The Grim Spectre (19 page)

Cars pulled up in a steady stream to the Olympus Room. The word had gone out in all the afternoon editions of the local papers, including the Gazette, that the great Bobby Terrano was going to be playing the swankiest club in the city.

Women exited cars wearing gowns that cost more than most people in Riverburgh made in a year, on the arms of men twenty years their senior and worth millions.

In an upstairs room of the high end club, Bobby Terrano stood staring out the window at the arriving patrons.

“It’s a full house down there, Kid. It looks like we’re going to be breaking all kind of records tonight. This might be the best night the Olympus Room ever had.”

Bobby turned toward the doorway and saw the imposing figure of Phylo Zeus framed there.

“What was that Mr. Zeus? I was day dreaming.”

Phylo snorted and said, “Nothing important kid. All that matters is you lighting this place up and giving these people the show they paid for. Somethin’ they’ll never be able to forget. Can you do that Bobby?”

Bobby turned toward Zeus and smiled, “Of course I can, Mr. Zeus, and I can promise you,” Bobby looked up and met Zeus’ eyes, and then he continued, “I’ll give them exactly that, ‘a show they’ll never forget’.”

Zeus grinned, “Fantastic, Kid, that’s what I want to hear.”

He clapped Bobby on the shoulder.

Bobby smiled and nodded. He picked up his trumpet and began to polish it before he went on, making sure it gleamed.

Zeus turned to walk out the door of the room and turned back toward Bobby before he left and said, “One last thing, Bobby, like I told you before, my name’s Phylo, not Mr. Zeus, got it?”

Bobby looked up from his polishing and replied, “Sure Mr. Zeu- I mean Phylo, whatever you say.”

“Glad to hear it, Kid. You go on in ten minutes. Knock ‘em dead, Bobby.”

“You’ve got it, Phylo.”

Zeus nodded and grinned before walking out of the doorway. Bobby waited a moment more to make sure Zeus was not coming back in.

When it was obvious he had continued on toward the ballroom, Bobby turned his attentions once more to the window and the steady stream of private cars and cabs pulling to a halt down below.

Then something he saw made his heart hang in his throat. A young woman was exiting a cab, a very familiar young woman.

“Tammy,” he breathed. He shook his head in disgust while he watched her ascend the marble steps leading to the entrance of the Olympus Room.

Tammy walked through the lobby of the great granite and marble hall dressed to the nine’s and looking gorgeous. She headed toward the main ballroom when a hand shot out and grabbed her arm. She began to squeal when another strong hand clasped itself over her mouth and her mysterious attacker dragged her into a darkened passageway off of the main lobby.

She began to kick and squirm, but the unknown assailant quickly spun her around so she was facing him, and her eyes went wide in startled recognition, “B-Bobby? What are you doing? Why’d you grab me like that?”

“I thought I told you to stay away from this place? Tonight especially? Did we not have that conversation not ten hours ago?”

“Hey, Mister, I’m a reporter and a damned good one, even if I’m not that recognized yet. But if I break another big story George may see I’ve got what it takes an’ that I’m not some fluke; and you know, you could have mentioned how beautiful I am tonight. This dress cost me a month’s worth of pay, ya’ know”

Ignoring her comment about her dress Bobby snapped back, “Or you’ll end up dead and George will see you at your funeral and then he can look at your headstone, did you bother to think about that?”

“Bobby, y-you’re really scarin’ me.”

“Good,” he said with a nod, “you should be scared. Very, very scared. What Zeus is planning, it’s big and it’s ugly.”

“An’ what are you gonna do about it? How do you even know about it? You’re just a trumpet player. What’s
really
goin’ on here? Who do you think you are? The freakin’ Grim Spectre?”

He turned slowly and sternly, stoically looked at her, not answering. His eyes burned into her own.

“Oh. My. God. You
are
him. But how?”

“I’ll answer all your questions later, I promise, Tammy, but you have to get out of here, and now. I can’t even begin to tell you how dangerous it is here tonight. I think that crazy damn ape-man is here too; you remember what he did to you before, right?”

“O-okay, you convinced me,” she said resignedly.

