50 in 50

In my magazine-editing days I edited an issue or two of a magazine titled Fantasy Fiction. I took over as editor from Fletcher Pratt when he stepped down to sue the publisher. (All the other editors helped him with the lawsuit since the publisher was uniformly hated by his staff.) I even wrote a fantasy novella with Kay MacLean titled Web of the Norns. Published, I believe, in this same magazine.

I also bought a complete run of Unknown since Brian Aldiss and I were to edit Best from Unknown to follow our Best from Astounding-Analog anthology. Alas, this never came to pass.

But as much as I enjoy fantasy a look at the record reveals that I obviously do not seem to be writing it. Out of all my short stories I find just two that can be called fantasy. This was never a deliberate decision, just that when my mind thinks "story" — it doesn't think "fantasy."

At Last, the True Story of Frankenstein

"And here, before your very eyes, is the very same monster built by my much-admired great-great-grandfather, Victor Frankenstein, built by him from pieces of corpses out of the dissecting rooms, stolen parts of bodies freshly buried in the grave, and even chunks of animals from the slaughterhouse. Now look—" The tailcoated man on the platform swung his arm out in a theatrical gesture and the heads of the close-packed crowd below swung to follow it. The dusty curtains flapped aside and the monster stood there, illuminated from above by a sickly green light. There was a concerted gasp from the crowd and a shiver of motion.

In the front row, pressed against the rope barrier, Dan Bream mopped his face with a soggy handkerchief and smiled. It wasn't such a bad monster, considering that this was a cheapjack carnival playing the small-town southern circuit. It had a dead-white skin, undampened by sweat even in this steambath of a tent, glazed eyes, stitches and seams showing where the face had been patched together, and the two metal plugs projecting from the temples — just like in the movie.

"Raise your right arm!" Victor Frankenstein V commanded, his brusque German accent giving the words a Prussian air of authority. The monster's body did not move, but slowly — with the jerking motion of a badly operating machine — the creature's arm came up to shoulder height and stopped.

"This monster, built from pieces from the dead, cannot die, and if a piece gets too worn out I simply stitch on a new piece with the secret formula passed down from father to son from my great-greatgrandfather. It cannot die nor feel pain — as you see—"

This time the gasp was even louder and some of the audience turned away while others watched with eager eyes. The barker had taken a foot-long and wickedly sharp needle, and had pushed it firmly through the monster's biceps until it protruded on both sides. No blood stained it and the creature made no motion, as though completely unaware that anything had been done to its flesh.

"… impervious to pain, extremes of heat and cold, and possessing the strength of ten men…"

Behind him the voice droned on, but Dan Bream had had enough. He had seen the performance three times before, which was more than satisfactory for what he needed to know, and if he stayed in the tent another minute he would melt. The exit was close by and he pushed through the gaping, pallid audience and out into the humid dusk. It wasn't much cooler outside. Life borders on the unbearable along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in August, and Panama City, Florida, was no exception. Dan headed for the nearest air-conditioned beer joint and sighed with relief as the chill atmosphere closed around his steaming garments. The beer bottle frosted instantly with condensation as did the heavy glass stein, cold from the freezer. The first big swallow cut a path straight down to his stomach. He took the beer over to one of the straight-backed wooden booths, wiped the table off with a handful of paper napkins and flopped onto the bench. From the inner pocket of his jacket he took some folded sheets of yellow copy paper, now slightly soggy, and spread them before him. After adding some lines to the scribbled notes he stuffed them back into his jacket and took a long pull on his beer. Dan was halfway through his second bottle when the barker, who called himself Frankenstein the Fifth, came in. His stage personality had vanished along with the frock coat and a monocle, and the Prussian haircut now looked like a common crewcut.

"You've got a great act," Dan called out cheerfully, and waved the man over. "Will you join me for a drink?"

