Doomsday Eve 10

Doomsday Eve 10

Ed jumped at the sound, grabbed Nedra's hand, and tried to drag her

toward a ladder that led to some kind of an attic. Cal rose to his feet

and moved toward the door.

 

"Stop it!" Nedra said, to Ed.

 

"But, honey, you've got to get out of here," Ed urged. The bantam was

at the edge of panic.

 

"Why?"

 

"Because that owl hoot was a signal. The guys who are coming will take

you away from me," Ed explained.

 

"Fine," Nedra said, her face brightening. "There is justice in the

world after all. The good Lord does look after the poor working girl."

Her voice indicated that she had begun to doubt this.

 

"But you don't know who these guys are," Ed protested.

 

"I don't care who they are. Satan himself would be welcome to me right

now." The words were addressed to Ed but she was looking at Kurt Zen as

she spoke. Zen did not attempt to answer her implied accusation.

 

"Damn it, I ain't going to let them take you away from me!" Ed shouted.

Again he reached for the nurse's hand, to drag her toward the ladder.

She slugged him in the mouth.

 

In a fury, his fists clenched, the bantam started toward her. She

dodged behind Zen.

 

"Lay off her, Ed," Cal ordered.

 

"But she belongs to me!" Ed shouted. "You know I saw her first. You

said so yourself!" The little man was beside himself with frustration

and fury.

 

"If the lieutenant decides he wants her, you'll probably be the first

one dead," the ragged man commented. Then he shrugged. "However, it's

your funeral, not mine. Only you probably won't get a funeral."

 

Again the owl hoot sounded, just outside the house this time. Cal

opened the door. A lieutenant and four soldiers entered. Zen took one

look at the dirty uniforms and the slant eyes in dirty yellow faces and

knew that these were Cuso's men. Coming into the room, the lieutenant

took command.

 

"Who is this?" he demanded, nodding curtly toward Zen. He had not as

yet noticed Nedra, who was still behind Kurt.

 

"A colonel who has seen the light of reason and has come over to our

side," the ragged man promptly answered.

 

"Good. Cuso will be very glad to talk to him." The grin on the

lieutenant's face left no doubt as to the meaning that lay back of

his words. Cuso's methods of extracting information from any person

careless enough to fall into his hands were well known.

 

"It will be a privilege to talk to the great leader of the Asian

forces," Zen said. He felt sweat begin to appear under both arms. As

soon as the lieutenant had appeared, he had known that Cal was a spy

supplying information to Cuso.

 

"I'm sure Cuso will find it so," the lieutenant said. The grin vanished

from his face as he caught a glimpse of Nedra behind the colonel. The

rifle in his hands came up. "Who is that?" he demanded.

 

"A nurse who has also joined us," Cal hastily explained.

 

"What's she doing behind him?"

 

"Ed was urging her to go upstairs with him and she hid behind this

man," Cal explained. A tic had appeared in the right cheek of the

ragged man.

 

"Oh," the lieutenant said. His grin reappeared. "Come out, plizz."

 

As Nedra stepped to Zen's side, the lieutenant's grin widened. He

sucked in his breath. "Yess. Oh but yess. Cuso will want to talk to

her. Of that I am very sure."

 

Ed, his face as black as tar, started to protest. He took another look

at the rifle in the Asian's hand and quickly changed his mind. The

chattering of his teeth was audible all over the room.

 

"Why do you make that noise?" the lieutenant said, looking at him.

 

"It--it's cold in here," Ed stuttered.

 

As the bantam spoke, Zen noticed that the temperature in the big room

seemed to have dropped far more than seemed reasonable. Even the

opening of the door, and the admission of the cool night air, was not

enough to account for the sudden chill in the room.

 

This cold was different from anything Zen had ever experienced before.

It seemed to start at the center of the bones and work its way outward,

reaching the skin surface last of all, where it produced a prickling

sensation.

 

"I wish to eat," the lieutenant said.

