Terrors Page 6

  Far across a mighty ocean, the continent of Europe was in agony and turmoil. There a nation that was once a shining paragon of civilization, the home of great composers and poets, philosophers and theologians and scientists, had abandoned its experiment with democracy and turned to a darker system of governance. Already in this century the once-great nation had set out to conquer its neighbors and in defeat had paid a great price for its aggression.

  Now, following an economic collapse, a vulgar sketch-artist and onetime corporal in the Imperial army, had made himself dictator and set out to conquer everyone who stood before him. His motto was Today Europe, Tomorrow the World. Already much of the continent lay crushed beneath his heel. Only an island nation and a daring array of resistance fighters stood against the dictator.

  America, officially neutral, had come to the aid of those who stood against the dictator. Ship after ship left America’s port cities, headed across the ocean. Their holds were filled with heavy tanks, mighty cannons, tons of ammunition. They carried whole fleets of warplanes, disassembled and carefully stowed, to be reassembled upon delivery and used in defense against the dictator’s aggressive forces.

  And those ships carried food. Tons and tons of food to fill the empty bellows of millions of hungry children, women, and men. Food without which their nations would be starved into submission if they could not be driven to surrender by the bombs that were dropped on their cities or by the heartless wielders of hot bullets and cold bayonets.

  And the harbor of Seacoast City was icebound, its skies darkened day after day by moisture-laden clouds, its streets clogged by snowfall upon snowfall.

  All of this would have been slightly unusual, the temperature colder and the snowfall heavier than the city was accustomed to, had it been the case in January or February.

  But today was the fifteenth of August.

  Walter Hopkins, M.D., Sc.D., Ph.D., had been Coroner, Chief Police Surgeon and Medical Examiner of Seacoast City for more than twenty years. He ran his department with the authority of a monarch. He supervised a staff of highly-qualified professionals to whom he entrusted all of the routine work of his office, but the mystery cadaver the children had found piqued his curiosity.

  The male cadaver had been stripped of its clothing and laid on the autopsy table. Vital measurements had been taken: height, weight, approximate age. The body had proven curiously light, brittle, and very cold despite its hours in the morgue.

  Scrubbed, masked, and gowned, he performed the autopsy himself.

  That is, he attempted to do so.

  When his scalpel met the flesh of the cadaver, it had no more effect than if Dr. Hopkins had tried to open the skin of a marble statue. The surgeon lifted his instrument and studied it beneath the brilliant light above the dissection table. The light glinted. The blade appeared to be sharp.

  Dr. Hopkins signaled an aide to approach. He reached for the string holding her sterile gown in place, lifted it and drew the blade across the string. It parted without resistance. He turned back to the cadaver on the table and placed his gloved fingertips on the naked shoulder. He lowered his scalpel to the instrument tray and turned angrily to the medical resident and surgical nurse who had been selected to assist at the procedure.

  “Who prepared this cadaver?”

  The resident and the nurse exchanged nervous glances. The only other person in the room was a janitor who stood unobtrusively in the corner, push-broom in hand, bucket and brushes at his side, prepared to clean the premises once the proceeding was complete.

  The resident spoke for himself and the nurse.

  “We did it together, sir.”

  “What’s the matter with you two? Why did you lay out a frozen corpse? Did you expect me to operate on it?”

  “It—he’s been here for twenty-four hours, sir.” The nurse’s voice came through her gauze mask. “It should have thawed by now.”

  “Well it hasn’t!” Hopkins roared. He leaned over the body on the table. Its eyes were wide open, an expression of terror on its face. “This man is frozen solid. Didn’t you take his temperature, nurse?”

  “We tried, sir. I mean—there are no body cavities we could reach, so we relied on skin temperature. I know it’s less accurate than internal temperature, but it was the best we could do.”

  “And what was the result?”

  “Zero, sir.”

  “Zero? You mean, nothing? You got no result?”

  “No, sir. I mean, zero. Zero degrees Fahrenheit. Well below zero, Centigrade.”

  “All right. Maybe we can do something with this.” He turned to the medical resident. “Very well, doctor. Let’s see if you can improvise. See if you can set up a warming chamber and thaw out this human ice cube. I’ll be in my office. Report to me as soon as you have some results.”

