Terrors (53 page)

In the final scene, what is the appeal of the interrogatee? Who was the cameraman and why does the interrogatee think it worthwhile to address
his appeal to the camera? Was it an act of desperation, or did he really believe that the film would be seen by someone able to come to his aid?

In any case, why and how did the cameraman get away with his film? And, emphatically not to be forgotten among the many enigmas of the fragment, how did the film find its way into Tuck Heyworth’s projection booth?

For the comfort of any persons who
may find these questions and this entire affair disquieting, it should be noted that both the original Heyworth Fragment and all additional copies made, plus Dr. Bloch-Erich’s tapes of the sound wire, have been delivered to the appropriate Federal agency. All may rest assured that the final disposition of the Heyworth Fragment will be handled with the full wisdom and responsibility of our democratically
chosen leaders.

The lonely wail of a steam locomotive echoed across the moonlit prairie. Tall saguaro cactus cast frighteningly human-looking shadows in the bright January moonlight. The train had left Chicago in the midst of a driving snowstorm, the worst that city had experienced in a decade. Now, as it roared across the Arizona desert the light of a full moon and a million stars reflected off the
bellowing behemoth.

The war was over and nearly two years had passed. The nation had welcomed its millions of uniformed heroes home, thanked them for their service, and sent them back into the teeming streets of its cities and the lush fields and pastures of its farms.

Time to earn your way as civilians once again, boys. If the jobs just aren’t there, if the horrors you lived on the beaches
of Normandy and in the caves of Iwo Jima haunt your dreams like bloody phantoms, well, you’ll get over it. Just smile and accept the thanks of a grateful nation.

The hour was late, very late. Almost all the passengers had retired for the night, the well-to-do in their private compartments, the middle-class in folding berths, those less fortunate slouching in their seats, hoping to catch a few
hours of shut-eye before the desert sun came glaring over the horizon.

By this time the club car should have been darkened, too, but a few neatly folded bills, discreetly passed across the polished hardwood to a receptive bartender, had persuaded him to stay open for a handful of carefully selected customers.

Two of them were perched on tall barstools. Seen from the rear,
they could have passed
for brothers. Or perhaps for professional colleagues, on their way to a convention of clergymen.

Or undertakers.

Each was dressed in a black suit, elegantly tailored and maintained with care. Each wore a pair of black shoes, polished to a brilliant shine. Perhaps oddly, each also wore a black fedora. Most passengers remove their hats to ride in trains, but who are we to criticize, eh? Leave
them to their foibles.

The two men had been drinking separately when the club car manager sent most of his customers on their way for the evening. Some had drunk discreetly. Others were — how shall I put it — let’s say they were feeling no pain. But what harm was there in getting a little bit tipsy, maybe more than a little bit tipsy, while heading toward Los Angeles on the Desert Cannonball?
Nobody was going to drive into a lamppost, that’s for sure.

Finding themselves the only customers left at the bar, the two men struck up a conversation. Well, there’s no harm in that. A couple of lonely souls, happy to have someone with whom to while away the hours.

Names were a problem, but only a small one. One man asked the other to call him Whistler.

“As in James McNeill Whistler?” asked
his new acquaintance.

“No. It’s a nickname I got because of a little habit I picked up a long time ago.” He paused and whistled an eerie tune. It wasn’t exactly pretty, but the other found that it lodged, somehow, in his brain. A very odd melody, melancholy, haunting, as if it would draw you in and keep you there — somewhere — whether you wanted to stay or not.

“You see?”

The other man said,
“Yes.”

“That’s why they call me — Whistler.” He paused to sip his beverage, the ice cubes clinking softly with the swaying of the train. “And you?”

“Traveler.”

“Just Traveler?”

“Yes. Some people think there’s something mysterious about that, but most simply accept it. I hope you will, Mr. Whistler.”

“Just Whistler.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a white-jacketed porter clearing away
the remnants of the evening’s business. Ash trays were emptied,
glasses and bottles were removed from tables and carried to the bar to be washed. Abandoned magazines and newspapers were gathered up.

