Dracula Unbound (28 page)

“I do. We have the proof. Every map of Canada in the modern world depicts that proof. The great circle of Hudson Bay—filled with sea in our time—that's the ancient F-bomb crater. It'll work just fine. Kylie, your objection?”

The girl looked levelly at him. “Mine is a religious objection, as you might expect. Yet it goes with your hesitation. An evil weapon like your F-bomb cannot destroy evil. It can only propagate it.”

“Kylie, dear, despite all I've been through I still can hardly credit the existence of these malign supernatural beings. My intellect rebels against accepting them! I'd much rather regard them as a disease. But there they are, down there in their thousands, from all times and climes. We would destroy two evils at once—them and the F-bomb. Think again. Larry, how do you feel on this issue?”

Larry gestured dismissively.

“I'm with you, Joe, all the way.”

Taking a step forward, Spinks said, “If I might also have a say in this, Mr. Bodenland …”

“Of course. Make it fast.”

Spinks glanced at his employer, then went ahead. “All right. Suppose you don't drop this bomb. Do we just all go home to our proper centuries? That's no way to win a war, not to my way of thinking. There's a time comes to all of us when we are forced to do something we'd rather not, in the hope and prayer that it will bring about a greater good. There's good wars and bad wars, good causes and bad causes. I say this is a good war in a good cause. Drop the bloody thing and let's go home.”

He blushed crimson to see that everyone was looking at him.

“Four against two, ladies,” said Joe. “Want to change your minds?”

“No,” said Kylie.

“Yes,” said Mina. “If the bomb will work, drop it, I say. I wouldn't want what happened to me to happen to another soul. I don't—I can't figure out all the moral niceties, but those things are evil right enough, so, yes, let's drop it on them right now.”

Without speaking, Bodenland looked at Kylie. She looked back, then looked down.

“Joe, dear, I know I'm the new member of the family, but I just
can't
say yes to this. I was brought up to believe that human beings shouldn't have power of life and death over others. I stick with that. Besides … well, look, if I said okay, wouldn't it be kind of sick for a family to all agree, yes, fine, let's kill off thousands. A family! Isn't that sick?”

A growl came from Stoker.

“What family could ever agree among itself? Little lady, it's my belief that all of us understand your scruples. But it's five against one. You'll go to Heaven, the rest of us will depart for elsewhere. Come on, Joe, Larry—the bomb.”

With a sign, Bodenland said, “You are outvoted, Kylie, my dear. Five to one.”

“That's democratic,” Larry said, going to embrace her, but she turned away.

“You didn't support me,” she said. “Don't you see there's evil within us?”

“And also right out there, Kylie,” he said, pointing to the rolling plain.

They got rapidly down to work.

Pteranodons were still passing overhead on their featherless wings, so everything had to be done under cover of the palms. Mina and Stoker kept watch at either end of the train while Kylie wept inside it. Bodenland and his son squatted on the ground and secured the F-bomb to the underside of his new radio-controlled plane.

“It's a replica of a nineteen-forties Flying Fortress, Joe,” Larry said enthusiastically. “It goes like a bomb.”

“The F-bomb does not detonate on impact. When you're ready, I shall turn this red dial.” He indicated the casing. “A contained fission process then begins, and only when the temperature is raised to many thousand degrees is the essential fusion process triggered. The detonation will be several score times the power of any bomb the US can command in the twentieth century, despite its small size.”

“What I can't understand,” said Spinks, who was looking on, “is how these vampire creatures all appear as bold as brass in broad daylight. Remember how they all crumbled when I switched on the lights in that there plant factory, and—”

“No time for these minor puzzles now, Spinks,” said Bodenland, standing up. Larry lifted the plane, with the red and green bomb wired on underneath it. He shook his head, raised an eyebrow, and looked at his father. Both were thinking the same thing: though the plane had a fifteen-foot wingspan, the bomb was almost too heavy for it.

