H'ard Starts: The Early Waldrop, page 5
“For days?”
“Yes,” affirmed Nila, “you’ve lain here for over a week in a fever. You were quite mangled by Gresh. It’s a wonder you weren’t killed by the thing.” Her eyes showed wonderment in their green depths.
“It’s going to be a nice long stay here,” thought Wanderer as he looked at Nila. “A nice stay, indeed.”
The Soul-Catcher
Notes on this Publication:
This is the third Harry Smith story, chronologically, and the first in order of appearance, which might present a problem to anyone who has not heard of the character before.
The first story, “Sawtooth by Starlight” is a short fantasy, and is presently in the capable hands of Paul Moslander, and was at first to appear in Jeddak #VIII. The plans were changed and it was to be my second story in Magnum #1.
The second story in the series, “Moonlight on Claw Lake” could only be called adventure fiction or possibly an espionage tale, although the spy element is kept to a minimum. It is a very long novelette (for a fanzine) and will appear in a later Batwing, and is the hands of Larry Herndon.
Like the other two Harry Smith stories, this one is being written in the heat of inspiration. (The first took me somewhere around 45 minutes, and the novelette was written in one day straight last summer while I was suffering from an abscessed tooth.)
The setting of this story is the same, Haram’s Corners, Texas, a central Texas town, pop. 2667. Harry Smith, after unsuccessful tries at being a private eye (his life-long ambition was to set up an office in Houston), returned to Haram’s Corners after his father, mother, and brother were killed in a car wreck. He now works for the D.A. as a legman. But to tell any more would be spoiling the other two stories.
Let Harry tell you about it.
Howard Waldrop
Limited edition 25 copies
The VORPAL Press March 1966
Everybody’s still talking about the night the green star fell. Ann and I had been married for two weeks, and we had just got back from our honeymoon in Dallas. Don’t ever go to Dallas for a honeymoon; it’s too noisy and everybody wants a tip. We were all sitting on the front porch – all of us being Bill Soames, Ann and me. We had invited Bill – he’s the deputy sheriff – over for supper that night. I wanted to show off Ann’s cooking, but she outdid herself that night. They nearly had to carry me out to the front porch, I was so full of chicken and mashed potatoes and peas and salad.
“You know, Harry, you’re a lucky kid, having a wife that can cook like that, mighty lucky.” Bill was only twenty-three, but to him I was still a kid, since I was a year younger.
“Ummhum,” I mumbled. I was too full even to talk. Ann and me were sitting in the porch swing, she had her head on my shoulder and was tickling my nose with some honeysuckle she had pulled off the porch. I sneezed, clawed for her hand, then gave up while she tickled my nose some more. Bill was leaned back against the columns on the porch, with a content smile on his face.
Funny thing about sitting on the front porch on a hot summer night. It’s one of those things everybody in town does, but you don’t mind doing it, too. I mean, you hate to have to go shopping every week, mainly because everybody else does the same thing. But sitting on the front porch after supper is different. You get away from the heat inside the house, and the wind outside blows cool across your head, and you can hear everybody else along the street sitting on their front porch, talking and cooling off. Away off somewhere a dog barked; the moon had come up an hour ago but wasn’t giving off much light. Bill jerked up.
“Say, you know the carnival is coming to town day after tomorrow? I almost forgot to tell you. They were tacking up posters all afternoon up and down the street. Why don’t I get Jeannie, and us four go together Friday night, huh?” He almost yelled.
“Oh, Harry, tell him we’ll go,” Ann squealed. “We can ride all the rides, and I can wear my new dress you bought me last week and I can go find a pair of shoes to match it and we can – ”
“Okay, Bill, we’ll go with ya’ll. If – ”
Ann grabbed me and kissed me. “You big hunk of man, you!” she whispered, and started biting my ear. That’s when the porch swing tipped over and both of us fell out – kerplunk thud! – onto the porch. I lay there laughing at Ann while we tried to untangle, and then started up. The swing swung back in and cracked me across the head. I just lay there laughing like an idiot because I was too big to cry. Bill and Ann were laughing, and when I got up Bill slapped his knees and doubled over. His chair went over and he fell off the porch backwards and out into the flower bed. I had the last laugh on Bill. When we all calmed down, Bill stood up and thanked us for the dinner, and apologized for leavin’ so early.