"Don't mind if I do," Frankenstein answered in the pure nasal vowels of New York City, the German accent apparently having disappeared along with the monocle. "And see if they have a Schlitz or a Bud or anything beside the local swamp water."

He settled into the booth while Dan went for the beers, and groaned when he saw the labels on the bottles.

"At least it's cold," he said, shaking salt into his to make it foamy, then half-drained the stein in a long deep swallow. "I noticed you out there in front of the clems for most of the shows today. Do you like the act — or you a carny buff?"

"It's a good act. I'm a newsman, name's Dan Bream."

"Always pleased to meet the press, Dan. Publicity is the life of show business, as the man said. I'm Stanley Arnold — call me Stan."

"Then Frankenstein is just your stage name?"

"What else? You act kinda dim for a reporter — are you sure. .?" He waved away the Press card that Dan pulled from his breast pocket. "No, I believe you, Dan, but you gotta admit the question was a little on the rube side. I bet you even think that I have a real monster in there!"

"Well, you must admit that he looks authentic. The skin stitched together that way, those plugs in his head—"

"Held on with spirit gum and the embroidery is drawn on with eyebrow pencil. That's show business for you, all illusion. But I'm happy to hear that the act even looked real to an experienced reporter like yourself. What paper did you say you were with?"

"No paper, the news syndicate. I caught your act about six months ago and became interested. Did a little checking when I was in Washington, then followed you down here. You don't really want me to call you Stan, do you? Stein might be closer. After all — Victor Frankenstein is the name on your naturalization papers."

"Tell me more," Frankenstein said in a voice suddenly cold and emotionless.

Dan rifled through the yellow sheets. "Yes. . here it is, from the official records. Frankenstein, Victor — born in Geneva, arrived in the U.S. in 1938, and more of the same."

"The next thing you'll be telling me is that my monster is real!" Frankenstein smiled, but only with his mouth.

"I'm betting that it is. No yogi training or hypnotism or such can make a man as indifferent to pain as that thing is — and as terribly strong. I want the whole story, the truth for a change!"

"Do you. .?" Frankenstein asked in a cold voice and for a long moment the air filled with tension. Then he laughed and clapped the reporter on the arm. "All right, Dan — I'll give it to you. You are a persistent devil and a good reporter and it is the least you deserve. But first you must get us some more drinks, something a measurable degree stronger than this execrable beer." His New York accent had disappeared as easily as had his German one, — he spoke English now with skill and perfection without any recognizable regional accent.

Dan gathered their empty glasses. "It'll have to be beer — this is a dry county."

"Nonsense! This is America, the land that raises its hands in horror at the foreign conception of double-think, yet practices it with an efficiency that sets the Old World to shame. Bay County may be officially dry but the law has many itchy palms, and under that counter you will find a reasonable supply of a clear liquid that glories in the name of White Mule, that is reputed to have a kick of the same magnitude as its cognate beast. If you are still in doubt you will see a framed federal liquor license on the far wall, legitimizing this endeavor in the eyes of the national government. Simply place a five-dollar bank note on the bar, say 'Mountain Dew' and do not expect any change."

When they both had enjoyed their first sips of the corn liquor Victor Frankenstein lapsed into a friendly mood.

"Call me Vic, Dan. I want us to be friends. I'm going to tell you a story that few have heard before, a story that is astounding but true. True — mark that word — not a hodgepodge of distortions and half-truths,) and outright ignorance like that vile book produced by Mary Godwin. Oh how my father ever regretted meeting that woman and, in a moment of weakness, confiding in her the secret of some of his original lines of research—"

"Just a minute.” Dan broke in. "You mentioned the truth, but I can't swallow this guff. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley wrote Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus in 1818. Which would make you and your father so old—"

"Please, Dan — no interruptions. I mentioned my father's researches — in the plural you will note — all of them devoted to the secrets of life. The Monster, as it has come to be called, was just one of his works. Longevity was what he was interested in, and he did live to a very, very old age, as will 1.1 will not stretch your credulity any further at this moment by mentioning the year of my birth, but will press on. That Mary Godwin. She and the poet were living together at this period, they had not married as yet, and this permitted my father to hope that Mary might one day find him not unattractive, since he was quite taken by her. Well, you can easily imagine the end. She made notes of everything he told her — then discarded him and used the notes to construct her despicable book. Her errors are legion, listen…" He leaned across the booth and once again clapped Dan on the shoulder in a hearty way. It was an intimate gesture that the reporter didn't particularly enjoy, but he didn't complain. Not as long as the other kept talking.