Then began the next phase of the nightmare. All their psychic energies were focused on the launching of the plane—and Larry had misgivings. He said he would go forward to the very brink of the cliffs, to gain the advantage of the updraft. His father protested it was too dangerous. Nevertheless, he went, running forward, doubled over the body of his plane.

“As soon as it gets airborne, come back, right?” Joe called.

Larry did not answer.

“Want me to go with him?” asked Spinks.

“No. Get everyone else in the train, Spinks, will you? We have to be away before the strike, or we're all dead ducks.”

It seemed that everyone was milling about. The great leather lizards still winged grandly overhead like angels from Hell, to circle about the distant figure of Count Dracula.

Stoker climbed out of the train toting a bulky pistol.

“It's an Edward Very light,” he said excitedly. “Lights up the whole sky.”

“We don't need it. The bomb will light up the whole world. Get inside. Be ready to go as soon as Larry gets back.”

But Stoker was carried away by the excitement of the moment. He began to recite in ringing tones: “‘For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven. / And all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble …!'”

Kylie came up behind him and said, “And what else will the bomb kill besides the vampires? How about the animals, who are innocent, the trees, the land itself? Perhaps you aren't so ecologically conscious as we are in 1999.”

“That's what the Bible says, my dear. ‘Ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet.'”

“Perhaps you'd like to come inside and sit quietly with me, Mr. Stoker. I don't think it is up to us to use punishments which are devastating enough to belong to a higher power.”

He looked into her normally sunny face, and scratched his beard.

“You're a very attractive young lady, for a liberal,” he said, “but I'm not going to miss this bang for anything or anyone.”

Bodenland had gone forward, leaving the shelter of the palms. He was anxious for his son. Larry had disappeared behind low hills. The pteranodons overhead were capable of attacking and killing a man, in Bodenland's consideration.

Larry had reached a bluff where the ground was crumbling and sandy. He dropped to his knees, out of breath. Just ahead, the cliffs in a flurry of broken rock sloped down to the wide plain. This was as far as he could go, although the concourse of the Un-Dead was still a distance away. He could only hope that his model would fly that far.

He started the engines of the model Flying Fortress. They gave no trouble and caught at once. Just for a moment he paused, unable to bring himself to let go of the plane. Then he launched it. It dropped steadily, caught the updraft from the cliffs, and began slowly to climb, heading straight for the unhallowed congregation.

Larry stood looking, marveling at the Boeing's beauty and strength. The bomb glinted below its fuselage. The fission process was already taking place.

The plane was still climbing gradually as it flew. The entire sky was clear of cloud now. He had no trouble following its path, and little need to guide it. The sound of its engines became faint. Then he saw a flight of three pteranodons moving in toward it, like fighter planes on the attack.

The danger was at once apparent. Dropping the control box, Larry turned and began running back to the time train. The going was rough. He stumbled once, and fell full length. He looked back. One of the flying lizards had caught hold of the plane's wing. It was about to fall out of the sky.

And at that moment, a great brightness filled the air above the plain.

Picking himself up, he ran on. His father had come to meet him, and was beckoning him on.

He fell into his father's arms.

“Bravely done,” Joe said. “Quick—we've only got a minute. We must get away.”

Bram Stoker, who had insisted on firing his Very pistol, jumped into the train before them. The others were already standing there. Still red-eyed, Kylie clung fiercely to Larry as he entered.

Bodenland triggered the door shut behind them and turned to the controls.

The detonation of the F-bomb was an event on an immense scale. The first fronts of heat and sound to belly out obliterated the plain and all life on it. They were followed by wave after wave of radioactive emission.

The pillar of fire that rose into the stratosphere resembled a solid thing—a massive tree that would forever remain. From its topmost branches wastes grew, spreading layer after layer of dirt round among the new winds born in the upper atmosphere. The sky grew dark—and would stay so for many days, like a filthy lung ceasing to breathe, eclipsing the sun.