  The second body was discovered by Andrew M. McCord, twelve-year employee of the Mercury-Baltic Power Building, the second-tallest structure in Seacoast City. The Mercury-Baltic rose thirty-eight stories into the air, its decorative ornamentation illuminated by multicolored lights famous among the passengers on board the nightly Transatlantic flight of the great Langley-Hawker trimotor airliner.

  McCord had started his career as a janitor. Faithful service had won him promotion to the job of elevator operator, where he wore his brass-buttoned, tan and chocolate-brown uniform with pride. Upon the retirement of the starter from whom he learned his job, McCord had been promoted again to the position of starter. There he clicked his castanets with brio.

  Today all six elevators in the great building were in operation, but for some minutes only five of them had arrived in the lobby to discharge passengers and accept others, then risen to the higher levels of the building to return minutes later, once more to exchange departing for arriving customers. Five of them were operated by men in matching uniforms, their outfits resembling that of the starter save for their single rows of brass buttons as compared to McCord’s double row.

  The sixth operator represented an experiment by forward-thinking management. She was a woman. Her name was Mary Esther Jamison. Her father, old Amos Jamison, had driven elevators up and down in the Mercury-Baltic Electric Power Building from the day it opened, transferring from a similar job in the old St. Nicholas Arms apartment house. Amos had given little Mary Esther rides in his elevator car from the time she was able to stand up. She had started lobbying for a job driving elevators before she ever finished high school, and the day her father took his pension and left his car for the first time, she drove it proudly to the top of the building, then back to the lobby.

  Her uniform was similar to that of her male colleagues, save for the substitution of a modest skirt and hose for the men’s trousers.

  After checking his Elgin watch, McCord frowned, studied the indicator dial above the seemingly inactive elevator, and rubbed his freshly-shaven chin. He waited for another minute, tracking the second hand as it circled the face of his wristwatch. Then he opened the elevator control panel. Selecting the proper key from a heavy accumulation in his uniform trousers pocket, he inserted it into a slot in the control panel and overrode the operator’s controls in the unmoving car.

  McCord brought the car back to the lobby and opened its doors. A rush of chilled air rippled his trouser cuffs. He peered into the car. Mary Esther Jamison stood with her hand on the control lever. Her face was deathly white and a light sprinkling of frost dotted her auburn locks.

  “Mary Esther?” Andrew McCord stepped into the elevator car. “Mary Esther?”

  He touched her hand. Never had he felt anything so frigid. It wasn’t like touching a sculpture of ice; more like touching a marble statue that had stood outside through the coldest spell in a century. He was so shocked, he hardly noticed the stream of tiny white specks scurrying from the elevator car, across the lobby of the Mercury-Baltic Electric Power Building, and into the busy street beyond.

  By the time Andrew McCord had performed his sad duty of contacting old Amos Jamison by telephone and n
otifying him of his daughter’s death, and the body had been transported to the City Morgue, another telephone conversation was taking place.

  The morgue janitor, Beauregard Brown, had slipped from the autopsy room. He entered what every other worker in the Coroner’s Department thought was a drab closet containing brooms, mops, and other cleaning supplies. What those workers did not realize was that a false wall in the closet gave way to a hidden chamber.

  Here he picked up an instrument that bore only a slight resemblance to a telephone. He whistled a series of low tones into its mouthpiece and a moment later heard a female voice respond.

  “Lady Cerise’s Salon of Beauty.”

  “Ruby Mae?”

  “Yes, this is Ruby Mae. Are you calling to make an appointment?”

  “Ruby Mae, this is Bo.”

  “I hear your voice, Cousin. What is it?”

  “We got another one in, Ruby Mae. I think it’s time to get the Crimson Avenger involved.”

  “Why, Cousin Beauregard! You know our Cousin Clarence is out of town. He’s back home in Savannah visiting family. I wish I could have gone with him, but I had to stay here and work. I have a manicure appointment comin’ in in just a few minutes, Cousin!”

  “Understand, Cousin. You know where to find me.”

