Dead Ringer. Lester Del Rey.

Dead Ringer

Lester Del Rey

Galaxy Science Fiction 1956

There was nothing, especially on Earth, which could set him free—the truth least of all.

Dane Phillips slouched in the window seat, watching the morning crowds on their way to work and carefully avoiding any attempt to read Jordan’s old face as the editor skimmed through the notes. He had learned to make his tall, bony body seem all loose-jointed relaxation, no matter what he felt. But the oversized hands in his pockets were clenched so tightly that the nails were cutting into his palms.

Every tick of the old-fashioned clock sent a throb racing through his brain. Every rustle of the pages seemed to release a fresh shot of adrenalin into his blood stream. This time, his mind was pleading. It has to be right this time...

Jordan finished his reading and shoved the folder back. He reached for his pipe, sighed, and then nodded slowly. “A nice job of researching, Phillips. And it might make a good feature for the Sunday section, at that.”

It took a second to realize that the words meant acceptance, for Phillips had prepared himself too thoroughly against another failure. Now he felt the tautened muscles release, so quickly that he would have fallen if he hadn’t been braced against the seat.

He groped in his mind, hunting for words, and finding none. There was only the hot, sudden flame of unbelieving hope. And then an almost blinding exultation.

***

Jordan didn’t seem to notice his silence. The editor made a neat pile of the notes, nodding again. “Sure. I like it. We’ve been short of shock stuff lately and the readers go for it when we can get a fresh angle. But naturally you’d have to leave out all that nonsense on Blanding. Hell, the man’s just buried, and his relatives and friends—”

“But that’s the proof.” Phillips stared at the editor, trying to penetrate through the haze of hope that had somehow grown chilled and unreal. His thoughts were abruptly disorganized and out of his control.

Only the urgency remained. “It’s the key evidence. And we’ve got to move fast. I don’t know how long it takes, but even one more day may be too late.”

Jordan nearly dropped the pipe from his lips as he jerked upright to peer sharply at the younger man. “Are you crazy? Do you seriously expect me to get an order to exhume him now? What would it get us, other than lawsuits? Even if we could get the order without cause—which we can’t.”

Then the pipe did fall as he gaped open-mouthed. “My God, you believe all that stuff. You expected us to publish it straight.”

“No,” Dane said thickly. The hope was gone now, as if it had never existed, leaving a numb emptiness where nothing mattered. “No, I guess I didn’t really expect anything. But I believe the facts. Why shouldn’t I?”

He reached for the papers with hands he could hardly control and began stuffing them back into the folder. All the careful documentation, the fingerprints—smudged, perhaps, in some cases, but still evidence enough for anyone but a fool—

“Phillips?” Jordan said questioningly to himself, and then his voice was taking on a new edge. “Phillips. Wait a minute, I’ve got it now. Dane Phillips, not Arthur. Two years on the Trib. Then you turned up on the Register in Seattle? Phillip Dean, or some such name there.”

“Yeah,” Dane agreed. There was no use in denying anything now. “Yeah, Dane Arthur Phillips. So I suppose I’m through here?”

Jordan nodded again and there was a faint look of fear in his expression.

“You can pick up your pay on the way out. And make it quick, before I change my mind and call the boys in white.”

"I'm calling the boys in white with butterfly nets, Dane."

***

It could have been worse. It had been worse before. And there was enough in the pay envelope to buy what he needed—a flash camera, a little folding shovel from one of the surplus houses, and a bottle of good scotch. It would be dark enough for him to taxi out to Oakhaven Cemetery, where Blanding had been buried.

It wouldn’t change the minds of the fools, of course. Even if he could drag back what he might find, without the change being completed, they wouldn’t accept the evidence. He’d been crazy to think anything could change their minds. And they called him a fanatic. If the facts he’d dug up in ten years of hunting wouldn’t convince them, nothing would.

And yet he had to see for himself, before it was too late.

He picked a cheap hotel at random and checked in under an assumed name.

He couldn’t go back to his room while there was a chance that Jordan still might try to turn him in. There wouldn’t be time for Sylvia’s detectives to bother him, probably, but there was the ever-present danger that one of the aliens might intercept the message.

He shivered. He’d been risking that for ten years, yet the likelihood was still a horror to him. The uncertainty made it harder to take than any human-devised torture could be. There was no way of guessing what an alien might do to anyone who discovered that all men were not human—that some were...zombies.

There was the classic syllogism: All men are mortal; I am a man; therefore, I am mortal.

But not Blanding—or Corporal Harding.

It was Harding’s ‘death’ that had started it all during the fighting on Guadalcanal. A grenade had come flying into the foxhole where Dane and Harding had felt reasonably safe. The concussion had knocked Dane out, possibly saving his life when the enemy thought he was dead. He’d come to in the daylight to see Harding lying there, mangled and twisted, with his throat torn. There was blood on Dane’s uniform, obviously spattered from the dead man. It hadn’t been a mistake or delusion; Harding had been dead.