“Good let’s go, I’m going to walk you to the entrance and out of here, then I have to go play. It’s almost curtain time.” He looked at his watch to confirm the time, and his eyes went wide in surprise.

They both quickly walked back out of the side stage passageway and were about to head back toward the main entrance when two stage hands ran up to Bobby. Both men were out of breath.

“Mr. Terrano, where were you?” the first man named Mort asked.

“You have to go on, and now,” the second man, named Manny added.

“In a minute boys, I have to see someone to the door.”

“But there isn’t time,” Manny reiterated.

Even as he finished speaking music began to play as the stage band began to get the crowds attention to herald Bobby’s grand entrance.

“Hell, I lost track of time talking to you. Go, Tammy, now, no more wasted time, get out of here.”

“O-okay, Bobby.”

He leaned down and kissed her quickly then repeated, “Get out of here.”

He turned and headed toward the door as the two stage hands practically dragged Bobby toward the stage access on the other side of the hall.

Tammy stole one last quick glance over her shoulder at Bobby while she was passing the passageway he had just dragged her down, when a hairy arm and hand quickly and powerfully wrapped itself around her neck and face, and in that hirsute hand was a rag, soaked with something that immediately rendered her unconscious, even as she disappeared down the same passageway Bobby had previously taken her down.

Only this time it was in the grip of someone or something that was decidedly not human.

Bobby walked out onto the stage the moment the curtains were drawn back and the spotlight was shone upon him. Ever the entertainer, he immediately smiled brightly for the crowd at the Olympus room and waved. Then he picked up his trumpet and with a nod to the backing band and to the conductor, he began to play.

The first set lasted fifty minutes, with the crowd in the packed jazz club giving Bobby a standing ovation. He waved enthusiastically and exited the stage after the curtains were drawn.

Phylo Zeus was waiting for him behind the curtain with an ear to ear grin, “That was great, Bobby, just great! You packed this place for the first show and the line outside is around the block! People in this town couldn’t wait to see you play here.”

“Thanks, Phylo. I’ve got to admit that was fun,” Bobby replied.

“Go rest, Kid. You got an hour, then be ready to turn this place on its ear. The big show is the next one. Did you talk to the conductor about what you’re going to play in the next set?”

“Yes, I gave him a list and we worked out all the key and time changes already, we’re all set to go.”

“Then go rest up, we got a big night ahead of us,” Phylo said.

“You got it, Phylo. See you in an hour,” Bobby said.

Bobby turned and headed toward the dressing room. Before he left he hung a small ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door handle and stepped inside, locking the door from within.

Once inside Bobby removed his jacket and touched his belt buckle.
‘Grim Spectre,’
he thought, and instantly in a flash of light, his clothes were replaced by the uniform he wore as the Avenger of Riverburgh.

The Grim Spectre wasted no time. He turned invisible and floated down through the floor into the basement below.

‘I doubt Zeus is actually doing anything illegal in the regular levels of this place. I figure anything he’s doing that’s dangerous is going to be going on hidden away in his basement levels, and who knows how many levels this place has to begin with?’

The Grim Spectre began to move from room to room, finding storage areas filled with liquor and cleaning supplies.

‘Nothing so far,’
he thought,
‘but that doesn’t mean it’s not here, whatever ‘it’ is. I mean I know there has to be some sort of apparatus to spray or infect these people with whatever chemical concoction that mad ape scientist came up with.’

He floated silently and invisibly through a hallway beneath the club of Phylo Zeus. People walked past him and unknowingly through him in the basement level. But none of them were gangsters or criminals as far as he could tell. They looked like regular workers for the club. Several were bringing up cases of beer for the clientele, while another locked the door to the storage room behind them.

The Grim Spectre looked into the room, by walking immaterially through the wall.

‘Nothing,’
he thought,
’This level is clean.’