"Firstly she made Papa a Swiss, — he used to tear his hair out at the thought, since ours is a good old Bavarian family with a noble and ancient lineage. Then she had him attending the University of Ingolstadt in Ingolstadt — when every schoolboy knows that it was moved to Landshut in 1800. And Father's personality, what crimes she committed there! In this libelous volume he is depicted as a weeping and ineffectual man, when in reality he was a tower of strength and determination. And if this isn't enough, she completely misunderstood the meaning of his experiments. Her gimcrack collection of cast-off parts put together to make an artificial man is ludicrous. She was so carried away by the legends of Talos and the Golem that she misinterpreted my father's work and cast it into that ancient mold. Father did not construct an artificial man, he reactivated a dead man! That is the measure of his genius! He traveled for years in the darkest reaches of the African jungle, learning the lore of the creation of the zombie. He regularized the knowledge and improved upon it until he had surpassed all of his aboriginal teachers. Raise the dead, that is what he could do. That was his secret — and how can it be kept a secret in the future, Mr. Dan Bream?"

With these last words Victor Frankenstein's eyes opened wide and an unveiled light seemed to glow in their depths. Dan pulled back instinctively, then relaxed. He was in no danger here in this brightly lit room with men on all sides of them.

"Afraid, Dan? Don't be." Victor smiled and reached out and patted Dan on the shoulder once again.

"What was that?" Dan asked, startled at the tiny brief pain in his shoulder.

"Nothing — nothing but this," Frankenstein smiled again, but the smile had changed subtly and no longer contained any humor. He opened his hand to reveal a small hypodermic needle, its plunger pushed down and its barrel empty.

"Remain seated," he said quietly when Dan started to rise, and Dan's muscles relaxed and he sat back down, horrified.

"What have you done to me?"

"Very little — the injection is harmless. A simple little hypnotic drug, the effect of which wears off in a few hours. But until then you will not have much will of your own. So you will sit and hear me out. Drink some beer though, we don't want you to be thirsty."

Horrified, Dan was a helpless onlooker as, of its own volition, his hand raised, and poured a measure of beer down his throat.

"Now concentrate, Dan, think of the significance of my statement. The so-called Frankenstein monster is no stitched-up collection of scraps, but a good honest zombie. A dead man who can walk but not talk, obey but not think. Animate — but still dead. Poor old Charley is one, the creature whom you watched going through his act on the platform. But Charley is just about worn out. Since he is dead he cannot replace the body cells that are destroyed during the normal wear and tear of the day. Why the fellow is like an animated pincushion from the act, holes everywhere. His feet — terrible, not a toe left, keep breaking off when he walks too fast. I think it's time to retire Charley. He has had a long life, and a long death. Stand up, Dan."

In spite of his mind crying "No! No!" Dan rose slowly to his feet.

"Aren't you interested in what Charley used to do before he became a sideshow monster? You should be, Dan. Old Charley was a reporter — just like you. And he ran across what he thought was a good story. Like you, he didn't realize the importance of what he had discovered and talked to me about it. You reporters are a very inquisitive bunch. I must show you my scrapbook, it's simply filled with press cards. Before you die of course. You wouldn't be able to appreciate it afterward. Now come along."

Dan walked after him, into the hot night, screaming inside in a haze of terror, yet walking quietly and silently down the street.