It had taken Dane two days of crawling and hiding to get back to his group, too exhausted to report Harding’s death. He’d slept for twenty hours. And when he awoke, Harding had been standing beside him, with a whole throat and a fresh uniform, grinning and kidding him for running off and leaving a stunned friend behind.

It was no ringer, but Harding himself, complete to the smallest personal memories and personality traits.

***

The pressures of war probably saved Dane’s sanity while he learned to face the facts. All men are mortal; Harding is not mortal; therefore, Harding is not a man. Nor was Harding alone—Dane found enough evidence to know there were others.

The Tribune morgue yielded even more data. A man had faced seven firing squads and walked away. Another survived over a dozen attacks by professional killers. Fingerprints turned up mysteriously ‘copied’ from those of men long dead. Some of the aliens seemed to heal almost instantly; others took days. Some operated completely alone; some seemed to have joined with others. But they were legion.

Lack of a clearer pattern of attack made him consider the possibility of human mutation, but such tissue was too wildly different, and the invasion had begun long before atomics or X-rays. He gave up trying to understand their alien motivations. It was enough that they existed in secret, slowly growing in numbers while mankind was unaware of them.

When his proof was complete and irrefutable, he took it to his editor—to be fired, politely but coldly. Other editors were less polite. But he went on doggedly trying and failing. What else could he do? Somehow, he had to find the few people who could recognize facts and warn them. The aliens would get him, of course, when the story broke, but a warned humanity could cope with them.

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

The truth shall set you free, young man...

Then he met Sylvia by accident after losing his fifth job—a girl who had inherited a fortune big enough to spread his message in paid ads across the country. They were married before he found she was hard-headed about her money. She demanded a full explanation for every cent beyond his allowance. In the end, she got the explanation. And while he was trying to cash the check she gave him, she visited Dr. Buehl, to come back with a squad of quiet, refined strong-arm boys who made sure Dane reached Buehl’s ‘rest home’ safely.

Hydrotherapy...Buehl as the kindly firm father image...analysis...hypnosis that stripped every secret from him, including his worst childhood nightmare.

His father had committed a violent, bloody suicide after one of the many quarrels with Dane’s mother. Dane had found the body.

Two nights after the funeral, he had dreamed of his father’s face, horror-filled, at the window. He knew now that it was a normal nightmare, caused by being forced to look at the face in the coffin, but the shock had lasted for years. It had bothered him again, after his discovery of the aliens, until a thorough check had proved without doubt that his father had been fully human, with a human, if tempestuous, childhood behind him.

***

Dr. Buehl was delighted. “You see, Dane? You know it was a nightmare, but you don’t really believe it even now. Your father was an alien monster to you—no adult is quite human to a child. And that literal-minded self, your subconscious, saw him after he died. So there are alien monsters who return from death. Then you come to from a concussion. Harding is sprawled out unconscious, covered with blood—probably your blood, since you say he wasn’t wounded, later. But after seeing your father, you can’t associate blood with yourself—you see it as a horrible wound on Harding. When he turns out to be alive, you’re still in partial shock, with your subconscious dominant. And that has the answer already. There are monsters who come back from the dead. An exaggerated reaction, but nothing really abnormal. We’ll have you out of here in no time.”

No non-directive psychiatry for Buehl. The man beamed paternally, chuckling as he added what he must have considered the clincher.

“Anyhow, even zombies can’t stand fire, Dane, so you can stop worrying about Harding. I checked up on him. He was burned to a crisp in a hotel fire two months ago.”

It was logical enough to shake Dane’s faith, until he came across Milo Blanding’s picture in a magazine article on society in St. Louis. According to the item, Milo was a cousin of the Blandings, whose father had vanished in Chile as a young man, and who had just rejoined the family. The picture was of Harding.

An alien could have gotten away by simply committing suicide and being carried from the rest home, but Dane had to do it the hard way, watching his chance and using commando tactics on a guard who had come to accept him as a harmless nut.

In St. Louis, he’d used the ‘Purloined Letter’ technique to hide—going back to newspaper work and using almost his real name. It had seemed to work, too. But he’d been less lucky about Harding-Blanding. The man had been in Europe on some kind of a tour until his return only this last week.

Dane had seen him just once then—but long enough to be sure it was Harding—before he died again.

This time, it was in a drunken auto accident that seemed to be none of his fault, but left his body a mangled wreck.

***

It was almost dark when Dane dismissed the taxi at the false address, a mile from the entrance to the cemetery. He watched it turn back down the road, then picked up the valise with his camera and folding shovel. He shivered as he moved reluctantly ahead. War had proved that he would never be a brave man and the old fears of darkness and graveyards were still strong in him. But he had to know what the coffin contained now, if it wasn’t already too late.