He floated along, inches above the ground. He reversed his path and headed back toward the point he entered from. Then he saw something along the ceiling that caught his eyes,
‘Vents. He has some sort of ventilation system in here. He’s probably blowing air with electric fans over blocks of ice to keep it cool on the dance floor…’
Then he stopped himself.
‘It’s not underground. He’s going to infect everyone here from up above, probably on the roof. My bet is that those blocks of ice are all on the roof and that the blowers are up there as well, forcing the cold air, which naturally drops, off of the ice blocks into the club below. Somehow he’s blowing the chemicals along with the cold air off of the ice; maybe he froze the chemicals into the ice? I’m not a scientist, but that at least seems plausible. Unless their freezing point was lower, or maybe he’s just having Dr. Simian spreading the chemicals over the ice? Does it matter either way? I have to get up there to see if I’m right and to put a stop to this insane plan of his.’

The Grim Spectre floated upward through the ceiling above his head and into the Olympus Room itself. Invisible and undetectable, he continued to rise, finally exiting on the roof of the sprawling jazz club.

But unbeknownst to him, in a hidden sub-basement lab was his girlfriend Tammy Thomas. She was unconscious and tied to an inclined table. Nearby and with his back turned to her, the lab coat wearing Dr. Simian worked on something on a bench.

He turned toward her and said, “I shall return shortly, my dear. Do not fret. Our time together will begin when I have overseen and administered my new formula to those above. Once carnage and anarchy are raging in the club, I shall return to you and administer the same formula I used on myself. You will be changed in a positive way, to be more like myself but to retain your intelligence and personality. You will become my perfect mate.”

With one last longing look at Tammy Dr. Simian exited the secret lab. He shut and locked the door behind him.

Instantly her eyes were open and she began to fight against her bonds, trying to get something out that was hidden within her dress.

“Got it!” she exclaimed, “Never leave home without a girl’s best friend, especially in this city.”

Tammy fished out a knife she had hidden against her leg and began cutting at her bonds.

***

Above the roof of the Olympus Room, The Grim Spectre floated invisibly toward a half dozen men in tan maintenance coveralls working near the ventilator system.

‘I have to make sure my assumption is right; I can’t just attack what may be regular maintenance men simply doing their job.’

He hovered unseen above them and then positioned himself to see what they were doing.

The men were moving huge blocks of ice into position on an open hatch of the ventilator, but before they did that they removed the half melted blocks that were within and shoved them aside. Then he quickly noticed the difference between the blocks,
‘The blocks they’re inserting, they’re all discolored. There’s a blue streak through them all. That’s got to be the chemicals frozen into the ice; I was right!’

Instantly he appeared above the supposed maintenance men in all his glowing glory. The Men all dropped what they were doing and jumped back in fright.

“It’s the Grim Spectre!” one shouted.

“Plug ‘im!” another replied.

All six produced guns from within their coveralls and began firing.

The hail of bullets passed harmlessly through him.

In response he pulled his own guns free and they began
barking death!

Without hesitation he gunned down the men who would have harmed so many innocents.

“You scum are lucky I chose not to kill any of you; simple incapacitating shots are all I need to deal with the likes of you,” The Grim Spectre said.

He landed on the roof and turned solid, while the thugs rolled around in pain behind him.

‘I’ve got to figure out how to disable this ventilator. I think the simplest way is to just throw the block of ice off the roof away from the vent system, but then it’s going to melt quickly in the summer heat and still infect a bunch of people. How am I going to stop this mad plan?’

Powerful hands suddenly slammed down on his shoulders and smashed him to the rooftop.

Pain wracked and unable to focus, The Grim Spectre rolled over and saw the lab coat wearing, monstrous Dr. Simian standing above him, pounding on his chest and roaring at the moon.

Then, oblivion claimed him as all went dark.

The Grim Spectre awoke strapped to another inclined examination table. He was still dressed in his uniform and he had not been unmasked-yet. Across from him was the seemingly unconscious-and immediately recognized-form of Tammy Thomas.

But something was wrong, his vision was blurred and he had a problem forming a cohesive thought. His head pounded madly.

‘Concussion?’
he thought. Even that simple thought was a hard fought one.

“Ah you’re finally awake, Grim Spectre,” a strange voice that sounded more like an animal trying to speak the language of a man said.

“What’d you…do to…me?” The Grim Spectre asked.

The hairy man-ape turned toward him and shook a vial with unknown contents before him, “A little sedative to keep you…pliable during your conversion.”