Incident in the IND

"Thank God that's done." Adriann DuBois's voice bounced harshly from the tiled walls of the subway passage, punctuated by the sharp clack-clack of her high stiletto heels. There was a rattling rumble as an express train rushed through the station ahead and a wave of musty air washed over them.

"It's after one A.M..” Chester said and yawned widely and pressed the back of his hand to his mouth. "We'll probably have to wait an hour for a train."

"Don't be so negative, Chester," she said, and her voice had the same metallic ring as her heelsteps. "All the copy is finished now for the new account, we'll probably get a bonus, and we can take most of the day off tomorrow. Think positive like that, and you'll feel a lot better, I assure you."

They reached the turnstile at that moment, before Chester could think of a snappy answer that didn't reek too much of one o'clock in the morning, and he fumbled a token into the slot. Adriann swept through as he probed deeper into his change pocket and discovered that this had been his last token. He turned wearily back to the change booth and muttered two or three good, dirty words under his breath.

"How many?" a voice mumbled from the dimness of the barred steel cell.

"Two, please." He slipped the change in through the tiny window. It wasn't that he minded paying her damn fare — after all, she was a woman — but he wished she would at least say thanks or even nod her head to show that she didn't get into subways by divine right. After all they both worked in the same nut factory and earned the same money, and now she would be earning more. He had forgotten that last little fact for a moment. The slot swallowed his token and went chunk as he pushed through.

"I take the last car," Adriann said, squinting nearsightedly down the dark and empty tunnel. "Let's walk back to the end of the platform."

"I need the middle of the train," Chester said, but had to trot after her. Adriann never heard what she didn't need to hear.

"There's something I can tell you now, Chester," she began in her brisk man-to-man voice. "I couldn't really mention this before, since we both were doing the same work and in one sense competing for position. But since Blaisdell's coronary will have him out for a couple of weeks I'll be acting copy chief, with some more money to match—"

"I heard from the latrine grapevine. Congrats—"

"— so I'm in a position to pass on a bit of good advice to you. You have to push more, Chester, grab onto things when they come along…"

"For chrissake, Adriann, you sound like a bad commercial for crowded streetcars."

"And that sort of thing too. Little jokes. People begin to think you don't take your work seriously and that is sure death in the ad business."

"Of course I don't take the work seriously — who in their right mind could?" He heard a rumbling and looked, but the tunnel was still empty; it must have been a truck in the street above. "Are you going to tell me that you really care about writing deathless prose about milady's armpits smelling the right way from the use of the right Stink-Go-Way?"

"Don't be vulgar, Chester, — you know you can be sweet when you want to," she said, taking advantage of female reasoning to ignore his arguments and to inject a note of emotion into a previously logical conversation.

"You're damn right I can be sweet," he said huskily, not averse to a little emotion himself. With her mouth shut Adriann was pretty attractive in a past-thirtyish way. The knitted dress did wonders for her bottom, and undoubtedly the foundation maker's artifice had something to do with the outstanding attraction of her front piece, but more in underpinning than in padding, he was willing to bet.

He shuffled close and slipped his arms around her waist and patted lightly on the top of her flank. "I can be sweet and I can remember a time when you didn't mind being sweet right back."

"That's a long time finished, boy," she said in her schoolmarm voice and peeled his arms away with a picking-up-worms expression. Chester's newspaper fell out from under his arm, where he had stuffed it, and he bent over mumbling to pick it up from the gritty platform.

She was quiet for a moment after this, twisting her skirt around a bit and rubbing out the wrinkles as if brushing away the contamination of his touch. There were no sounds from the street overhead, and the long, dimly lit station was as silent as a burial vault. They were alone with the strange loneliness that can be experienced only in a large city, of people somewhere always close by, yet always cut off. Tired, suddenly depressed, Chester lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

"You're not allowed to smoke in the subway.” Adriann said with detached coldness.

"I'm not allowed to smoke, nor to give you a little squeeze, to make jokes in the office, or to look with justified contempt at our current client."