The ensuing cold, the devastation of the climate of the Northern Hemisphere, would have a lasting effect, the death of the Cretaceous dinosaurs, and would be forever graven in Earth's rocks, to be discovered by scientists millions of centuries later and christened the K/T boundary.

Of all this havoc, its instigators saw nothing. The time train had elongated itself and disappeared into the recurrent pattern of years.

13

It was, in a sense, a family reunion—and spiced, like all such reunions, with memories of what had happened in the past. But this was a family reunion with its own allotted time and place. They were safely back on the Gondwana estate in
A
.
D
. 1999, and the time train was standing, with all the appearance of an ancient monument, where once children, Joe's grandchildren, had played. The family gathered by the poolside, where Mina was pouring them celebratory drinks.

The train stood in an area they called the Beach. A gray stone wall had isolated the play area from the pool. There, long ago—but how long is long?—Molly and Dick's orphaned children had played, and had buried a machine, and bees had buzzed in the jasmine.

Joe Bodenland carried these memories in his brain, along with many less pleasant things. Now Molly and Dick's dear kids were at school. They'd be back. And what governing fantasies would they have in their minds, to help them play out their brief span on the stage of life?

Never travel in time. It was too stern a reminder of the brevity of individual life. It was like swimming out into a dark Pacific Ocean, leaving the coast behind, leaving the day, the continental shelf, everything …

He realized that he was getting a little drunk on his—well, how many of Mina's tall margaritas had gone round as they sat about the swimming pool? And he was content—or as content as he ever could be.

Let Kylie chatter. Any girl that looked that good in a bikini did not have to make too much sense. Let Bram Stoker ramble on, making them laugh with his theater gossip a century old. Let his darling Mina talk about her next skydiving festival in the Rockies. Let Larry brag about the way he had bought up a Softways chain, whatever that was, so that he had control of distribution as far as Denver. Let it all go by.

Washington could wait till Monday. This weekend would be passed in a haze. A pretty triumphant haze, by god.

Lazily, he picked up the silver bullet lying on the table by his right hand, where the near-empty glass stood.

“It's all over,” he said. “Just return old Bram—and you, young Spinks—to Victorian England, and the whole damned thing's over and done with.”

Spinks, clad in a pair of trunks bestowed by Larry, was the only one listening to him.

“Sir, apart from my old mother in the village, I have no attachments, as you might say. No young lady I'm walking out with. I would like to stay and serve you. I could do your gardens. Or I could join the police force, if they use guns.”

“You're young. Why not? America's a land of opportunity.”

“I didn't find life all that interesting in 1896, just being a gardener, much though I respect Mr. and Mrs. Stoker.” He kept his voice low. “I think that the United States in 1999 looks—well, sir, a bit more fun. You see—”

“Go on, Spinks. Have another drink. Help yourself.”

“I would like to watch your amazing television and see other inventions. Also—well, Mr. Bodenland, I really liked the way we dropped the bomb on those bloody vampires. That was fun, wasn't it?”

“Not for them.”

Spinks laughed. “I mean for me it was. Remember I asked you how those vampires appeared happy in daylight, whereas in later ages they couldn't stand it? You didn't answer, so I worked it out for myself. They were all looking up, weren't they, when the F-bomb went off what done 'em in. Looking up at the Very light. So that horror of light and disintegration was—inherited. A folk memory. Isn't that so, don't you reckon?”

Bodenland sat up in alarm.

“Jesus, Spinks, you may be right … If so, some of them survived, or no one would inherit anything. You'd better keep quiet about this. Don't tell the family.”

“'Course they survived, sir. They came calling soon as you and Mr. Clift dug up them two coffins.”

This last remark was overheard by Bram Stoker, who strolled over, a towel draped round his hairy ginger shoulders.

“Yes, Joe, I meant to ask you. Do your fractals account for the way those two coffins managed to get from Canada to Utah—given they were the same two?”

The family, Mina, Larry, and Kylie, were laughing at something Larry had said. Bodenland glanced approvingly at them, and stood up.