  “Why, of course, Cousin Beauregard. I can just taste those ham-hocks and chitterlings already! And thank you for the kind invitation.”

  Ruby Mae Jones placed the handset back on the receiver. She stood behind her manicurist’s table, her white, almost medical-appearance uniform in stark contrast to her ochre skin and shining sable locks.

  Lady Cerise’s Salon of Beauty shared a double storefront in the lobby of the Central Railroad Tower. The other half of the facility was occupied by the Central Barbershop, operated by twin brothers Alberto and Roberto Morelli. In fact, the Morelli’s owned Lady Cerise’s as well, along with their widowed sister, Ciliegia Bacci.

  Exchanging nods with Signora Bacci, Ruby Mae strode across to the barbershop and entered an unobtrusive door therein. A few moments later Ruby Mae or a remarkable simulacrum of the manicurist emerged. She walked back to the manicurist’s table in Lady Cerise’s Salon and seated herself at her station. To the casual observer the manicurist was indeed Ruby Mae Jones. When a customer arrived the manicurist would offer polite greetings and perform her duties quietly, carefully, and efficiently, but with a strange absence of warmth and animation.

  In the meanwhile, a high-speed elevator had traveled from the environs of the Central Barber Shop to a rooftop suite that occupied the entire roof area of the Central Railroad Tower, forty-two stories above the bustling streets and looming buildings of Seacoast City.

  To the customers of Madame Cerise’s Salon, Ruby Mae Jones was a polite, talented, almost painfully shy manicurist and apprentice beauty operator. To the Crimson Wizard, Seacoast City’s most famous and most feared crime-fighter, she was Nzambi, the scientific genius whose inventions made up the Wizard’s anti-crime arsenal. But to the few evil-doers who had the misfortune to cross her path, she was the Golden Saint, a figure as fearsome as she was fantastic.

  Now Ruby Mae Jones stepped into a private chamber atop the Central Railroad Tower. Moments later the Golden Saint stepped back out. She wore a form-fitting costume of some shimmering, golden-tinted material. Her boots and gauntleted gloves were of a similar but contrasting color. A jeweled belt, slung slow over the Golden Saint’s graceful hips, rounded out her costume, the compartments and attachments on the belt containing all the equipment that she needed in the great majority of situations.

  She wore no headgear, no mask, yet those who encountered her were strangely baffled when asked, later, to describe her face. She had been photographed a few times, most notably by Della Marston of the Seacoast City Daily Sentinel. Della doubled as resident sob-sister on the paper’s features page and sometime photog. Using her heavy Speed Graphic as a bludgeon she had brained more than one wise guy or thug, sending a couple of them to the hospital and a few others to the city jail.

  But even Della’s shots of the Golden Saint showed only a blur where the crime-fighter’s features should have been.

  Strangest of all were a pair of shimmering shapes that extended from the crime-fighter’s shoulder blades. Or did they? Witnesses differed. Some said that they were wings, others denied that they existed at all. Some said that the Golden Saint could fly—and if she was indeed a saint, perhaps she could. Others insisted that she merely had unusual powers of agility and strength.

  It was late afternoon in Seacoast City. The sun made only a faint, feeble glow through dense cloud cover, and a heavy snowfall was covering the gray slush and ice that covered the city’s streets and walkways with a new coating of white. For a brief moment the city would be turned into a Christmas card image of shimmering white and glittering crystal. Then it would turn gray again.

  But why was this happening in August? Why were children not playing in water from the city’s opened hydrants? Why were last summer’s pennant-winning Seacoast City Superbas forced to play all their games on the road? Why was the Saturn River frozen over, and the waters of Seacoast Harbor perilous with floating floes?

  The freakish weather had begun with an unexpected cold snap on the last day of June. The air had grown chillier over the next seventy-two hours. Forecasters broadcasting from the city’s radio stations commented laughingly on the possibility of a small chunk of winter having been jarred loose from its moorings and plunked down in the middle of summer.

  Businessmen in the city’s exclusive clubs, women in checkout lines at grocery stores, children in playgrounds, all shared a common topic: the strange weather.