"No you're not," she snapped and leveled a delicate finger with a blood-red nail at him. "And since you brought it up, I'll tell you something else. Other people in the office have noticed it too, and this I know. You have been with the firm longer than I, so they considered you for the copy chief's job — and turned you down. And I was told in utmost confidence that they are actually considering letting you go. Does that mean anything to you?"

"It does. It means I have been nursing a viper in my bosom. I seem to remember that I got you this job and even had to convince old Blaisdell that you could do the work. You acted right grateful too, at the time — remember those passionate scenes in the foyer of your boardinghouse?"

"Don't be a pig!"

"Now the passion is dead, so is any chance of a raise, and it looks like my job is out the window as well. With dear Adriann for a friend, who needs an enemy…"

"There are things living in the subway, you know."

The voice was husky and trembled, it came suddenly from behind them, from what they thought was the empty platform, startling them both. Adriann gasped and turned quickly. There was a pool of darkness next to the large litter bin and neither of them had noticed the man slumped against the wall, seated there. He struggled to his feet and stepped forward.

"How dare you!" Adriann said shrilly, startled and angry. "Hiding there, eavesdropping on a private conversation. Aren't there any police in this subway?"

"There are things, you know," the man said, ignoring her, grinning up at Chester, his head twisted to one side.

He was a bum, one of the crumpled horde that had splattered out over New York City when the Bowery elevated was torn down and light penetrated that clogged street of human refuse. Photophobes to a man, they stumbled away seeking dimmer illumination. For many of them the gloomed caverns of the subways offered refuge, heated cars in the winter, toilet facilities, panhandling prospects, quiet corners for collapsing. This one wore the uniform of his trade: shapeless, filthy pants with most of the fly buttons missing; crumpled jacket tied close with string, with a number of unusual undergarments visible at the open neck; shoes cracked, split, and flapping; darkened skin as wrinkled as a mummy's with a pencil line of dirt in every crack. His mouth was a black orifice, the few remaining teeth standing like stained tombstones in memory of their vanished brothers. Examined in detail the man was a revolting sight, but so commonplace to this city that he was as much a part of it as the wire trash basket and the steaming manholes.

"What kind of things?" Chester asked while he groped in his pocket for a dime to buy their freedom. Adriann turned her back on them both.

"Things that live in the earth," the bum said and smiled blearily, pressing a grimy finger to his lips. "People who know never talk about it. Don't want to frighten the tourists away, no they don't. Scales, claws, down here, in the subway darkness."

"Give him some money — get rid of him — this is terrible!" Adriann said shrilly.

Chester dropped two nickels into the cupped hand, carefully, from a few inches above so he wouldn't have to touch the stained skin.

"What do these things do?" he asked, not because he really cared what the man had to say, but to annoy Adriann, a touch of the old sadist nudging him on.

The bum rubbed the nickels together in his palm. "They live here, hiding, looking out, that's what they do. You should give them something when you're alone, late at night like this, staying near the end of the platform. Pennies are good, just put them down there, at the edge where they can reach up and get them. Dimes good too, but no nickels like you gave me."

"You're hearing a very fancy panhandle story," Adriann said, angry now that her first fright had gone. "Now get away from that old tramp."

"Why only pennies and dimes?" Chester asked, interested in spite of himself. It was very black over the edge of the platform: anything could be hiding there.

"Pennies because they like peanuts, they work the machines with pennies when no one is around. And dimes for the Coke machines, they drink that sometimes instead of water. I've seen them…"

"I'm going for a policeman," Adriann snorted and click-clacked away, but stopped after she had gone about ten yards. Both men ignored her.

"Come on now," Chester smiled at the bum, who was running trembling fingers through his matted hair, "you can't expect me to believe that. If these things eat only peanuts, there is no reason to buy them off—"

"I didn't say that was all they ate!" The grimy hand locked on Chester's sleeve before he could move away, and he recoiled from the man's Breath as he leaned close to whisper.