One of the dark-suited men asked the porter to leave a newspaper with him. It was a copy of the Chicago
Tribune
, the self-styled World’s Greatest Newspaper. He spread it on the bar and scanned the
headlines. Chicago was still reeling from news of the death of Al Capone at his winter home in Florida. Chicagoans who had quailed in terror at the violence of Capone’s mobsters two decades earlier now felt a strange nostalgia for the brutal mobster. In international news a Frenchman named Henri Verdoux was suing the producers of the Chaplin film
Monsieur Verdoux
that portrayed its eponymous character
as a serial murderer. Closer to home the police promised a prompt arrest in the daring daylight robbery of the Farmers and Cattlemen’s Bank on State Street. And on the sports page, fans of both the White Sox and the Cubs were beginning to stir in anticipation of the coming baseball season.

From behind the two men came the sound of a woman’s voice. “Hey, up there, can a lonely lady get a nightcap
or is this joint closed for business?”

The lighting in the club car was dim, supplemented by the almost daytime glare of a full moon reflected off the sere sands of the southwestern desert.

The bartender, unobtrusively manning his station, rasped his reply. “I’m sorry, Miss, club car is closed for the night.”

He winked at his two male customers. “I see you’re checking out the headlines,” he
growled. “What do you think of that bank robbery? Take a gander at that, will ya?”

With a blunt finger he traced the story’s subheads. “Looks like the coppers put a couple of slugs into one of them muggs, even if his buddies managed to drag him into their getaway wagon.” He shook his head. “Takes all kinds, don’t it? That’s what I always say, it sure takes all kinds.”

The woman’s voice cut in
again. “I don’t see you shutting down those two muggs.” She stood up, holding the table-edge to steady herself as the car lurched, jerking a thumb at Whistler and Traveler.

The two men in black exchanged a knowing glance. One of them addressed the woman. “Didn’t you get on the train in Chicago, Miss?”

“Yeah. That’s home. So what?”

“Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,” the second man in black replied.
“Chicago is a splendid metropolis. What did that poet call it, ‘Hog butcher for the world?’ Of course, the winters can be difficult. Are you headed for a warmer locale?”

The car lurched again, and the woman stumbled, caught herself, then made her way forward.

“Here now,” a man in black said, “won’t you have a seat?” He slid courteously aside and the woman climbed onto a red leather stool between
those occupied by the two men.

She looked from side to side. “You two must be brothers or something.”

“You might say as much.”

“You even drink the same kind of booze.” She flicked her deep eyes toward the bartender. “I’ll have the same as the brothers here.”

The bartender cast a glance at one of the men, caught an almost imperceptible nod in return, lifted a silver-capped bottle and a small
glass and poured.

The woman gazed into the glass, not touching it. She turned on her barstool to scan the moonlit desert. Windows had been opened on both sides of the car, and the cool night air of the Southwest provided refreshing relief to the usual stuffy air of railroad cars.

Black shapes flitted through the night outside the car. The woman made an odd gesture, the dark red of her long,
pointed fingernails reflecting in the overhead lamps. Something silent and black flittered through the window. It hovered briefly near the ceiling, then flapped its wings, crossed the car and disappeared out the other side of the car.

“Wha — what was that?” the bartender gasped.

“Just a bat.” The woman smiled at the red-jacketed server. She was small and slim, her skin pale and her features
fine, a marked contrast to her rough speech. In the artificial light of the club car her platinum blonde hair, artfully darkened eyebrows and lashes and vivid lip rouge made a dramatic image. A tiny purse of gold lamé hung from one shoulder by golden chains as fine as angel’s hair.

The red-jacketed bartender shook his head. “Pretty weird, but we get ’em now and then on this run. Some women are
scared, think they’ll get caught in their hair or something.” He gave a nervous laugh. “Maybe they’re afraid of vampires.”

“No,” the woman said, “I’m certainly not afraid of bats. I use them in my work. And there are no vampires. No human ones, anyway. My
poor uncle back there in the baggage car, he was raised on horror movies, he always believed in vampires. Lot of good it did him, the old fool.”

The train’s whistle punctuated her words, its shrill wail echoing through the night.

She lifted her glass. “To Chicago.” She paused.

“I’ll drink to that,” one of the men said.

The woman said, “Let me finish. To Chicago, good-bye, you’ve seen the last of Satin Blaine.” She drew the glass to her lips and drained off half its contents. To her newfound companions she said, “How come you two aren’t
drinking?”

