Image of the Beast and Blown (38 page)

32

Forrest J Ackerman awoke with his head on the desk and
the finally edited package of the latest issue of
Vampirella
beside him. He got up and shook his head.
When he had finished his work this morning, he had
intended to rush down to the post office on Robertson
and mail it out. But he had somehow fallen asleep.

The first thought was: The painting! Had he been
drugged so that it could be stolen again?

But it was leaning against the wall by the desk. He
sighed with relief, part of which could be repressed anger
at Woolston Heepish. Something really should be done
about that fellow. He was not only a thief, he was danger-
ous. Anybody who would get two women to strip in order
to seduce him out of the painting—and before witnesses
—was not only dangerous, he was mad.

Forry stumbled into the kitchen, washed his face in
the sink, and then picked up the bulky envelope contain-
ing
Vampirella.
He was outside before he remembered
that he did not have a car. One more count against
Woolston Heepish!

At that moment, like the Gray Lensman or Batman
arriving to save the situation, the Dummocks drove up.
Renzo crawled out of the car and, on all fours, progressed
slowly towards the house. He was a youth of thirty-five,
of medium height, black haired, ruddy faced, black
moustached, paunched, and skinny legged. Huli, his
wife, could walk, but just barely. She was a short woman
with a magnificent bust, a hawk face, dark hair, and
thick spectacles. She was thirty.

Forry said, "I'd like to borrow your car. I have to run
to the post office."

"All yours," said Renzo, not looking up at him.

"The keys," Forry said. "The keys."

"You want Huli, you can have her. The cunt's all
yours. Just keep me in cigarettes, food, booze, and typing
paper, and she's all yours, Forry, old buddy. Ask her,
she doesn't mind."

"I want the keys to your car, not your wife!" Forry
said loudly.

Renzo continued to crawl towards the door. He turned
his head and said, "Huli! Hurry up, help me up! Got the
keys?"

Huli stood swaying and blinking, looking like a giant
drunken owl. "What keys? To the car or the house?"

"Fuck it! Forry, can you open the door for me?"

Forry looked into the car. As he had suspected, the
keys were still in the ignition. He did not see how Renzo
could have driven in his condition without smashing up,
but the luck of drunkards and egoists had held out.

He walked back and opened the door for the two. After
Renzo had crawled in and Huli had fallen on her face
crossing the threshold, he started to close the door. But he
said, "Don't you dare puke on any of my stuff! You do,
and out you go! Pronto!"

"Why, Forry!" Huli said. "Have we ever puked on
anything of yours?"

"Just my Creature from the Black Lagoon bust," Forry
said. "I forgave you, since it could be cleaned. But if you
vomit on any of my books or paintings, or anything at all
anymore, out you go!"

"You must really be mad at us, Forry darling!" Huli
said. "I've never seen you angry before. I thought you
were a saint!"

"If I puke, you can have Huli," Renzo said, looking
up at Forry from his supine position in the middle of the
floor. "Just so you don't toss our ass out of here. I'm writ-
ing the Great Cosmic Novel now, Forry. Not the Great
American Novel. The Cosmic Novel. It makes Tolstoy,
Dostoyevsky, and Norman Mailer look sick. I'm really
the greatest creator of them all, Forry, my Maecenas,
patron of the arts, protector of the gifted and the genius.
Your name will go down in history as Forrest J (No Pe-
riod) Ackerman, the man who gave Renzo Dummock a
roof over his head, a bed to sleep in, a desk to write on,
food, booze, cigarettes, and typing paper. And got my
typewriter out of hock for me, me, Renzo the Magnifi-
cent."

The pity of it was that Renzo believed that he was the
greatest. He had believed it since he was eighteen. The
world owed him a living because the world was going to

benefit. The world, as typified by Forry Ackerman, owed
it to him.

Dummock had said he would do anything, even suck
cock if he had to, so he could pursue the call of Apollo.
He would do anything except work. Work degraded him,
tired him, took precious time from his writing. It was all
right for Huli to work, she should support him while he
wrote. Too bad Huli's apathy and occasional fits of hysteria
kept her from holding a steady job. But it couldn't be
helped, and if she would suck a few cocks now and then
to keep a roof over their head and booze and cigarettes
and typing paper at his elbow, what was the harm in
that? Forry had turned down an offer by Huli to blow
him. He said that he preferred that she keep the house
clean and act as hostess now and then when he had a big
party. Huli had said she would, but it was easier, and
more fun, sucking cock. She kept her cunt reserved for
Renzo, who got killingly jealous at the thought of another
man sticking his prick into it. So far, she had done a mis-
erable job as a housekeeper.

Forry turned away from them, swearing that he would
kick them out at the first chance, and knowing that he
wouldn't. He got into the car, a beat-up 1960 Ford with
bald tires, and verified what he had suspected. The fuel
indicator was on zero.

Despite this, the motor started up and got him one
block down Olympic before sputtering out. He walked to
the nearest gas station and returned with a canful. Some-
how, he never knew how it worked out, he always bor-
rowed their car when it was out of gas.

When he got back to the house, he found Alys Merrie
sitting on the sofa in the front room. There was an odor of
vomit in the house. Renzo had come through again.

"Hello, Alys!" he said, his heart dropping like an ele-
vator with snapped cables. "What brings you here? And
how did you get in?"

"You gave me a key long ago, remember?"

"And I asked for it back, and you gave it to me," he
said.

"So I had a couple of duplicates made in the interim.
Aren't you glad to see me, Forry? There was a time …"

"Excuse me, I got to attend to something."

He walked to the foot of the steps and looked up. Half-

way to the landing was the nauseating pool. And Huli had
not even bothered to clean it up!