It represented the missing link in his picture of the aliens. What happened to them during the period of regrowth? Did they revert to their natural form? Were they at all conscious while the body reshaped itself into wholeness? Dane had puzzled over it night after night, with no answer.

Nor could he figure how they could escape from the grave. Perhaps a man could force his way out of some of the coffins he had inspected. The soil would still be soft and loose in the grave and a lot of the coffins and the boxes around them were strong in appearance only. A determined creature that could exist without much air for long enough might make it. But there were other caskets that couldn’t be cracked, at least without the aid of outside help.

What happened when a creature that could survive even the poison of embalming fluids and the draining of all the blood woke up in such a coffin? Dane’s mind skittered from it, as always, and then came back to it reluctantly.

There were still accounts of corpses turned up with the nails and hair grown long in the grave. Could normal tissues stand the current tricks of the morticians to have life enough for such growth? The possibility was absurd. Those cases had to be aliens—ones who hadn’t escaped. Even they must die eventually in such a case—after weeks and months. It took time for hair to grow.

And there were stories of corpses that had apparently fought and twisted in their coffins still. What was it like for an alien then, going slowly mad while it waited for true death? How long did madness take?

He shivered again, but went steadily on while the cemetery fence appeared in the distance. He’d seen Blanding’s coffin—and the big, solid metal casket around it that couldn’t be cracked by any amount of effort and strength. He was sure the creature was still there, unless it had a confederate. But that wouldn’t matter. An empty coffin would also be proof.

***

Dane avoided the main gate, unsure about whether there would be a watchman or not. A hundred feet away, there was a tree near the ornamental spikes of the iron fence. He threw his bag over and began shinnying up. It was difficult, but he made it finally, dropping onto the soft grass beyond. There was the trace of the Moon at times through the clouds, but it hadn’t betrayed him, and there had been no alarm wire along the top of the fence.

He moved from shadow to shadow, his hair prickling along the base of his neck. Locating the right grave in the darkness was harder than he had expected, even with an occasional brief use of the small flashlight. But at last he found the marker that was serving until the regular monument could arrive.

His hands were sweating so much that it was hard to use the small shovel, but the digging of foxholes had given him experience and the ground was still soft from the gravediggers’ work. He stopped once, as the Moon came out briefly. Again, a sound in the darkness above left him hovering and sick in the hole. But it must have been only some animal.

He uncovered the top of the casket with hands already blistering.

Then he cursed as he realized the catches were near the bottom, making his work even harder.

He reached them at last, fumbling them open. The metal top of the casket seemed to be a dome of solid lead, and he had no room to maneuver, but it began swinging up reluctantly, until he could feel the polished wood of the coffin.

Dane reached for the lid with hands he could barely control. Fear was thick in his throat now. What could an alien do to a man who discovered it? Would it be Harding there—or some monstrous thing still changing?

How long did it take a revived monster to go mad when it found no way to escape?

He gripped the shovel in one hand, working at the lid with the other.

Now, abruptly, his nerves steadied, as they had done whenever he was in real battle. He swung the lid up and began groping for the camera.

His hand went into the silk-lined interior and found nothing. He was too late. Either Harding had gotten out somehow before the final ceremony or a confederate had already been here. The coffin was empty.

***

There were no warning sounds this time—only hands that slipped under his arms and across his mouth, lifting him easily from the grave. A match flared briefly and he was looking into the face of Buehl’s chief strong-arm man.

“Hello, Mr. Phillips. Promise to be quiet and we’ll release you. Okay?” At Dane’s sickened nod, he gestured to the others. “Let him go. And, Tom, better get that filled in. We don’t want any trouble from this.”

Surprise came from the grave a moment later. “Hey, Burke, there’s no corpse here.”

Burke’s words killed any hopes Dane had at once. “So what? Ever hear of cremation? Lots of people use a regular coffin for the ashes.”

“He wasn’t cremated,” Dane told him. “You can check up on that.” But he knew it was useless.

“Sure, Mr. Phillips. We’ll do that.” The tone was one reserved for humoring madmen. Burke turned, gesturing. “Better come along, Mr. Phillips. Your wife and Dr. Buehl are waiting at the hotel.”

The gate was open now, but there was no sign of a watchman; if one worked here, Sylvia’s money would have taken care of that, of course. Dane went along quietly, sitting in the rubble of his hopes while the big car purred through the morning and on down Lindell Boulevard toward the hotel.

Once he shivered, and Burke dug out hot brandied coffee. They had thought of everything, including a coat to cover his dirt-soiled clothes as they took him up the elevator to where Buehl and Sylvia were waiting for him.

"Everything's going to be okay, Honey."