  When the first snowfall began many of Seacoast City’s younger set were delighted by the novelty. Photographers like Della Marston of the morning Daily Sentinel and Stan Sterling of the evening Herald-Reporter competed to produce the more striking images.

  By the middle of August the novelty of winter-in-summer had worn thin. Mayor Howard Harkness of Seacoast City declared a state of civic emergency. At the mayor’s direction, Police Chief Alf O’Brien ordered his men on a full alert, canceling all leaves and placing his officers on double shifts. Governor Oliver Buckman, sweating in his shirtsleeves in his office at the state capital, could hardly believe his ears when he received a request from Mayor Harkness for emergency food and medical supplies.

  The governor traveled to Seacoast City by railroad car and climbed onto the platform wearing a short-sleeved shirt and panama hat, to be greeted by a howling gale and cutting sleet.

  On the city’s most influential radio station, newscaster Joseph Van Horn wrapped up his daily report with a succinct item.

  “The unprecedented summertime cold spell that has gripped Seacoast City has claimed another victim, twenty-year-old Mary Esther Jamison, an elevator operator at the Central Railroad Tower. Like earlier victims of the freak weather, Miss Jamison appeared to be frozen to death. The office of Coroner Walter Hopkins has withheld details of the autopsy.”

  In the studio of WSCR, Van Horn carefully dropped the top page of his script to prevent the sound of shuffling paper from going out over the air. From the next page he added, “Mayor Harkness and Police Chief O’Brien urge all residents to stay indoors as much as possible, and keep your thermostats turned up. There is plenty of coal in the city’s warehouses and it will be delivered to all who need it.”

  After a momentary pause, Van Horn moved on to the next headline.

  “Far from Seacoast City, the latest war news from Europe—green clad, iron-helmeted armies have moved across the borders of several small Balkan kingdoms. Political leaders in those nations have appealed to the world body in Geneva but to no avail. Observers on the scene report streams of refugees leaving bombed-out cities, fleeing to the countryside with their pitiful possessions piled precariously on horse-drawn carts. The dictator who sent those bombers and tanks against those little countries has shown them no mercy, nor given any sign that
he will be satisfied when he has their bloody corpses in his pocket.”

  Van Horn’s eyes flicked to the oversized clock above the control booth window. He was an experienced professional when it came to his trade, and he made it a rule to have an extra story or two in reserve, should there be time to spare at the end of a newscast.

  “Here’s one that should be good for a chuckle. You may have heard of the Army’s new experimental bomber, the B-16. This one is a flying behemoth, with two tail booms and six engines. Going to go two hundred miles an hour or so. Well, Uncle Sam wants to experiment with rainmaking to relieve heat-parched and drought-stricken farms in the Midwest. New plan is to fly a squadron of B-16’s in a circle and shoot little clouds of ice pellets out of them, trying to coax Mother Nature into doing the same.”

  The broadcaster gave one of his famous pauses, then added, “Heat-parched? Drought-stricken? Seacoast City could offer some relief from that!”

  Another pause, then he resumed “And now, here is WSCR’s resident meteorologist, Mark McCracken.”

  “Thanks, Joe.”

  McCracken’s voice was half an octave higher than Van Horn’s, his delivery friendlier and less portentous than the chief newsman’s.

  “There’s still no explanation of our sudden cold spell, and no indication when it’s going to end. Today’s high temperature was thirty-six degrees. Expected low tonight in the high teens or low twenties. There’s a steady snowfall taking place, with expected accumulations of ten to twelve inches. Tomorrow is expected to be just like today.”

  McCracken paused for a beat, then ended with his customary tagline, “Here’s wishing you clear skies and pleasant breezes, Seacoast City, and we’ll see you tomorrow, sure as the sun comes up!”

  Mention of the death of the unidentified man found by the children ice skating on the frozen Saturn River, and that of the unfortunate Mary Esther Jamison in her elevator car in the Mercury-Baltic Building, would shortly disappear from the city’s newspapers and radio reports. Word was about to go out from City Hall to the media moguls of the metropolis. In the name of maintaining public order and avoiding panic, the mysterious deaths were about to be hushed up.