He had returned because he had some vital corres-
pondence to clear up before he went to Wendy's to sleep.
But Renzo's spoor and Alys Merrie were too much to put
up with at this time. He would take off like Seaton after
"Blackie" Duquesne.

Alys Merrie thought differently. She was a blonde of
medium height and good shape, about forty years old. She
had been married, but, on meeting him at a world con-
vention, had, as she put it, "gone ape over that divine
Forry." Forry had been amused and flattered for a long
time, but she had become a nuisance. He wasn't in love
with her, and, while her adulation was pleasing, it got
sticky after a while. Especially since her husband had
threatened to sue him as corespondent.

"The Dummocks are too busy to worry about that
puke," she said. "I went upstairs to see what was going on,
there was so much noise. Would you believe it? That fat-
head was sitting in the chair and Huli was blowing him!
No big deal about that except he was taking notes! Taking
notes! I wonder if he uses his pen for his prick!"

"Why don't you go back up and watch?" Forry said. "I
have to go now, Alys. I've been up all night, my car is
wrecked, I'm exhausted, I'm worried, and ... in short,
I've had it."

"Yes, I know all about that."

He looked at her with amazement. "You know all
about it? Who could have told you?"

"I've been in it from the beginning," she said. She took
a cigarette from her purse, lit it, and looked coolly at him.
She knew he allowed no smoking in the house—except
in one bedroom upstairs—but she was doing this for a
purpose. He decided to ignore the gesture.

"You've been in
what
from the beginning?" he said.
Despite his tiredness, he was becoming interested.

"The whole business. Starting so many years ago that
you would not believe it. Or, if you did, you'd be
frightened. Which you're going to be, anyway, because
you'll believe before I'm done."

He sat down in the chair across the room and said,
"How many years?"

"About ten thousand or so Earth years," she said.

He was silent for a while. Alys Merrie was a great little
kidder when she wasn't mad at him or making love. She
knew well how deeply immersed in science-fiction he was
—sometimes he thought of himself as the leviathan in the
great sea of sci-fi or as a sort of Flying Dutchman of the
outer spaceways—and she sometimes poked fun at him
about it. This did not seem a likely time for it, however.
On the other hand, she just could not be serious.

"Look around you," she said, waving her cigarette.
"Look at all those wild paintings and photographs. Strange
planets, alien forms of life, big-chested, elephant-trunked
Martians; winged men; sentient machines; giant insects;
synthetic humans; what have you. You've been reading
books about weird beings and worlds, and you've col-
lected a monument to science-fiction and fantasy and, in-
cidentally, to yourself. A lifetime of love and labor is
represented here.

"You must believe in this exotic otherworld of yours.
Otherwise, you would never have gone to such unique
lengths to gather the artifacts of this otherworld about
you."

Something was different about Alys Merrie. She had
never talked like this before. She had seemed incapable
of talking so seriously or so fluently.

"Ten thousand years," she said. "Would you believe
that I'm ten thousand years old? No! What about twelve
thousand?"

"Twelve thousand?" he said. "Come on, Alys. I could
believe in ten thousand, but twelve? Don't be ridiculous!"

"I look a hard forty years old, don't I?" she said. "How
about this, Forry?"

It was like watching
She
or
Lost Horizon,
only it was in
reverse. Instead of the beautiful young woman wrinkling
into ghastly old age, it was a case of a woman unwrin-
kling, becoming a beautiful young girl. Helen Gahagan
and Jane Wyatt should have had it so good.

He wished his heart could beat faster. Then he wouldn't
shake so much. So it was true. Everything he had read
and dreamed about was true! Well, maybe not everything.
But at least some of it was true.

"Who and what are you?" he said. The room was be-
ginning to seem a little fuzzy, and the illustrations by Paul,
Finlay, St. John, Bok, and the rest of the wild crew had

taken on three dimensions. He must be in a state of slight
shock.

"Do you like it?" Alys said.

"Of course," Forry said. "But you didn't answer my
question."

"I am a, uh, let's say, a Toc," she said. "We are the
enemies of the Ogs. You met some of them last night.
Fred Pao, Diana Rumbow, Panchita Pocyotl. And Wool-
ston Heepish."

33

"Heepish!" he almost screamed. "You mean Heepish isn't
human?"

"We're not only
not
human," she said. "We're extra-
terrestrial. Extra-solar system. More. Extra-Galactic. The
home of the Tocs is on the fourth planet circling a star
in the Andromeda galaxy."

He thought, I've always been a lucky man. I wanted
only to work in science-fiction, and I was able to make
my living out of it. I wanted to be the greatest collector
of science-fiction and fantasy in the world, and I did that
as naturally and as easily as a snail grows a shell. I need a
job and a publisher wants to put out a series of horror-
movie magazines for children, and who else is more ca-
pable or more willing to edit those? I have known the
greats of this field, I have been their good friend, I have
seen the first men land on the moon, and I hope to see the
first men land on Mars before I die. I have been lucky.

But now, this! I would have rejected this as a dream
that only a lunatic could believe to be true, even if I
have fantasized it many many times. The beings from
outer space make contact with Earthlings through me!

That was not exactly true, of course. If what she said
was correct, the extees had been in contact with Earth-
lings for ten thousand years. But had they revealed
themselves to any before? That was the important thing.

"You're getting too excited, Forry," she said. "I know
you have a thousand questions bubbling in your mind.
But you'll get things straighter and quicker if you'll just
listen quietly to my story. Okay? Good! Lean back and
listen."

There was a planet the size and shape of Earth rotating
around a Sol-type sun on the edge of the Andromeda
galaxy, which was 800,000 light years distant from Earth.
The sky was a blaze of luminous gas and giant stars shin-
ing through the gas. The planet of the Tocs had no moon,
hence was tideless.

The fifth planet out had two small moons but no seas