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CASTLE OF TERROR
By E. J. LISTON
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories November1948. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
[Sidenote: What strange dimension was this where giants, gangsters,Lucretia Borgia, dwarfs and Rip Van Winkle lived at the same time?]
"Too bad, Griffin," Hale Jenkins said to the man alongside. "Now ifyou'd have just stuck to bank stick-ups, you'd have been all right."
"Nah!" Bud Griffin said, his mouth twisted in a wry grin. "I'd have beenall right if you'd have just stuck to being a traffic cop. But you hadto show the Commissioner you were on the ball, so he sent you after me.That's all."
The light suddenly flashed over the pilot's compartment with its warningto fasten safety belts. A few seconds later, the stewardess came aroundwith a smiling warning that they were coming over some bad pockets, andthat there was no need to worry.
Both men fastened their belts, as did all the other passengers on thegiant airliner, and after a while the elevator began its ride. Griffinreached up and pulled the air vent down, so that the cold air of theupper reaches at which they were flying could send its refreshing draftsof air down the vent. Jenkins had been airsick once and didn't want anymore of the same. He followed Griffin's gaze, and looked into the greyfog of a huge cloud bank.
Jenkins, to get his mind off the possibility of getting sick again, tookup where the other had left off: "Yeah. But like I say, you shouldastuck to robbin' banks."
His lean, strong face with the unusual bone structure which made it aface of highlights and plane surfaces, broke into a wide-angled grin. Hethrew the shock of black hair from his eyes, and continued: "Guys likeyou never learn. Gotta work with a heater."
Griffin's opaque eyes shifted from the greyness which had encircled theplane, and met the dancing grey ones of the detective beside him.Griffin's lips mimicked the grin of the other. But his words were not solight-hearted: "Look, copper! You just got lucky. If it weren't for thatdame.... Aah! I shoulda been smart. I shoulda known she'd of sung. Nodame can keep her yap shut! But get this. We ain't in yet! So be smartand don't think Bud Griffin's fryin'. Not yet he ain't."
Jenkins was, for a detective, a rather amiable sort. In Griffin's case,however, he could not help but give an occasional needle. The hoodlumand murderer's bragging rasped on Jenkins' nerves.
"Now, don't blame the girl," Jenkins said. "She was just the last stepin my trail. The guy who really talked was Bud Griffin. There's acharacter who'll never stop talkin'. If you hadn't talked to thebartender in that joint on the waterfront, I'd have never found outabout Myrtle. But he knew Myrtle and the kind of girl she was; he knewshe only went for the hoods who had dough, and no guy who drinks beerlike you do and leaves no tips ought to have dough. So when Myrtle walksin with a platina fox jacket and says you bought it, he gets mightysuspicious.
"It was a cinch then, Bud. All I had to do was tell the girl she wasgoing to be named as an accessory after the fact, and she spilled herload."
* * * * *
Pin points of flame suddenly danced in Griffin's eyes. His hands, lyingquiescent on his lap, curled into balls of bone and muscle. Griffin hadmany weaknesses; of them all, anger was his greatest. For in the heat ofanger he would do anything, and not care about the consequences. It hadproved his undoing many times. His last surge of anger had resulted inmurder during a robbery. The victim had resisted Griffin and had beenshot in cold blood. As always, that anger showed in visible signs: therecame the pin points of flame to the eyes, the clenching of fists, and anodd curling of the mouth. But Jenkins, either because he did not know ofthese signs, or because he was so wrapped in his own glory, did notnotice the other's shifting movement.
When Griffin struck, it was with electric speed. Certainly, he hadnothing to gain by his attack on Jenkins. For had he thought it outlogically, he would have realized there was no way of escape. Even afool would have realized that there was no way of getting out of a planewhich was flying at ten thousand feet, and coming down alive, unless onehad a chute. So it was sheer berserk anger which prompted the attack.
Griffin's right elbow shot up and sideways, and landed with tellingforce against Jenkins' jaw. At almost the same instant, he slipped looseof his safety belt, whirled on his companion and struck him two savageblows with his fists. Those blows stunned the detective. And like asnake in movement, Griffin's hand reached for the pistol in Jenkins'holster and drew it.
Dazed as Jenkins was, he tried to stop Griffin. The barrel of the gunslashed a furrow in his cheek for the try. The blow rocked thedetective's head back, and allowed him to get out of his seat. In aninstant he was in the aisle, leaping for the pilot's compartment. He hadno plan; he wasn't even thinking. In the background of his mind he knewthe panic he had created; he could see it reflected in the face of thewoman in the front seat, in the wide, suddenly terror-stricken eyes ofthe man at her side. But what he was going to do when he reached theclosed door that was his goal, he did not know.
There were screams and hoarse commands. From the rear, the stewardessshouted for him not to go beyond the door. Griffin reached it, whirledand faced the length of the plane, a snarl on his lips, and the .38 inhis hand, a small-barreled threat of death to whoever was fool enough toattempt to stop him.
And there was one who was going to be a fool.
* * * * *
Whether Jenkins was just dazed by the last blow, or whether he reallythought he could stop the other, is a matter of conjecture. But he roseto his feet and started forward in a stumbling run.
"Come on, copper," Griffin grunted, a terrible smile of anticipation onhis lips. "I been wantin' to knock you off."
Everyone on the plane froze in horror as the gun muzzle came up. Thefinger on the trigger tightened in a sort of slow-motion action until itseemed as if the smallest pressure would set it off. And still Jenkinsstumbled forward, until only a couple of feet separated the two. Thenthe grin became a snarl on Griffin's lips, and all knew the instant ofdeath had arrived.
Jenkins must have felt it also, for he took the last few steps in ashambling, wide-armed leap, as if he were welcoming it. It was at thatinstant that the co-pilot decided to step through the door. The steeldoor slammed against the bent figure of the gunman just as he pulled thetrigger. The gun went off with a roar, and Jenkins hit Griffin like atackler slamming into a ball carrier.
But louder than the pistol's sound, was the sound from without theplane. It was as if all the fury of hell had exploded out there. Theplane became a straw licked upward and outward, sucked downward andinward, in some vortex of sound and fury which was completelyunrecognizable. It was as if some external force was venting its spleenon the craft. In the space of split seconds, in the time a picture formsin a mind, the plane and all its occupants lost their meaning.
There was a great rending sound and, following, the disintegration ofthe great ship into space.
* * * * *
Hale Jenkins felt himself spinning, whirling, falling into a vast emptyfog. There was peace and contentment in that fog, and a sort offorgetfulness. There was nothing above and nothing below, just the greymurk. For a last instant of awareness, Jenkins saw not far from him thebody of Griffin describing the same gyrations as his own. Then there wasa wrenching at his bowels, a tearing at his brain, and unconsciousnessslipped over him like the noose over the hanged man.
Odd piping voices penetrated into Jenkins' brain. He stirred and rolledover, and after
a few seconds got his hands under him and pushed himselferect. He felt rather than saw the tree close to him, and put one handout to its friendly trunk, steadying himself against it. His head cameup after a second and his eyes cleared of the fog before them. He staredin disbelief as he looked out over a great valley.
In the distance, made plain by the brilliant light of the sun, he saw atremendous castle with many-turreted immense sides. It shimmered anddanced in the brilliant light, like a mirage conjured by a fevered mind.Yet he knew, without being told, that it was real--as real as the threetiny men who regarded him with passionately intent though oddlyfrightened eyes from a few feet off.
But sight was not the only sense of which Jenkins had the full use. Hewas aware of an odd, rumbling sound in the distance, as of thunder, yetnot quite thunder. He