Shock II Read online

  RICHARD MATHESON

  SHOCK II

  1 - BROTHER TO THE MACHINE

  2 - NO SUCH THING AS A VAMPIRE

  3 - DESCENT

  4 - DEADLINE

  5 - THE MAN WHO MADE THE WORLD

  6 - GRAVEYARD SHIFT

  7 - THE LIKENESS OF JULIE

  8 - LAZARUS II

  9 - BIG SURPRISE

  10 - CRICKETS

  11 - MUTE

  12 - FROM SHADOWED PLACES

  13 - A FLOURISH OF STRUMPETS

  1 - BROTHER TO THE MACHINE

  He stepped into the sunlight and walked among the people. His feet carried him away from the black tube depths. The distant roar of underground machinery left his brain to be replaced by myriad whispers of the city.

  Now he was walking the main street. Men of flesh and men of steel passed him by, coming and going. His legs moved slowly and his footsteps were lost in a thousand footsteps.

  He passed a building that had died in the last war. There were scurrying men and robots pulling off the rubble to build again. Over their heads hung the control ship and he saw men looking down to see that work was done properly.

  He slipped in and out among the crowd. No fear of being seen. Only inside of him was there a difference. Eyes would never know it. Visio-poles set at every corner could not glean the change. In form and visage he was just like all the rest.

  He looked at the sky. He was the only one. The others didn't know about the sky. It was only when you broke away that you could see. He saw a rocket ship flashing across the sun and control ships hovering in a sky rich with blue and fluffy clouds.

  The dull-eyed people glanced at him suspiciously and hurried on. The blank-faced robots made no sign. They clanked on past, holding their envelopes and their packages in long metal arms.

  He lowered his eyes and kept walking. A man cannot look at the sky, he thought. It is suspect to look at the sky.

  'Would you help a buddy?'

  He paused and his eyes flicked down to the card on the man's chest.

  Ex-Space Pilot. Blind. Legalized Beggar.

  Signed by the stamp of the Control Commissioner. He put his hand on the blind man's shoulder. The man did not speak but passed by and moved on, his cane clacking on the sidewalk until he had disappeared. It was not allowed to beg in this district. They would find him soon.

  He turned from watching and strode on. The visio-poles had seen him pause and touch the blind man. It was not permitted to pause on business streets, to touch another.

  He passed a metal news dispenser and, brushing by, pulled out a sheet. He continued on and held it up before his eyes.

  Income Taxes Raised. Military Draft Raised. Prices Raised.

  Those were the story heads. He turned it over. On the back was an editorial that told why Earth forces had been compelled to destroy all the Martians.

  Something clicked in his mind and his fingers closed slowly in a tight fist.

  He passed his people, men and robots both. What distinction now? he asked himself. The common classes did the same work as the robots. Together they walked or drove through the streets carrying and delivering.

  To be a man, he thought. No longer is it a blessing, a pride, a gift. To be brother to the machine, used and broken by invisible men who kept their eyes on poles and their fists bunched in ships that hung over all their heads, waiting to strike at opposition.

  When it came to you one day that this was so, you saw there was no reason to go on with it.

  He stopped in the shade and his eyes blinked. He looked in the shop window. There were tiny baby creatures in a cage.

  Buy a Venus Baby For Your Child, said the card.

  He looked into the eyes of the small tentacled things and saw there intelligence and pleading misery. And he passed on, ashamed of what one people can do to another people.

  Something stirred within his body. He lurched a little and pressed his hand against his head. His shoulders twitched. When a man is sick, he thought, he cannot work. And when a man cannot work, he is not wanted.

  He stepped into the street and a huge Control truck ground to a stop inches before him.

  He walked away jerkily, leaped upon the sidewalk. Someone shouted and he ran. Now the photo-cells would follow him. He tried to lose himself in the moving crowds. People whirled by, an endless blur of faces and bodies.