“I’ve got to drop by Jeannie’s a while before I turn in,” he said.
“You know what I think,” I said. “I think you ought to marry that gal. Why, just look what Ann’s done for me in the last two weeks. I’ve never felt better before in my life. You wouldn’t think by looking at her – ”
That’s when her fist got me right in the eye. “Shush up, Harry. Oh hey, don’t you dare – hee hee, quit tickling me, you big ox – ” she giggled, while I paid her back.
“I can see ya’ll aren’t listening, so I’ll just mosey along,” Bill started. He had taken about two steps when the sky turned green.
At first everything went green, then faded, and it was deathly quiet, and the only sound was the intake of breath along porches up and down the street and all over town. It was “Ooooo” like a tonguetied kid saying “lady sheep.” Ann and I jumped off the porch beside Bill and looked up at the sky.
The stars were there, and what part of the moon there was, but something else was there, too. I could feel it run up and down the hair on my neck and arms. The feeling told me that something was coming. It came. It appeared suddenly, a long green streak down the sky, at the tip end a whistling, cracking ball of green flames, splitting open the sky, making it bright as daylight; only a weird, terrible, green daylight. The fireball at the end crackled like a high tension wire as it screamed by overhead, and there was a shower of sparks cascading down for miles around, burning themselves out before they hit, like snow melting before it hits unfrozen ground.
The green star seemed to hang in the sky for eternity, when it was only a couple of seconds. Then it disappeared over the mountains, way off over Sawtooth Ridge, out past Claw Lake, and further. For a few seconds there was complete silence, then from far off came a tremor, like when a jet leaves a sonic boom, only this was deeper, way down in the ground, like Texas was trying to expel the intruder which had burrowed itself in its skin in some not too far away place.
It was a few seconds before things began to move again. The green glow faded from the sky. Slowly, up and down the street, people were closing their mouths which had hung slack open for the last minute – you could hear them click.
“Gaw-aw-aw-lly!” said Bill Soames, looking up at the sky. “I ain’t never seen a shooting star like that one. Man, ’at was bright as day. Wonder how far away it hit?”
Ann was hanging on for dear life. I put my arm around her and she was shivering. I think maybe I was a little, too. You don’t see a sight like that, then walk off and forget it. Not for long old time.
Later that night, when Ann and I had crawled in bed, with all the windows open to get some cool air in, she ran her finger down my cheek and whispered:
“Harry, have – have you ever stopped to think about things like that green star? Makes you sort of feel puny, doesn’t it? I mean, like you didn’t amount to anything, anyway.” I said, “Don’t let it bother you, you good-looking hunk of woman.” I ran my fingers down her ribs. She reached over and pulled a bunch of hair off my chest.
What with one thing and another, I had almost forgotten about the green star that night.
“See The Green Star” was the big sign over the entrance to the carnival that Friday night. Bill and me and Jeannie and Ann were suckers like everybody else, and we paid a dollar each and stood in line an hour and a half to see it.
The carnival had had luck on its side the night the green star fell. They were in Quincy, thirty miles south that night, and the meteor had fallen in the north part of the land they had rented outside town for the carnival. Shook things up, and nearly closed the place down because of the shock wave. Quincy had been without power, because the meteor had taken most of the town’s lines down just before it hit. It was a miracle the thing hadn’t landed smack dab in the middle of the thing – it was right at the busiest time, and everybody in town was at the carnival.
Then some enterprising soul had gone down into the small crater and had found the chunk of rock we finally got to look at – to me it looked like any other rock, with veins of greenish-gray substance all through it. We heard all about the story from the barber who finally got around to showing us the rock – the green star. He also told us that scientists from U. T., Rice and the New York Museum had got there the next day to test anything buried in the crater, just as the carnival was leaving for Haram’s Corners.
