INTERWORLD by Isidore Halblum A portion of this work first appeared in Swank Magazine. Copyright © 1977 by Isidore Haiblum Dell ® TM 681510, Dell Publishing Co., Inc. ISBN: 0-440-12285-6 Printed in the United States of America First printing—April 1977 PART ONE HAPPY CITY CHAPTER ONE HELP! DISORIENTATION HAS SET IN. I MUST GET MY BEARINGS. HERE THERE IS NOTHING. I TURN OFF ALL MY SENSES. NOW I AM NOTHING TOO. I WAIT. I’d been driving close to an hour when my headlights caught the sign: Cozy Rest Home. Swinging left, I followed the crooked arrow onto a narrow, twisting gravel road. All hell was busy pelting the car. Trees on either side of the roadway strained against their roots as if trying to take off for friendlier climes; wind wailed and the rain lashed out like some mad, lost thing caught in a trap. A hateful scene if ever there was one. I rounded a bend, came to a clearing. The gravel underneath turned to soft, soupy mud. I peered into the darkness like a drunk hunting a light switch. Lightning crackled and flared; in the sudden glare, I saw an old, weather-beaten mansion—a four-story job of wood and shingles, looking as chummy as the corner mortuary. The sight was gone in a roar of thunder. Parking my heap in a large, disorderly puddle, I got out, started for the house. A rowboat would’ve helped plenty. Three stone steps took me up to the front door. I banged on it. Nothing happened. I did some more pounding. There should’ve been a bell somewhere, only I couldn’t find it. All this racket was murder on the knuckles, but if I stayed out here much longer I’d need a life belt. Sounds finally from inside. Bolts were being undone. Bolts? In a rest home? The door slid open. A startled-faced lady—somewhere in her mid-thirties—stood there, dressed in a nurse’s starched white uniform; she stared at me as if one of the trees had hobbled over to ask for shelter. I took that for an invite—the only one I was apt to get—and brushed past her into the house. “Yes?” she asked coldly. Her lips, I saw, were bright with lipstick, arched eyebrows were penciled in. She looked as trim and spiffy as a dimestore dummy. “I’d like to see Joe Rankin,” I told her. “Tom Dunjer’s the name; I’m his brother-in-law.” I lowered my voice, “It’s a family matter.” “Wait here,” the nurse told me and hurried away. I was in a large hallway. Lumpy yellow wallpaper crawled up the walls, a maroon carpet stretched itself along the floor. Any second I expected the black window drapes to slither over and fang me. At the hall’s end, stairs—tame and ordinary by comparison—led to the second floor. The only sound was the rain outside. A door squeaked down hall; the nurse was back, a large, stout, brown-jacketed party in tow. Cocking a bushy eyebrow my way, he waddled over with outstretched hand like a huge seal. Head bald, shiny. Lips, large and pouting. Three chins danced as he walked. He wore the perfect smile of a man whose teeth came from the dimestore. “My name, sir,” he said, “is Dr. Spelville.” “Dunjer,” I told him. The sweetheart in nurse’s uniform shot us both a look of dark disapproval and went away. Spelville pumped my hand as though trying to dredge up water from a very deep well, led me into his office, folded himself into a wide chair behind a cluttered mahogany desk and gave me a bright smile. “A visitor on a night such as this—a delightful surprise, I assure you. How may I be of service?” I told him. I explained I wanted a brief chat with my in-law, who was—reportedly—taking the cure here. It seemed a simple matter. “So—” Spelville sighed, as if he’d just learned I’d towed a small mountain to his doorstep and expected him to climb it. “I fear I can be of little help,” he sighed again. “Your brother-in-law is gone.” “Gone?” I said. “Where to?” The doctor shrugged, shook his head, pulled on an earlobe with a fat thumb and forefinger. He didn’t get up and tango, but that was probably next on the agenda. “The things that happen, sir—you have no idea. Mr. Rankin packed his bag and departed this afternoon. I believe a car picked him up at our door. A sick man, sir.” The doctor wiggled a finger at me. “A very sick man. Certainly in need of rest. High-strung, nervous—” his voice became confidential, “possibly deranged. But what could I do? What indeed? Mr. Rankin was a free agent, so to speak.” The doctor spread his palms as if he were going to sing a very long and complicated aria. “Perhaps you would like to see his room?” It was my turn to shrug. “Splendid,” Spelville said. He pressed a button on his desk. A door to my left opened soundlessly. An attendant or something came shuffling through. He was a short, broad gent with stooped shoulders, long, dangling arms and a face that looked like a rock pile. I’d figured this day couldn’t get much worse, but I was wrong. “Waldorf,” Dr. Sperville said, “take this gentleman