  They would be searching now. When a man stepped in front of a vehicle he was suspect. To wish death was not allowed. He had to escape before they caught him and took him to the Adjustment Centre. He couldn't bear that.

  People and robots rushed past him, messengers, delivery boys, the bottom level of an era. All going somewhere. In all these scurrying thousands, only he had no place to go, no bundle to deliver, no slavish duty to perform. He was adrift.

  Street after street, block on block. He felt his body weaving. He was going to collapse soon, he felt. He was weak. He wanted to stop. But he couldn't stop. Not now. If he paused - sat down to rest - they would come for him and take him to the Adjustment Centre. He didn't want to be adjusted. He didn't want to be made once more into a stupid shuffling machine. It was better to be in anguish and to understand.

  He stumbled on. Bleating horns tore at his brain. Neon eyes blinked down at him as he walked.

  He tried to walk straight, but his system was giving way. Were they following? He would have to be careful. He kept his face blank and he walked as steadily as he could.

  His knee joint stiffened and, as he bent to rub it in his hands, a wave of darkness leaped from the ground and clawed at him. He staggered against a plate-glass window.

  He shook his head and saw a man staring from inside. He pushed away. The man came out and stared at him in fear. The photo-cells picked him up and followed him. He had to hurry. He couldn't be brought back to start all over again. He'd rather be dead.

  A sudden idea. Cold water. Only to drink?

  I'm going to die, he thought. But I will know why I am dying and that will be different. I have left the laboratory where, daily, I was sated with calculations for bombs and gases and bacterial sprays.

  All through those long days and nights of plotting destruction, the truth was growing in my brain. Connections were weakening, indoctrinations faltering as effort fought with apathy.

  And, finally, something gave, and all that was left was weariness and truth and a great desire to be at peace.

  And now he had escaped and he would never go back. His brain had snapped forever and they would never adjust him again.

  He came to the citizen's park, last outpost for the old, the crippled, the useless. Where they could hide away and rest and wait for death.

  He entered through the wide gate and looked at the high walls which stretched beyond eye. The walls that hid the ugliness from outside eyes. It was safe here. They did not care if a man died inside the citizen's park.

  This is my island, he thought. I have found a silent place. There are no probing photo-cells here and no ears listening. A person can be free here.

  His legs felt suddenly weak and he leaned against a blackened dead tree and sank down into the mouldy leaves lying deep on the ground.

  An old man came by and stared at him suspiciously. The old man walked on. He could not stop to talk for minds were still the same even when the shackles had been burst.

  Two old ladies passed him by. They looked at him and whispered to one another. He was not an old person. He was not allowed in the citizen's park. The Control Police might follow him. There was danger and they hurried on, casting frightened glances over their lean shoulders. When he came near they scurried over the hill.

  He walked. Far off he heard a siren. The high, screeching siren of the Control Police cars. Were they after him? Did they know he was there?
He hurried on, his body twitching as he loped up a sun-baked hill and down the other side. The lake, he thought, I am looking for the lake.

  He saw a fountain and stepped down the slope and stood by it. There was an old man bent over it. It was the man who had passed him. The old man's lips enveloped the thin stream of water.

  He stood there quietly, shaking. The old man did not know he was there. He drank and drank. The water dashed and sparkled in the sun. His hands reached out for the old man. The old man felt his touch and jerked away, water running across his grey-bearded chin. He backed away, staring open-mouthed. He turned quickly and hobbled away.

  He saw the old man run. Then he bent over the fountain. The water gurgled in his mouth. It ran down and up into his mouth and poured out again, tastelessly.

  He straightened up suddenly, a sick burning in his chest. The sun faded to his eye, the sky became black. He stumbled about on the pavement, his mouth opening and closing. He tripped over the edge of the walk and fell to his knees on the dry ground.

  He crawled in on the dead grass and fell on his back, his stomach grinding, water running over his chin.

  He lay there with the sun shining on his face and he looked at it without blinking. Then he raised his hands and put them over his eyes.