When we came outside the packed tent, Bill said, “Boy, that sure was big let-down. To think that that teeny-little old boulder made all that noise and light the other night.”
Ann shrugged. “I feel the same way, too. I just couldn’t imagine anything so terrible caused by such a little thing.”
“There’s probably a lot more of it down inside that crater he told us about,” Jeannie said. “Most meteors bury themselves deep or explode on contact, provided they don’t burn up first in the atmosphere.” Jeannie was a brain anyway; she pushed her glasses up on her nose and smiled at Bill.
“Say,” I said, “I’ve got a friend I’d like you to meet.” I pulled on Ann’s arm, made sure Bill and Jeannie were following, and walked as best as I could to Nicky Castava’s Portrait Corner.
I had gone to school with Nicky until the time he ran away with a carnival when he was sixteen. He had been a camera nut then, and now he was the photographer who did portraits. Nicky used to stop and see me every time the carnival came through; I was surprised when he hadn’t shown up that afternoon. Nicky used one of those old-fashioned cameras, even to the flash powder, plates and long black accordion lens which he would toy with endlessly. He had grown a handlebar mustache and wore spats, and old suits with a gold watch chain across the vest. He had done fairly well for himself; even though you had to wait a couple of hours, you got your money’s worth. Nicky was a craftsman, no doubt about it.
When we came to the Portrait Corner, the place was full. I had wanted a portrait of Ann done pretty badly, so I told them to wait. I went in, mumbling some sort of excuses, getting dirty looks from guys twice my size, till I came into the makeshift studio inside the old-timey circus wagon proclaiming Likenesses Twice as Natural as Life on the side.
Old Mrs. Fringle was sitting for a portrait then. She was a neighbor who made sure she knew exactly what Ann and I were doing every minute. I sort of smiled at her, and stood against the wall. I was expecting to see Nicky, rotund as ever, taking pains with her, getting her in the pose that would show her best features. He’d had to have done some mighty good posing. Instead, I saw him rush the last subject off with only a terse “pitcher’ll be ready in a few hours.” That wasn’t like Nicky. He started giving Mrs. Fringle the rush treatment, then he stopped, shrugged a little, and began posing her. Still, it wasn’t the same old Nicky.
As soon as he was through, he seated the next subject, poured flash powder in the trowel, held it aloft, and pulled the cord. I walked over to him while everyone in the line outside was still blinking.
“Hey, Nick, long time no see,” I said.
He looked at me for a few minutes, almost casually. Then his eyes focused, and he dragged a palm across his head. “Harry – Smith. Haven’t seen you in a long time – got to excuse me a little bit – I’ve got a headache that won’t quit. Big rush tonight. You’ll excuse me, huh?” he said, licking his mustache.
“Oh, yeah, sure,” I said. “How soon do you think you could get a shot of my wife?” I expected him to descend on me like the Furies when I said that. If they had taken a poll in high school of who would most likely to be married, I wouldn’t even have been last. They would have left me off entirely.
“Oh, maybe an hour or two. Pretty busy!” he called back over his shoulder while he filled the trowel with powder again. I left him and went back out into the lights and madness that made up a carnival. The Tilt-a-Whirl was running full speed, screams were pouring out of it like water in a rapids. Ann was waiting there for me, so I decided to ride the thing once. I shouldn’t have, not after three hot dogs and four cotton candies. I wasn’t feeling too well by the time the ride stopped. All three of them thought I was pretty funny, all white and green in the face, they said.
We were getting off when the panic started. Someone had run screaming onto the midway, drowning out the cries of the barkers. It was a girl; she was half-hysterical with fright. Bill got there first. The girl could only point between the booths and jabber “woman, woman, woman.” Bill and I went around the corners quick as we could. When I came up, I wished I hadn’t.
It was a woman, as it had a woman’s body. It was more like a demon, a terribly stricken soul, something like, but more frightening, than a chicken with its head cut off. Because this woman was intact. It was her actions …
There were floppings, and tearings at the grass, snarly, ragged breathing, gnashing of teeth, the limbs sprawled awry, doing impossible contortions.
