally found a passed-over bottle of cheap scotch and sloshed its oily contents into a dirty tumbler. Tennessee had never repealed the Prohibition, but from the array of bottles he saw that Moore was an old and valued customer of the area’s still thriving bootleggers.

“Here! Drink it down!” Chance held the full tumbler to the other’s lips, and Moore automatically gulped it down.

It must have been half paint thinner, but Moore drank it like milk. “Wouldn’t he let you die either, John?” he asked calmly — his voice steadier.

Chance emptied the dregs of the scotch into the glass, handed it again to Moore, who swallowed it without flinching. He lay back in the chair, closed his eyes and gave a shuddering sigh. “Is Kirsten coming in, too?”

But Chance had caught the scent of anise on his breath, noted the shattered tumbler with its spatter of melting ice. He examined the empty absinthe bottle. Opalescent dreams and green venom in 170 proof. He watched the raw scotch cut through its grey mists, wondering what madness lurked behind.

“I’m as alive as you are, Compton,” he began. Badly.

Moore caught his breath in a sob, not opening his eyes. “Am I alive, then?” he laughed bitterly.

Chance sighed wearily and dropped into a chair to wait. He was a big man, though it took a second glance to realize that — for his two hundred pounds were compactly distributed over his big-boned six-foot frame, hard muscle and sinew without apparent bulk. Too, he moved with the quick stride and gestures of a smaller, more wiry man, rather than the ponderous self-assuredness usually associated with strength and bulk. The suns and winds of seven continents and at least as many oceans had weathered his skin to a worn, leathery brown, flawed with sudden streaks of pale scar. His hair was black and straight and thick, and always seemed in need of trimming. His forehead was wide and intelligent despite the rawboned quality of his features. A second glance would also notice that the straight nose and square jaw were somehow not right, and a third glance might note the fine scars of reconstructive surgery. Deep-set eyes of startling blue were watchful beneath thick brows.

Moore’s breath came less ragged.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could have given you some sort of warning,” Chance repeated, judging that the sedative effect of the alcohol had finally dulled the shock. “Of course I’m still alive. The radio carried a late bulletin — I thought you would have heard. I’d have phoned, but you don’t have a line.” Looking about the dingy room, he didn’t see a radio either.

“I thought we were all dead,” said Moore, eyes still closed.

Chance cut him off. “Kirsten’s alive, too — at least I think she’s still alive!”

Moore’s eyes snapped open. “Alive?” he whispered.

“She’s in danger, Compton. Deadly danger. But I know for certain she didn’t die in that crash last night! Compton, you’ve got to help me find her!”

“I’ve got to help you?” Compton muttered thickly.

“There’s something at work here that I can’t attempt to explain to the police!” Chance pressed him, reaching out to shake him to alertness. “Something sinister — an evil whose nature and extent their workaday minds could never begin to grasp. They’d call me a madman or hophead — at best make routine and useless inquiries. Damn you, Compton — you’re the only man here I can turn to if Kirsten can be saved!”