  An ant crawled across his wrist. He looked at it stupidly. Then he put the ant between two fingers and squashed it to a pulp.

  He sat up. He couldn't stay where he was. Already they might be searching the park, their cold eyes scanning the hills, moving like a horrible tide through his last outpost where old people were allowed to think if they were able to.

  He got up and staggered around clumsily and started up the path, stiff-legged, looking for the lake.

  He turned a bend and walked in a weaving line. He heard whistles. He heard a distant shout. They were looking for him. Even here in the citizen's park where he thought he could escape. And find the lake in peace.

  He passed an old shut-down merry-go-round. He saw the little wooden horses in gay poses, galloping high and motionless, caught fast in time. Green and orange with heavy tassels, all thick-covered with dust.

  He reached a sunken walk and started down it. There were grey stone walls on both sides. Sirens were all around in the air. They knew he was loose and they were coming to get him now. A man could not escape. It was not done.

  He shuffled across the road and moved up the path. Turning, he saw, far off, men running. They wore black uniforms and they were waving at him. He hurried on, his feet thudding endlessly on the concrete walk.

  He ran off the path and up a hill and tumbled in the grass. He crawled into scarlet-leaved bushes and watched through waves of dizziness as the men of the Control Police dashed by.

  Then he got up and started off, limping, his eyes staring ahead.

  At last, the shifting, dull glitter of the lake. He hurried on now, stumbling and tripping. Only a little way. He lurched across a field. The air was thick with the smell of rotting grass. He crashed through the bushes and there were shouts and someone fired a gun. He looked back stiffly to see the men running after him.

  He plunged into the water, flopping on his chest with a great splash. He struggled forward, walking on the bottom until the water had flooded over his chest, his shoulders, his head. Still walking while it washed into his mouth and filled his throat and weighted his body, dragging him down.

  His eyes were wide and staring as he slid gently forward onto his face on the bottom. His fingers closed in the silt and he made no move.

  Later, the Control Police dragged him out and threw him in the black truck and drove off.

  And, inside, the technician tore off the sheeting and shook his head at the sight of tangled coils and water-soaked machinery.

  'They go bad,' he muttered as he probed with pliers and picks. 'They crack up and think they are men and go wandering. Too bad they don't work as good as people.'

  2 - NO SUCH THING AS A VAMPIRE

  In the early autumn of the year 18... Madame Alexis Gheria awoke one morning to a sense of utmost torpor. For more than a minute, she lay inertly on her back, her dark eyes staring upward. How wasted she felt. It seemed as if her limbs were sheathed in lead. Perhaps she was ill, Petre must examine her and see.

  Drawing in a faint breath, she pressed up slowly on an elbow. As she did, her nightdress slid, rustling, to her waist. How had it come unfastened? she wondered, looking down at herself.

  Quite suddenly, Madame Gheria began to scream.

  In the breakfast room, Dr. Petre Gheria looked up, startled, from his morning paper. In an instant, he had pushed his chair back, slung his napkin on the table and was rushing for the hallway. He dashed across its carpeted breadth and mounted the staircase two steps at a time.

  It was a near hysterical Madame Gheria he found sitting on the edge of her bed looking down in horror at her breasts. Across the dilated whiteness of them, a smear of blood lay drying.

  Dr. Gheria dismissed the upstairs maid, who stood frozen in the open doorway, gaping at her mistress. He locked the door and hurried to his wife.

  'Petre!' she gasped.

  'Gently.' He helped her lie back across the bloodstained pillow.

  'Petre, what is it?' she begged.

  'Lie still, my dear.' His practised hands moved in swift search over her breasts. Suddenly, his breath choked off. Pressing aside her head, he stared down dumbly at the pinprick lancinations on her neck, the ribbon of tacky blood that twisted downward from them.

  'My throat,' Alexis said.

  'No, it's just a - ' Dr. Gheria did not complete the sentence. He knew exactly what it was.

  Madame Gheria began to tremble. 'Oh, my God, my God,' she said.