“Conversion?”

“Yes, you are about to become one of my mindless slaves. I have a special formula, just for you. One that will leave you the most mindless and open to suggestion of all. You’ll do anything and everything I want. You will even stand in a corner silently when I order you to, even to the point of starving yourself to death at my order. But then you are a ghost returned to the side of the living, are you not? This will be naught but a simple trip back to a place you left behind once before. One you are already familiar with. At last when I give you the order to kill yourself, which I will, eventually, after you have outlived your usefulness to me, you will return to the metaphysical realm you came from, a defeated spirit, and I will have been the one to send you back.”

“Doesn’t this all seem…a little familiar…to you, Simian? Your…formula…must have affected…your mind,” the Grim Spectre replied.

“Hhhmm, you are still cognizant enough to make coherent sentences, I am impressed,” Simian said.

‘So am I,
’ Bobby thought,
‘my head is getting clearer by the minute; my magic belt must be counteracting the effects of the drugs he pumped me up with. In a few minutes I should be back to normal, I hope I can stall him long enough. I have to keep him talking.’

“What…are you, Simian? How did you…become this way, and…why?” The Grim Spectre croaked.

“Since you seem interested, I will indulge your curiosity. I was a scientist working on enhancing mankind’s durability, its strength. The government had hired me with the express orders of finding a way to create a super-soldier for the war they fear is on the horizon. My work took me in a different direction than most as I tried to draw from man’s distant relatives, the apes. Our forbearers.”

“Wait…you believe that…man came from the…ape? It…explains much…about your…insanity,” beneath his mask, Bobby Terrano smiled.

“You fool! Do not question me. You are at my mercy, or need I even remind you of that?” Simian charged toward The Grim Spectre angrily, until they were face to face.

A subtle movement behind the enraged man-beast caught Bobby’s eye immediately-Tammy was already free. She waved a knife in the air to show The Grim Spectre how she cut herself free.

‘Good girl; now I really have to keep him occupied so Tammy can escape.’

“I will peel you out of those rags, whoever you are, and you will do my bidding once you are properly…indoctrinated to my cause,” Simian said.

“You are as foolish as you look. Anyone…who would trade away their humanity…to simply become a beast is a fool.”

“Again you are condemning me and criticizing me, yet my mind, my great and powerful mind has given me the strength and dexterity of the great apes. I have become the master of men.”

“Yes, except the one you must serve. The one who pulls your strings,” The Grim Spectre countered.

Every breath was getting easier now. He felt his belt burning the poisons out of his system with each passing moment.

‘I only need a few more minutes to regain my strength. I’m still a little light headed right now. I just have to keep him agitated and hope he doesn’t kill me before I’m done here.’

“No man controls me, not Phylo Zeus, not you, not anyone!” the enraged half man/half ape slammed his fists down on a table top, shattering the wood like paper.

Behind him Tammy’s eyes went wide in recognition and sudden fear at what she had just witnessed. She was still leaning against the table with the straps lightly resting atop her, as if she were still tied down.

‘I think my mind is finally clear enough to make the belt work. It’s time to get out of here.’

With a bang the door to the lab was kicked in, shattering the lock. All three of the people within the room looked toward the sound to see Phylo Zeus storming into the room.

“Simian! What are you doing?” the big man demanded, “Our plan should have gone into effect minutes ago. It’s bad enough I can’t find that damned trumpet player anywhere I- Wait, what is this? You have The Grim Spectre and Miss Thomas? You’re holding Miss Thomas captive against my will? I told you to stay away from her, that I had plans for her. She wasn’t yours to touch.”

Simian bared his teeth and growled, “This is where our plans, our destinies take different paths, Zeus. The red headed woman is mine! She
will
be my mate even if it is over your dead body!”

“My dead body? Who do you think you’re talkin’ to, you hairy ape? Your usefulness is over to me anyway. I’ve had enough o’ you stinkin’ up this place. Time to say good-bye, Ape-man.”

Zeus threw himself at Simian. Both men tumbled past The Grim Spectre, who was now totally ignored, as they crashed through and smashed tables and equipment.