 

"Of course," Cal instantly agreed. "Jake! Food for the gentleman."

 

Jake, his eyes murky, was standing in the door leading to the kitchen.

The __EXPRESSION__ on his face indicated that he was about to launch

himself at the Asians.

 

"Get into that kitchen!" Cal shouted.

 

"Oh, all right," Jake answered, moving out of sight. The banging of the

pots and pans that followed his departure seemed to have a sullen sound.

 

"That one is not right in the head," the Asian officer said.

 

"He's just dumb," Cal said, defensively.

 

The lieutenant pursed his lips. "I forgot to mention that I left some

of my men outside."

 

"Bring them in," Cal said promptly. "They're probably hungry, too. And

cold."

 

"I think I shall leave them where they are," the lieutenant said,

decisively. "I left them on guard. They have set up a mounted machine

gun at the edge of the street."

 

"I see," Cal said.

 

"The gun covers this house," the officer continued.

 

"Oh," Cal said. A sudden shiver passed through his body. He knew

perfectly well what the lieutenant had just told him.

 

It seemed to Kurt Zen that the temperature of the room had dropped

another ten degrees. He was shivering, too, from the effect of that

strange cold that seemed to start at the marrow of the bones and spread

itself outward.

 

Of all those in the room, Nedra was the only one who did not seem to be

suffering from the effect of the chill. Her eyes were bright and her

face had a warm glow. Zen watched her out of the corners of his eyes.

Didn't she know that she had escaped from Ed only to fall into the

tender mercies of Cuso's men?

 

"What has happened to you?" he whispered to her.

 

Turned toward him, her eyes had a glow that seemed to come from some

light that was suddenly burning inside them. The glow went from purple

to violet, then to ultra-violet. After that, Zen could no longer see

the glow, but he suspected it had gone into higher ranges still. What

was more surprising was the fact that she was no longer frightened.

Confidence had suddenly come to her, seemingly out of nowhere.

 

"What do you think has happened to me?" Her voice had changed too. All

tension had gone from it. The ragged edges of conflict had disappeared.

She seemed to be mistress of the situation, and to know it.

 

Jake came from the kitchen. "I pick up vibrations," he announced, his

voice shrill.

 

"Get into the kitchen," Cal ordered, as the lieutenant raised his gun.

 

"But I'm only trying to tell you something."

 

"I'm telling you something, get back into that kitchen!" Cal ordered.

 

Jake's gaze went murkily around the room but it was obvious that he

was giving more attention to some internal sight or sound than to the

people present.

 

"Git," Cal shouted.

 

Jake backed from the doorway.

 

The lieutenant lowered the muzzle of the gun. He barked an order to the

men with him, who arranged themselves with their backs to the wall. The

officer moved toward the fire, where he settled himself in a chair.

 

"You," he said. "Take off my boots!"

 

He was speaking to Zen. Kurt measured the distance to the lieutenant's

jaw. Out of the corners of his eyes, he noted the positions of the

Asian soldiers.

 

"Odds are too great," he thought. "Stay alive now. Maybe your turn will

come."

 

As he started to kneel, he bumped into Nedra, who was already on the

floor unbuckling the officer's boots.

 

"If you would rather do it, I would rather have you do it," the

lieutenant said, smirking.

 

"It is a privilege, sir," the girl said. She pulled off the heavy boot

and began to peel off the thick sock.

 

The probability that she had saved Kurt Zen's life was very great. He

felt a surge of anger at his own helplessness.

 

The feeling of cold at the marrow of his bones was appearing again.

It was stronger now. He noticed that Cal's hands were trembling. The

teeth of one of the soldiers standing against the wall were chattering

audibly. A second soldier looked as if he were about to go to sleep.

 

Zen discovered as he yawned that he was getting sleepy too. Along

with the cold creeping outward from his bones was a sensation of

mental fogginess that was very close to sleep. The lieutenant, sitting