In unison the two men lifted their glasses. A moment later one of them said, “That was quite a trick, Miss Blaine. It is Miss Blaine, isn’t it? Yes. Quite a trick getting that bat to fly through the car.”

“I’ve always been good with animals.”

“And you’re leaving Chicago because of the climate?”

She let out a quick, harsh laugh. “You might say that.”

“Too cold for you?”

“Maybe.
Or maybe too hot.”

She took another sip of her beverage. “Actually, I’m taking my uncle to Los Angeles.”

“Oh. I thought you were travelling alone. I didn’t see any companion with you.”

“He’s back in the baggage car.”

The lights in the club car flickered, as they often do on trains. In the momentary darkness the bright moonlight pouring through the club car’s window settled on the woman’s hand.
A magnificent Australian opal mounted in a fine gold setting graced her finger; the stone seemed to capture the moonlight and glow with its swirling effulgence.

The electric lights came back on.

“He’s dead,” Satin Blaine explained.

“It must be difficult, travelling with a casket.”

“I can handle a stiff. They never give me any trouble. I’ve had a lot more grief from live men than from dead
ones, you can believe it.”

She heaved a sigh, a world-weary gesture for one so young and attractive.

She downed the last of her drink, lowered the glass to the bar and slid from the stool to her feet. “Okay, gents, many thanks for the companionship and the refreshments. I think I’ll be on my way now.”

“We’ll walk you back to your compartment, Miss Blaine.” One of the men slapped a bill on the
bar. They both joined the woman.

“Well, how nice of you. But call me Satin, then, if we’re going to be friends.”

They left the club car and started toward the rear of the train only to be stopped by a uniformed conductor. His hair beneath his uniform cap was steel gray. His eyes held the look of one who has seen everything there is to see, or who thought so until now.

“Sorry, folks, passageway’s
closed for a little while.”

“What happened?”

“I’m sorry, you’ll just have to stay in your compartments. Everything’s all right.” The way he said it indicated that everything was not all right.

One of the men in black leaned over and whispered a few words to the conductor. At the same time he pulled back his carefully tailored suit jacket and showed something to the railroad man.

There was
a moment of silence. It was broken when the train lurched and the lights flickered.

After a moment the lights blazed again and the conductor nodded. “Okay, follow me.”

They made their way through a series of Pullmans and ordinary passenger cars. A seeming eternity later they approached the streamliner’s baggage car, only to be halted in their tracks by a frightful sight.

A gray-haired oldster
wearing railroad man’s overalls staggered toward them, an expression of fright on his face. “It — it — it’s a vavamp –” escaped his blue lips. His eyes were open wide. He pitched forward and lay motionless in the corridor.

The conductor bowed over the body, turning it over so that the gaping mouth and frightened eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling. After a moment the conductor knelt and a
uniformed sleeve stretched toward the old man’s throat. Experienced fingers felt for a pulse that was not there.

The conductor looked up at the two men in black and the slim, platinum blonde woman. “He’s dead,” the conductor gasped. And after a moment he added, “and he’s cold. As cold as ice.”

The woman, Satin Blaine, spoke in her distinctive voice, “He tried to say something. He said, ‘Va-vamp.’”

A man in black said, simply, “Yes.”

Satin Blaine resumed, “Do you think he was trying to say,
vampire?
”

Briefly, no one spoke.

And what do you think, dear reader? Was the old man talking about a vampire? Perhaps he’d seen one movie too many, or read one tale more than was good for him, about Transylvanian counts with courtly manners and very sharp fangs. Perhaps he was the victim of his own,
too-vivid, imagination. Or … perhaps not.

We shall see.

One of the men in black asked the conductor, “Who is this?”

“Old Jenkins. Old Ollie Jenkins. He’s been with the railroad for forty years. Started as a fireman and worked his way up to brakeman and finally engineer. One of the best. He never married, never had a family or even many friends. Said he loved his locomotives and that was all
the love he needed. Management tried to retire him years ago, but he loved the trains so much, he wouldn’t let go. Said he wanted to die riding the rails, so they gave him a job as a baggage car attendant, paid him as much salary as his pension would have been. Can you imagine, a top-notch engineer, sitting and watching baggage hour after hour? But Ollie said he’d do anything he had to, just so long
as he could keep riding the high iron. Well, I guess he got his way. Poor old-timer.”