"What they really like to eat is people, but they won't bother you as long as you leave them a little something. Would you like to see one?"

"After this buildup I certainly would."

The bum tottered over to the wastepaper receptacle, big as a truck on end, olive drab metal with two flap doors in the hatlike cover.

"Now you just gotta take a quick look, because they don't like to be looked at.” the man said and gave one of the flaps a push in and let go.

Chester stepped back, startled. He had had only a glimpse, had he really seen two glowing red spots in there, a foot apart, monstrous eyes? Could there be — no the whole thing was just too damn silly. There was the distant rumble of a train.

"Great show, Dad," he said, and dropped some pennies near the edge of the platform. "That'll keep them in peanuts for a while." He walked quickly down to Adriann. "The spiel got better after you left; the old buzzard swears that one of the things is hiding there in the trash can. So I left a bribe — just in case."

"How can you be so stupid—"

"You're tired, dear — and your claws are showing. And you're being repetitive as well."

The train rattled closer, sweeping a cloud of dead air before it. Musty air, almost like the smell of an animal… he had never noticed that before.

"You are stupid — and superstitious." She had to raise her voice above the roar of the approaching train. "You're the kind of person who knocks on wood and won't step on cracks and worries about black cats."

"I sure am, because it doesn't hurt. There's enough bad luck around as it is without looking for any more. There probably isn't a thing in that trash can — but I'm not going to put my arm in there to find out."

"You're a simple-minded child."

"Oh, am I!" They were both shouting now to be heard above the train that was rocking by next to them, brakes squealing to a stop. "Well let's see you put your arm in there if you are so damn smart."

"Childish!"

It was late and Chester was tired and his temper was frayed. The train shuddered to a halt behind him. He ran toward the end of the platform, digging in his pocket and pulling out all of his loose change.

"Here," he shouted, pushing the flap of the waste bin in an inch and pouring the coins through the gap. "Money. Plenty dimes, pennies. Plenty Cokes, peanuts. You grab and eat next person who comes here." Behind him Adriann was laughing. The train doors shooshed open and the old bum shuffled into the car.

"That's your Queens train.” Adriann said, still laughing. "Better take it before the things get you. I'm waiting for the uptown local."

"Take this.” he said, still angry, holding out his newspaper to her. "This is so funny, you're not superstitious — let's see you put this in the basket." He jumped for the train doors, catching them just as they closed.

"Of course, darling.” she called, her face red from laughing. "And I'll tell the office about it tomorrow—" The doors slid shut cutting off the rest of her words.

The train shuddered a bit and started to move. Through the dirt-stained glass he saw her walk to the waste container and shove the paper in through the flap. One of the pillars came between them as the train picked up speed.

The he saw her again and she still had her hand to the lid — or had she poked her arm in up to the elbow? — it was hard to tell through the dirty glass. Then another pillar, they were beginning to flicker by. Another glimpse and with the blurred window and the bad light he couldn't be sure but it looked as if she was bent over and had poked her head into the opening.

This window was no good. He ran the few steps to the rear of the car where a larger — and somewhat cleaner — window was set into the rear door. The train was halfway down the platform now, swaying as it picked up speed and he had a last glimpse of her before the row of pillars merged into a blur that cut off vision completely.

She couldn't possibly be halfway into that container, the flapped opening certainly wasn't big enough for a person to get through. Yet how else to explain that he had seen just her skirt and legs sticking out, wiggling wildly in the air?

Of course it had been only a blurred glimpse and he was mistaken. He turned back to the empty car — no, not empty. The bum slumped in a seat, already asleep.

The ragged man looked up at Chester, gave him a quick, secretive grin, then closed his eyes again. Chester went to the other end of the car and sat down. He yawned and scrunched lower.

He could doze until they reached his station, he always woke up in time.

It would be nice if the copy chief's job was still open; he could use the extra money.