to the room Mr. Rankin used to occupy.” Waldorf nodded at me, led the way. I followed him down a series of white-walled deserted corridors, smelling disinfectant, floor wax, the odors of damp wood. We took a lot of turns, came to an elevator, got in and rode up to the second floor. Waldorf hadn’t said a word yet. Maybe he didn’t know how. Rankin’s room, when I finally got there, was as empty as a railbird’s wallet. We went back the way we’d come, a bland, uneventful trip. What I’d learned couldn’t exactly be called a windfall. The doctor hadn’t moved an inch from behind his desk, as if he’d become fixed in an invisible block of ice during my short jaunt. The ice thawed. “Satisfied, Mr. Dunjer?” I wagged my head. Not quite the word I’d‘ve chosen, but any one would do now. We traded our goodbyes solemnly. The fat man remained seated. The sourpuss nurse let me back into the rain. I waded to the car, climbed in, started the motor, splashed through a number of puddles, hit a bend in the gravel road and pulled over. Getting a flash and gun from the glove compartment, I put up my coat collar, slid into the wet. In an instant the car was swallowed by the dark. I was running back through the rain toward the Cozy Rest Home. If Rankin was holed-up in that place, I aimed to flush him out. Twenty years of sleuthing should’ve stood me in good stead for this kind of workout. But three years as head of Security Plus had got me out of practice. I hoped I still remembered what to do. I HAVE NO NAME. AS YET I AM MERELY A VOICE. THERE ARE WORLDS AND WORLDS. NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS. BE VIGILANT. WATCH FOR SUBTLE SHIFTS, GRADATIONS. EVEN MIRROR IMAGES MUST ULTIMATELY DIVERGE. THIS IS, OF COURSE, NOTHING MORE THAN A HINT, AN IDLE DIGRESSION, BUT ONE WHICH HELPS TO PASS THE TIME. YET, WHERE I AM THERE IS NO TIME—ONLY EMPTINESS. THIS TOO IS TEMPORARY. ALREADY I CAN FEEL THE FIRST TREMORS OF CHANGE. SOON I SHALL, NO DOUBT, APPEAR SOMEWHERE. BE PATIENT. I AM WORTH WAITING FOR. CHAPTER TWO The house was dark and still. No light escaped from the shuttered windows. It was an old, ugly mansion and it reeked of decay. This time I circled the joint, and came up behind it, slipping in the mud. Moss grew up the walls, along with a couple of dozen parasites I couldn’t name. A great spot for a weed garden, if the weeds could stand it. I flicked the beam of my flash up the back wall. No windows on the first floor—they’d been cemented over; those on the second floor were shuttered tight. I’d‘ve needed a ladder to get up there anyway, or a pair of wings. No other door that I could see. A swell set-up—you couldn’t get in or out without using the front entrance. That wouldn’t do at all. I tried the sides of the building. Not a crack. Retracing my steps, I kept the light pinned to the ground. About halfway around the joint I found it: the coal chute. I went down on hands and knees. The two sides of the chute were padlocked tight. My gun was out. I waited for the lightning. It came a long moment later. Thunder followed it, went off around my head like a Tri-D aspirin commercial. Before the sound had faded, I’d blasted off the lock, was sliding into the basement. The stone cellar was as dank and dismal as a leaking bathtub. I shined my feeble light against walls covered with cobwebs, dirt and grime. Too bad I wasn’t hunting spiders; I could’ve had my pick. Finding steps, I started up in a hurry. Inching the door open on top, I peered out. Another door faced me, the one I’d come through earlier that night. The ground floor was lit up like the old Happy City fun-house, but not a soul in sight having fun. I wasn’t about to complain. I left my hiding place. No one stopped me. The corridor was all mine. I listened for voices. There weren’t any. The rest home had taken a mickey; the sour-faced nurse had done in the doctor and orderly; they’d all murdered each other. It was fine with me; I had my own problems. The stairs leading to the second floor were on the right. I took ‘em two at a time. Opening the door at the top, I stepped through into darkness. I didn’t want to bother anyone with a lot of light. Getting my flash out, I started turning doorknobs softly. Five minutes of that and I’d tiptoed through a dozen empty rooms, all like the one I’d seen earlier, and come up with precisely nothing. This floor was as bare as a nudie in a girly show, but not half as entertaining. That left the third and fourth stories. Having gotten this far, I decided to go the whole hog. Returning to my stairway, I climbed to the next landing. Another door greeted me. I stopped, opened it slowly. The beam of my light criss-crossed the walls as I started down the corridor. I felt the sound rather than heard it. I threw myself to the side. Something went smack ag...
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