  Dr. Gheria rose and foundered to the wash-basin. Pouring in water, he returned to his wife and washed away the blood. The wound was clearly visible now -two tiny punctures close to the jugular. A grimacing Dr. Gheria touched the mounds of inflamed tissue in which they lay. As he did, his wife groaned terribly and turned her face away.

  'Now listen to me,' he said, his voice apparently calm. 'We will not succumb, immediately, to superstition, do you hear? There are any number of -'

  'I'm going to die,' she said.

  'Alexis, do you hear me?' He caught her harshly by the shoulders.

  She turned her head and stared at him with vacant eyes. 'You know what it is,' she said.

  Dr. Gheria swallowed. He could still taste coffee in his mouth.

  'I know what it appears to be,' he said, 'and we shall -not ignore the possibility. However -'

  'I'm going to die,' she said.

  'Alexis!' Dr. Gheria took her hand and gripped it fiercely. 'You shall not be taken from me,' he said.

  Solta was a village of some thousand inhabitants situated in the foothills of Rumania's Bihor Mountains. It was a place of dark traditions. People, hearing the bay of distant wolves, would cross themselves without a thought. Children would gather garlic buds as other children gather flowers, bringing them home for the windows. On every door there was a painted cross, at every throat a metal one. Dread of the vampire's blighting was as normal as the dread of fatal sickness. It was always in the air.

  Dr. Gheria thought about that as he bolted shut the windows of Alexis' room. Far off, molten twilight hung above the mountains. Soon it would be dark again. Soon the citizens of Solta would be barricaded in their garlic-reeking houses. He had no doubt that every soul of them knew exactly what had happened to his wife. Already the cook and upstairs maid were pleading for discharge. Only the inflexible discipline of the butler, Karel, kept them at their jobs. Soon, even that would not suffice. Before the horror of the vampire, reason fled.

  He'd seen the evidence of it that very morning when he'd ordered Madam's room stripped to the walls and searched for rodents or venomous insects. The servants had moved about the room as if on a floor of eggs, their eyes more white than pupil, their fingers twitching constantly to their crosses. They had known full well no rodent or insects
would be found. And Gheria had known it. Still, he'd raged at them for their timidity, succeeding only in frightening them further.

  He turned from the window with a smile.

  'There now,' said he, 'nothing alive will enter this room tonight.'

  He caught himself immediately, seeing the flare of terror in her eyes.

  'Nothing at all will enter,' he amended.

  Alexis lay motionless on her bed, one pale hand at her breast, clutching at the worn silver cross she'd taken from her jewel box. She hadn't worn it since he'd given her the diamond-studded one when they were married. How typical of her village background that, in this moment of dread, she should seek protection from the unadorned cross of her church. She was such a child. Gheria smiled down gently at her.

  'You won't be needing that, my dear,' he said, 'you'll be safe tonight.'

  Her fingers tightened on the crucifix.

  'No, no, wear it if you will,' he said. 'I only meant that I'll be at your side all night.'

  'You'll stay with me?'

  He sat on the bed and held her hand.

  'Do you think I'd leave you for a moment?' he said.

  Thirty minutes later, she was sleeping. Dr. Gheria drew a chair beside the bed and seated himself. Removing his glasses, he massaged the bridge of his nose with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Then, sighing, he began to watch his wife. How incredibly beautiful she was. Dr. Gheria's breath grew strained.

  'There is no such thing as a vampire,' he whispered to himself.

  There was a distant pounding. Dr. Gheria muttered in his sleep, his fingers twitching. The pounding increased; an agitated voice came swirling from the darkness. 'Doctor!' it called.

  Gheria snapped awake. For a moment, he looked confusedly towards the locked door.

  'Dr. Gheria?' demanded Karel.

  'What?'

  'Is everything all right?'

  'Yes, everything is -'

  Dr. Gheria cried out hoarsely, springing for the bed. Alexis' nightdress had been torn away again. A hideous dew of blood covered her chest and neck.