The Orphan of Awkward Falls (17 page)

“Stedley Fenchid!” Norman said, as fragments of the madman’s name found their way to the surface of his feeble memory banks. The old robot’s inner alarm system jangled a warning. “Release the young lady immediately, sir!”

Stenchley had the girl’s neck in the crook of his elbow and looked as if he could break her spine if he wanted to. The hunchback picked up the length of pipe that lay nearby. Holding the struggling girl with one arm and the pipe in the other hand, he leapt onto the catwalk and disappeared between the rows of glass cylinders. Norman clanked across the lab as swiftly as his elderly metal legs were able and went after him.

He found Stenchley crouched at the end of the row with his back to a tall bubbling cylinder. “You ain’t sending me back to no asylum, tin man!” Stenchley grunted. “I ain’t never going back!”

With Stenchley’s attention focused on Norman, Josephine bit the madman’s arm, hard. Felix, who had silently crept up onto an
air duct above, leapt onto Stenchley’s back and sank his claws into the hump.

“Run, girly!” Felix shouted, hissing and clawing at the killer’s deformity.

Stenchley swore, and his grip loosened, giving Josephine the chance to wriggle free. She scurried quickly out of Stenchley’s reach and jumped from the catwalk, splashing into the shallow lake of fluid covering the floor. She ran to safety behind a large gearbox and peered over the top to watch the conflict.

Now that the girl was out of the way, Norman charged up the short flight of steps and dove at the hunchback. Stenchley swung the pipe blindly, the steel clanging off Norman’s thick metal chest and knocking him off balance. Before Norman could regain his footing, Stenchley swatted the cat off his back, sending it smacking into the wall, then scrambled away behind the next row of cylinders. Norman chased after him, knocking into pipes and valves, causing blasts of steam to shoot everywhere. Stenchley ran between the columns into a corner. With the wild killer trapped, Norman lunged at him. The one-armed robot snatched Stenchley up by his shirt and shook him like a rag doll.

“Where is Master Hibble?” Norman demanded.

Stenchley, eyes bulging and dizzy from being shaken, had managed to hang on to the pipe, which he now brought smashing down on the robot’s head. Norman was momentarily dazed and staggered a bit, but did not let go of the madman. Before Norman could recover, Stenchley blindly swung the pipe again. This time, the blow glanced
off the robot and hit the nearest cylinder dead center. The glass casing exploded, sending the noxious blue fluid inside blasting out at Norman. The robot tumbled over the railing and fell crashing to the floor, the gushing liquid pouring over him.

The moisture caused several of the robot’s key circuit groups to short out, and he lay twitching and sparking, unable to get up.

Josephine ran over and tried to pull him to his feet, but the steel man was far too heavy.

“Norman, you have to get up!” she insisted. “He’ll kill us all!”

“No-no-no need for concern, madame!” he answered, his voice mechanism sputtering. “I am only momentarily incapacitated…pacitated…pacitated…”

“Oh, no!” she shrieked. “It’s getting out!”

Norman looked up to see a large creature of unknown species climbing out of the shattered glass cylinder. The thing swayed unsteadily, dripping hoses and cables hanging from its body and neck. Then Stenchley stumbled over with the pipe and swung, breaking open the next cylinder. A waterfall of fluid gushed out and bowled Stenchley over. The creature that emerged this time was even larger and more dangerous looking than the previous one.

Laughing madly, Stenchley struggled to his feet, ran to the next cylinder, and smashed it as well, releasing another of the bizarre creatures in a flood of blue liquid. The hunchback went right down the line, slamming the pipe into the glass tanks, giggling like a child at each new monstrosity that emerged.

“Must find Master Hib…Hib…Hibble…” Norman said to Josephine.

“He’s over there!” Josephine said. She pointed across the lab to the contraption behind the empty gurney. The boy’s jacket and glasses lay strewn on the floor, his body just visible through a small window set into the machine’s hatch.

“That ain’t no tanning bed,” said Felix. “We gotta get him out of there now!”

Felix and Josephine ran to the machine and tried to open the hatch, but found that it was locked tight. There wasn’t even a handle or lever to pull on.

“Press a button or something!” said Felix. “There has to be a release catch somewhere.”

Josephine pressed and punched and pulled every likely-looking button and switch on the control panel, but the door remained sealed tight.

“Break the glass!” Felix suggested.

Josephine pounded the window with her fists, but it was inches thick and reinforced with an embedded mesh of wire. She found a wrench and began hammering at the window, but wasn’t strong enough to break the glass.

“It’s too thick!” she grunted. The thought flashed through her mind that she should’ve done more push-ups in PE class.

“Rusty, we need you!” Felix shouted to the robot. “Can you walk?”

Norman struggled in vain to get to his feet. His internal damage control systems whirred and clicked, trying to reroute circuits and bypass malfunctioning parts, but the damage was too widespread.

“I regret to say I am rather discombob-bob-bobulated,” Norman said, matter-of-factly. “My right arm appears to be my only working-king-king limb.”

With great determination, the faithful old robot reached out his hand and tried to drag himself across the flooded floor toward his master. His heavy steel body was deadweight, however, and he was able to move only inches at a time.

