Excerpt
from "THE ABOMINABLE MYRA
LINSKY RISES AGAIN," A DOCTOR UNKNOWN JUNIOR adventure by Chuck Miller, available NOW on
Amazon:
No
sooner had we made it down the front steps and onto the sidewalk than the
Horror dive-bombed us. It swooped down from above and flitted around us,
swatting at us with Ed Gein's hands, snapping with Peter Kurten's toothless
mouth. It did nothing potentially fatal, or even remotely harmful. It was just
screwing with us. We were halfway down the block before we decided to hell with
this shit and went back inside. The Horror stopped short at the front door, and
I slammed it in his mummified face.
"Well,
this is fantastic," Dana said. "We can't set foot outside the front
door without the Horror attacking us. I don't have anything that can ward it
off outside the house. How the hell do we get to the Benway Building?"
I
hesitated, but only for a second. I knew how we could get to the Benway
unmolested, but it meant revealing a secret I'd been keeping. But there was
nothing else for it, so I screwed up my resolve and said, "Follow me down
to the basement, Dana. I have something to show you."
We
made our way down a winding staircase-- hidden behind a grandfather clock in
the hall, no less-- to the basement of Dana's brownstone. It was quite a place.
Part storehouse, part workshop, part library, part trophy room. I switched on
the light and headed for the northwest corner, Dana on my heels. On the way, we
passed the large artificial pool that was home to Virgil, the talking, immortal,
giant tortoise. (Long story.) I exchanged greetings with the big turtle, of
whom I had grown quite fond.
"Hello,
Jack," he said, in his surprisingly cultured voice (though even a totally
un-cultured voice would be a surprise coming from a tortoise, I guess).
"Hello, Dana. What are you doing down here? There's something wrong, isn't
there? I can tell."
"Yep,"
I said. "We're gonna use the tunnel."
If a
tortoise can look surprised, Virgil did. Human beings certainly can, and Dana
had that covered.
"You
mean she found out?" the tortoise said.
"No,
but she's about to. Hold down the fort, buddy. There's a Piecework Horror
outside, but it can't get in. We're going to consult with an exterminator-- I
hope. I'll explain later."
"Well,
good luck," Virgil said.
"What
tunnel?" Dana demanded.
"Hold
your water," I said.
We
passed the large alcove in the wall occupied by the grim, hulking figure of the
Clay Man. Even though he was currently inert, faceless and amorphous, he gave
me the creeps. I couldn't help recalling some of the more frightening
characters that had temporarily possessed that huge, malleable body made of
clay, graveyard dirt, petrified ectoplasm, and a few other items I won't burden
you with. (Even longer story.) The Clay Man was very useful; he'd saved our
asses more than once. He had turned the tide for us when we were on the verge
of getting our heads handed to us by the bizarre nihilistic terrorist
mastermind, Little Precious. But that
didn't mean I wanted to cuddle with him.
"Okay,
Dana," I said, kneeling to pull back a nice Persian rug. This revealed a
metal trap door, about four feet square, set into the floor. "Before you
blow a gasket, I didn't build this. It's been here for a very long time. Your
father and the Centipede were good friends back in the day. They fixed this up
in case of an emergency."
I
grasped a large metal ring set in a circular niche in the center of the door.
The niche was deep enough that the whole thing would be flush with the rest of
the floor, thus avoiding a telltale bulge in the rug.
When
Dana spoke, she didn't sound as nettled as I was expecting her to.
"There's a tunnel down there?"
"Yep,"
I said, relieved that she hadn't tried to take the paint off of me with her
voice or her eyes. She really must have been shaken up.
"A
vertical shaft about 20 feet deep," I elaborated. "It joins up with
an old sewage maintenance tunnel. We can use that to get right under the
Benway. And there we will find another vertical shaft that will take us right
up into the building. We'll have to climb about five stories' worth of ladder,
then we can take a secret elevator up to the top six floors."
"The
Centipede's Lair," Dana said.
"Exactly.
All these years, and they've never found his 'secret hideout.' Every law
enforcement officer and every city official in Zenith looks right at it every
single day. Even you have to admire that. You don't? Ah, well, suit
yourself.
"Now,
I have to be ungentlemanly and insist on going first. I know my way around down
there and you don't." I hopped onto the ladder and started to descend.
Dana followed suit.
Quite
a change in our usual interpersonal dynamic. I was loving every minute of it.
*
Dana
was astonishingly quiet and well-behaved as she followed me through the
underground labyrinth.
"You
probably know that your father publicly distanced himself from the Black
Centipede after what happened in 1972," I told her as we plodded along.
"What you may not know is that he-- much to his credit-- did so
very reluctantly. The Centipede had to employ a great deal of persuasion to get
him to act in his own best interest. But they left the secret tunnel just as it
is now, in case it might one day come in handy. Your dad thought it would be a
good idea if you didn't know about it, considering how you feel about the
Centipede. He swore Virgil to secrecy."
"He
lied to me to protect the Black Centipede."
"He
omitted a fact. And it was to protect you as much as the
Centipede."
"And
you knew about it and didn't tell me."
I
didn't reply to that at all.