“Epileptic!” Bill hollered, dragging off his belt. Suddenly the body went still. “May be choking,” he hollered as he jumped down beside the body. I grabbed the limp figure and turned it over so that Bill could get at the tongue if he had to. Those eyes – it didn’t take a doctor to tell me she was dead – Mrs. Fringle’s eyes – stared up in cold death at me.
“Go call Sheriff Johnston, Ann,” I said, without looking up. “Tell him to get the coroner and an ambulance out here. Tell him to bring our stuff with him.”
I heard her footsteps fade away. Bill looked up at me. “What do you make of it, Harry?”
I pointed down to the tiny hole the size of an icepick just between her eyes. There was no blood, only a tiny round black hole. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just don’t know.”
Bill stood up, looked at the crowd that had gathered around. He turned to one of the barkers. “Where’s the manager of this outfit?” he asked. The man pointed, and Bill left. I took off my coat and covered Mrs. Fringle’s face with it. In a few seconds, the loudspeaker system squawked to life.
“Ladies and gentlemen … ” it began. It was drowned out by another scream from somewhere on the midway. I got over there as fast as I could go. And in the middle of the sawdust lane, a white-haired old man, surrounded by an ever-widening circle of people, began the same dance of doom as Mrs. Fringle had. My eyes went to the faces of the people backing away – no, no murderer there, only shock and fear and horror.
Someone shouted, “Oh, it – it doesn’t have a soul. Its soul’s been taken, it’s a mad thing … ” and ended in a scream of shock.
Sheriff Johnston came from somewhere, he may have had the siren on; I was too shaken to have heard. He, too, stopped at the circle of people, stopped and watched the body finally relax in death.
“Nobody leaves!” he bellowed. Bill and the manager were coming out of the announcer’s booth. Ann came from somewhere, threw her arms around me, and cried. I tried to comfort her. All she could keep saying was that it was the Green Star’s fault, that we all were crazy, crazy, crazy. I hauled off and slapped her a good one, and she broke down crying. Jeannie came up, and I handed her over to her.
The crowd was on the verge of hysteria. Any minute they would panic and trample each other to death in an attempt to get away from the murderer who struck openly in the carnival.
Don’t ask me why I did. I walked over to Sheriff Johnston, he nodded and handed me my .44 Magnum and the holster for it. I checked to make sure it was loaded. Then I grabbed the manager by the arm.
“Who went and got that Green Star?” I screamed.
“Who – man, you’re crazy, there’s people dyin’ – ”
My eyes must have shown him that I would have wrung his neck if he didn’t humor me. He gulped down air. “Why, two of the tent boys got the big chunk of it. Somebody else got the one we show … ”
“Big chunk? What big chunk? Where!” I was stark raving mad, and I knew it. But I couldn’t listen to Ann screaming.
“Well, we had a bigger chunk. Not as pretty as the little one though. They took it over to Nicky’s. He wanted to take some pictures of it … ”
I was walking towards the wagon advertising Likeness Twice as Natural as Life on the outside before he finished. Two steps, four steps, each one getting me closer to the wagon. The wagon where Mrs. Fringle had her picture taken. Where the old man who died was standing in line when I left. Nicky hadn’t been himself lately. Hah.
Ten steps, fifteen. Nicky’s got a headache. Nicky’s got more than a headache. Nicky rushed people into poses, only took his time with the old ones like Mrs. Fringle. Nicky took pictures. Nicky posed the people. Nicky used charge after charge of powder in the trowel of the camera. Nicky took dozens and dozens of pictures. Nicky never once changed plates.
I stopped outside the deserted wagon and drew the .44 Magnum. When will man ever learn? When will he learn that there are some things that shouldn’t be played with? When would he learn his lesson? Always too late.
From inside I could hear voices. Nicky’s voice, and something – else. “Now – they’ll get us – you couldn’t wait. Had to have food now. You – could have – waited,” said Nicky’s voice. Something else answered, something I could feel in my brain.