Meanwhile, Stenchley completed his cylinder-bashing spree. When all the containers were shattered, their bizarre contents twisting and flopping around on the floor like newborn demons, he threw back his head and howled. A few of the creatures had already gotten to their feet and started moving around. They began sniffing and growling at each other like a pack of wild dogs, their strength building with each passing second.

Felix’s eyes grew wide. “Don’t look now, sister. I think the natives are getting restless.”

As the creatures snapped their teeth hungrily, Josephine could see that it was only a matter of time before the things noticed them. She had to get Thaddeus out of the machine now.

Stenchley, cackling madly, seemed to have no fear of the creatures. He made an angry guttural bark and came splashing through
the blue liquid toward Josephine, Felix, and Norman, knocking into a couple of the creatures as he came. The electrical leads on the helmet bounced wildly around his head like Medusa’s snakes.

“Here comes trouble!” warned Felix, hopping onto the top of the console, readying himself for a fight.

Josephine glanced over her shoulder at Stenchley as she banged the locked hatch harder with the wrench, each swing sending a stab of pain into her shoulder where Stenchley’s filthy teeth had pierced her skin. She could almost feel the army of bacteria that was surely swarming over the wound.

Finally, a crack appeared in the glass of the hatch’s window. “It’s starting to break!” she said. “Try to keep him away. I need a little more time!”

Felix arched his back and twitched his tail angrily. He snapped his claws out like switchblades and summoned up an impressive growl as the killer came his way.

Stenchley never made it that far. As he bounded over Norman’s prone figure toward Josephine and Felix, the robot’s steel claw shot up and clamped onto the madman’s ankle. Stenchley crashed to the floor and the pipe flew out of his hands, rolling to a stop at the feet of the huge buffalo-headed creature.

Stenchley thrashed and twisted to try and free himself from the robot’s iron grip, but Norman’s remaining arm was as strong as ever. His claw squeezed the madman’s ankle tighter and tighter, until Stenchley shrieked.

The huge buffalo-headed thing became interested in the tubular object that had clanged to the floor and landed at its feet, obviously trying to determine if it was edible. It nudged the pipe with its black muzzle, sniffing and licking at it. With every nudge, it moved the thing a little closer to Stenchley and Norman.

The hunchback stretched for the pipe, kicking at Norman’s head with all his might, but the robot only squeezed harder. Stenchley got a finger on the pipe, then two fingers. The buffalo-headed beast bit at the pipe, moving it another inch in the madman’s direction. In one swift motion, Stenchley’s fingers grabbed the pipe and swung it hard at Norman’s head.

In the split second it took for the pipe to swing through the air toward his head, the robot’s mechanical brain calculated its speed and trajectory, and generated a probable damage assessment. Unless Norman released Stenchley’s ankle and rolled away from the blow, there was a 98.6 percent chance that the robot’s central control circuits would be destroyed and all his systems would shut down. On the other hand, if Norman released the killer’s ankle, there was a 76 percent chance his master might be harmed.

The decision was simple. Even if it meant his own destruction, Norman would never allow the killer to endanger his master.

The robot squeezed harder.

Stenchley screamed in pain just as the pipe crashed into Norman’s steel forehead.

Norman lay forlorn and motionless on the lab floor, the red lights of his eyes now dark. Though his arm was missing and his head broken open like a steel melon, its jumble of wires and circuits now twisted and mangled, the noble machine-man still held the hunchback’s ankle firmly in his grasp.

Fetid Stenchley pulled and kicked at the cold steel hand, trying to pry the robot’s fingers from his leg. He banged on it with the pipe, but had no success. He may as well have been in leg irons.

The madman looked around and saw Josephine and Felix trying to open the hatch on the machine that held Thaddeus’s body. Stenchley, with his leg now tethered to the heavy robot, was like a mad dog on a short leash. He grunted and swung the pipe as he stretched toward Josephine.

Felix dashed in and out of range, jabbing and slashing at Stenchley quickly, then jumping back to safety again. “Rusty!” he called to his old friend. “Speak to me, Rusty!” But Norman did not move.

“Felix, look out!” called Josephine.

The cat easily dodged a flurry of the madman’s blows. “Don’t worry, girl. I’ll slice and dice this chump like a—”

Felix’s eyes almost popped out of his head when he looked up and saw that Josephine’s warning was not about Stenchley. The buffalo-headed beast was behind the madman, pawing at the floor. The huge, horned thing had found its legs and was eyeing the little group next to the gurney as if it badly wanted to crash their party. With a loud snort, the thing swatted Stenchley to the floor with a paw the size of a frying pan. It was a knockout blow, leaving Stenchley down for the count.

The beast seemed to briefly consider the hunchback’s culinary merit, but stepped past him and instead took an interest in the bite-sized morsel that was Felix. The beast sniffed the scruffy cat as if it were trying to decide which end to eat first.

“Whoa, now, nice buffalo thingy,” said Felix, his eyes wide. He began inching backward, away from the creature’s large mouth. “You don’t want me, I’m all gristle and bone. Empty calories. If you eat me now, you’ll be hungry again in ten minutes!”