We
reached the shaft that would take us up into one of the basements of the Benway
Building. We climbed the ladder and pushed open the door at the top. We found
ourselves in a small, featureless room. Three of the whitewashed walls were
blank. Set into the fourth was a sliding double door with a keypad next to it.
I
punched in the code that would unlock the elevator and alert the Centipede to
our presence. The doors hissed open and Dana and I stepped inside.
"You
seem to have the run of the place," Dana remarked.
"I
enjoy the Black Centipede's complete confidence," I said. "I wish I
could say the same of certain other parties."
In
fact, the once-respected crime fighter and current wanted fugitive and I had become
good friends during the course of the adventure that I have referred to several
times. (I should probably get around to writing that up one of these days.)
Dana
glared at me. I pressed a button and the elevator started moving. The voice of
the Black Centipede came over a speaker in the roof of the cage.
"Jack,
my boy, good to see you! And you've brought your little friend with you. How
delightful." His voice carried the same enthusiasm it would have if I had
shown up with a leprous hyena in tow.
I
smiled. There was no love lost between Dana and the Centipede. She disliked him
on principle to begin with, and when they got together they grated on one
another's nerves something fierce. Imagine that.
"Yes,"
I said. "We've run up against a supernatural threat that is a bit more
than she... than we can cope with at the moment. We're both at a loss as
to how we should proceed, and we'd like some advice."
I
had amended my pronoun because Dana Unknown suddenly seemed smaller and more
vulnerable than usual, and I found myself feeling... I don't want to say
"protective," but I was experiencing a strange twinge of empathy
and/or sympathy for her, and felt disinclined to twist the knife. I realized
that I had never before given much consideration to Dana's feelings. I had
never even stopped to consider that she might have any...
Well,
I reflected, it was her own fault for acting so cocky and arrogant all the
time. And that thought stopped me short. She wasn't the only one...
"Not
really my bailiwick," the Centipede drawled, "but I'll see what I can
do."
As
we ascended in silence, I cast sidelong glances at Dana. Her jaw was set, her
eyes narrowed to slits behind her glasses. I realized that the situation must
have been profoundly humiliating to a woman who was accustomed to being in
complete control of every aspect of her life. I also realized that, while I had
everything I needed to take her down quite a few pegs, the only thing I really
wanted to do was make her feel better.
What
the hell was wrong with me?
The
cage stopped, a bell sounded, and the elevator doors slid open. Dana and I
stepped out into the tastefully opulent lobby of the Unlimited Advantage
Worldwide Corporation, an enigmatic business entity the Black Centipede had
maintained since the early 1930s as a cover for his activities. Nobody knew
exactly what the primary purpose of the UAWC was, but it seemed to have its
fingers in any number of diverse pies around the world.
As
we stepped out onto the plush, dark blue carpet, the Centipede himself came
bustling around a corner and headed in our direction.
As
he approached, I sensed that he had sharpened a few of his rhetorical knives,
and was eager to use them on my companion. Locking eyes with the Centipede, I
stepped back a pace, out of Dana's field of vision, pointed at her, and slowly
shook my head. She's off limits right now, was the message I was
sending.
The
Black Centipede-- if he has a real name, he's probably forgotten it himself by
now-- is a man of medium height and medium build. He is very unassuming. Not
only does he not stand out in a crowd, he doesn't stand out when he's all by
himself. Over the years, he has cultivated and honed his ability to go unnoticed
by almost everyone.
His
face is remarkable in its unremarkableness. Not only is it utterly generic, it
somehow fails to stick in an observer's memory for any length of time. Glance
away from him for a few seconds, and you completely forget what he looks like.
I have no idea how he does it. He still occasionally donned the mask he wore
when he was an active crime fighter, but he wasn't wearing it now.
From
several things he's told me, I have inferred that the Centipede must be at
least a hundred years old. He doesn't look it. In fact, he doesn't look
anything. The man standing before me could have been anywhere from 25 to 90
years of age, depending on when and how you looked at him.
He
greeted the both of us warmly-- sincere in my case, obviously forced in
Dana's-- and ushered us into a small conference room off the lobby.
When
we were seated around a small table, the Centipede went to a little wet bar in
a corner of the room. "I'll prepare your customary libation, Jack,"
he said, pouring a nice fat shot of expensive whiskey into a tumbler. "Can
I get anything for you, Miss Unknown?" he inquired sweetly.
"Yeah,"
Dana said, "you can go get..."
I
moved quickly to block any unpleasantness. "Dana doesn't drink," I
said, loud enough to drown her out. "It's one of her most unendearing
traits."
He
handed me my drink, oblivious to the poisonous glare Dana had aimed in his
direction. I took a manly swig, shuddered with pleasure, and presented our host
with the details of our very strange case. He sat quietly, fingers steepled, a
pose I was sure he had consciously copied from Sherlock Holmes.
"So,"
he said when I finished, "only Myra Linsky can deactivate the Piecework
Horror. Myra Linsky is dead. The Piecework Horror must be deactivated or we
risk some kind of unimaginable apocalypse like the one that was narrowly
averted in the case of Elena Hoyos. The solution is, of course, quite obvious.
There can be no other. Myra Linsky must be brought back from the dead."