She had been crying, obviously, but there were no tears or recriminations when she came over to kiss him. Funny, she must still love him—as he’d learned to his surprise he loved her. Under different circumstances...

“So you found me?” he asked needlessly of Buehl. He was operating on purely automatic habits now, the reaction from the night and his failure numbing him emotionally. “Jordan got in touch with you?”

Buehl smiled back at him. “We knew where you were all along, Dane. But as long as you acted normal, we hoped it might be better than the home. Too bad we couldn’t stop you before you got all mixed up in this.”

“So I suppose I’m committed to your booby-hatch again?”

Buehl nodded, refusing to resent the term. “I’m afraid so, Dane—for a while, anyhow. You’ll find your clothes in that room. Why don’t you clean up a little? Take a hot bath, maybe. You’ll feel better.”

***

Dane went in, surprised when no guards followed him. But they had thought of everything. What looked like a screen on the window had been recently installed and it was strong enough to prevent his escape. Blessed are the poor, for they shall be poorly guarded.

He was turning on the shower when he heard the sound of voices coming through the door. He left the water running and came back to listen. Sylvia was speaking.

“—seems so logical, so completely rational.”

“It makes him a dangerous person,” Buehl answered, and there was no false warmth in his voice now. “Sylvia, you’ve got to admit it to yourself. All the reason and analysis in the world won’t convince him he’s wrong. This time we’ll have to use shock treatment. Burn over those memories, fade them out. It’s the only possible course.”

There was a pause and then a sigh. “I suppose you’re right.”

Dane didn’t wait to hear more. He drew back, while his mind fought to accept the hideous reality. Shock treatment. The works, if what he knew of psychiatry was correct. Enough of it to erase his memories—a part of himself.

It wasn’t therapy Buehl was considering; it couldn’t be.

It was the answer of an alien that had a human in its hands—one who knew too much.

He might have guessed. What better place for an alien than in the guise of a psychiatrist?

Where else was there the chance for all the refined, modern torture needed to burn out a man’s mind? Dane had spent ten years in fear of being discovered by them—and now Buehl had him.

Sylvia? He couldn’t be sure. Probably she was human. It wouldn’t make any difference. There was nothing he could do through her. Either she was part of the game or she really thought him mad.

Dane tried the window again, but it was hopeless. There would be no escape this time. Buehl couldn’t risk it. The shock treatment—or whatever Buehl would use under the name of shock treatment—would begin at once. It would be easy to slip, to use an overdose of something, to make sure Dane was killed.

Or there were ways of making sure it didn’t matter. They could leave him alive, but take his mind away.

In alien hands, human psychiatry could do worse than all the medieval torture chambers.

***

The sickness grew in his stomach as he considered the worst that could happen. Death he could accept, if he had to. He could even face the chance of torture by itself, as he had accepted the danger while trying to have his facts published. But to have his mind taken from him, a step at a time—to watch his personality, his ego, rotted away under him—and to know that he would wind up as a drooling idiot...

He made his decision, almost as quickly as he had come to realize what Buehl must be.

There was a razor in the medicine chest. It was a safety razor, of course, but the blade was sharp and it would be big enough. There was no time for careful planning. One of the guards might come in at any moment if they thought he was taking too long.

Some fear came back as he leaned over the wash basin, staring at his throat, fingering the suddenly murderous blade. But the pain wouldn’t last long—a lot less than there would be under shock treatment, and less pain. He’d read enough to feel sure of that.

Twice he braced himself and failed at the last second. His mind flashed out in wild schemes, fighting against what it knew had to be done.

The world still had to be warned. If he could escape, somehow...if he could still find a way...he couldn’t quit, no matter how impossible things looked.

But he knew better. There was nothing one man could do against the aliens in this world they had taken over. He’d never had a chance. Man had been chained already by carefully developed ridicule against superstition, by carefully indoctrinated gobbledegook about insanity, persecution complexes, and all the rest.

For a second, Dane even considered the possibility that he was insane.

But he knew it was only a blind effort to cling to life. There had been no insanity in him when he’d groped for evidence in the coffin and found it empty.

He leaned over the wash basin, his eyes focused on his throat, and his hand came down and around, carrying the razor blade through a lethal semicircle.

***

Dane Phillips watched fear give place to sickness on his face as the pain lanced through him and the blood spurted.

He watched horror creep up to replace the sickness while the bleeding stopped and the gash began closing.

By the time he recognized his expression as the same one he’d seen on his father’s face at the window so long ago, the wound was completely healed.

End

I’d almost forgotten this one. On the Nature of the Gods, by Louis Shalako is a weird-western, science-fiction, steam-punk sort of a book. The paperback is available for only $10.99 + S & H. The ebook version a very low $0.75 from Amazon.

Thank you for reading.