Josephine had to think of a way to distract the creature. She looked around frantically for anything that might be useful and saw something lying under the gurney. Josephine snatched the object from the shallow fluid and was shocked to find herself holding a rotted finger. There was no time to find anything else, so she swallowed her revulsion and eased over toward the hideous creature and his intended snack.

She crept forward carefully, holding the rotten finger out as if it were a delicious treat. Her heart skipped a beat as the thing noticed her approach and raised its awful black head. A low growl as deep as thunder rumbled from inside the beast.

“Here you go, big guy.” She forced her voice to sound calm, even though she was terrified. “I’ve got a nice yummy finger for you. Mmmmm.”

The buffalo-headed creature stuck its nose out toward the finger and sniffed. Josephine wondered if it was sniffing her or the finger.

“Felix?” she whispered, keeping her eyes trained on the beast’s face. “Can you hear me?”

“Roger that,” he whispered back.

“When I count to three, I’ll give it this finger, and we’ll back away slowly, okay?” she said, even softer than before.

“Good plan.”

“One…”

The creature stuck its tongue out to taste the finger.

“Two…”

It liked it. Its eyes suddenly widened, and its nostrils flared. The creature’s gaping red mouth flew open, giving Josephine a close look at its impressive teeth.

“Three.” She tossed the finger into the thing’s mouth.

Josephine and Felix tiptoed backward as softly as they could, watching the beast closely as they went. It swallowed the finger
whole and was immediately ready for another. The creature bellowed insistently and began lumbering after them, snorting gusts of snot as it came.

“I hope you have some more corpse fingers in your pocket!” Felix muttered out of the side of his mouth. “Looks like feeding time at the petting zoo.”

To her horror, Josephine saw that the rest of the mutated creatures were following expectantly behind the buffalo-headed beast. They all wanted a finger.

“I don’t have anything else to give them! What do we do now?”

The buffalo-headed creature must have sensed that Josephine had no more treats to offer, for its demeanor suddenly darkened. It bared its teeth and snarled menacingly.

“Uh-oh,” Felix said. “I think it wants more than a finger!”

All the horrifying creatures, now moving as a grunting, snorting herd, came alongside the buffalo-headed beast. Josephine felt their eyes scanning her, watching every move she made, as they stalked closer and closer.

Josephine backed into a wheeled table loaded with a tray of stainless-steel surgical tools with a clatter. The sudden noise was all it took to cause the mutant horde to charge. The beasts stampeded toward Josephine and Felix. The buffalo-headed beast, leading the pack, lunged at Josephine, its huge jaws snapping at her heels as she turned and ran. Another creature, one that resembled a six-legged
panther, swiped a massive paw at Felix, its knife-size claws slicing the cat’s tail off at the root. The creatures now seemed mad for blood and seemed likely to get it any second.

“There’s a door in the corner, over there!” Felix yelled.

Josephine saw it too, but suspected they’d never make it. The creatures were too big and fast. Still, it was their only hope, and she ran for it faster than she’d ever run before. With every step, she expected to feel teeth tear into her back.

Josephine was truly surprised when she reached the door untouched. She quickly turned the handle and slipped out into a dark corridor. She was about to slam the door behind her when she noticed that Felix was not with her. In fact, he was nowhere in sight.

“Felix!” she yelled. “Where are you?” There was no answer, nor was there time to call again. The creatures were still charging toward her, but not as closely as they should have been. Felix must have distracted them somehow. That had to be the only reason she was still in one piece.

Josephine hated the thought of leaving Thaddeus, Felix, and Norman inside the lab, but she had no choice. With the gang of huge, nightmarish beasts bearing down on her, it would have been suicide to go back inside.

“Felix, I’ll be back. I promise!” she yelled quickly, then jerked the door shut just before the rampaging beasts caught up with her. There was no way to lock the door, nor anything available to barricade it with,
so she ran up a long flight of stone steps, which seemed to be the only way out. She heard the creatures slamming repeatedly into the door behind her as she took the steps two at a time. Thankfully, the beasts did not have a clear understanding of how doorknobs worked. At the top of the steps was a heavy stone door, which she managed to shove open just wide enough to squeeze out.

Josephine found herself outside, behind the mansion in knee-deep snow. The storm had finally blown itself out, and now only an occasional snowflake drifted down. The sky showed signs of a cold gray dawn that was just beginning to break. She ran around to the side of the house toward her crossing place in the wall, certain that she had only seconds to climb to the other side before the awful things came tearing around the house after her. She bounded through the Hibble graveyard, past the crooked stones topped with snow, and scrambled up and over the wall.

She glanced over her shoulder as she raced through the trees on the other side and was glad to see she was not being followed yet. In a moment, she was at her own kitchen door. Josephine waited before going inside, even though she was half frozen, her coat and hat still in the parlor at Hibble Manor. She stood completely still and held her breath, shivering and listening carefully for the sickening sound of hooves and paws behind her.

But there was nothing, only the solemn hush of a place after a heavy snowfall.