The Avram Davidson Treasury (64 page)

“Gnumph,” he said, after helping her on with her clothes. “You seem in excellent physical condition, exception of thin, skimpy figure, of course. The medicine substance; it is a glandular one which I prepared myself from—but details you would not be fond. I will dilute with water,” he said, moving to the sink. But nothing came from the faucet save a wheeze, a grind, and a trickle of rust.

“Ah, I had forgotten. Repairs; they had informed me. No water for a while. So. Another liquid. Not alcoholic. What? Ho!” He took up the small bottle of celery tonic. It was still half full, and he pulled the odd stopper out of the odd bottle and emptied the carbonated beverage into it. Swirled it several times. Handed it to her.

Well! This certainly beat paying a drugstore, and it was better than an injection! She closed her eyes and swallowed. And swallowed. How did it taste? A little like celery and no worse than she had expected. Much easier than exercises ! “How much do I owe you?” she asked.

Once again the liquid look. “Owe? Oh. Please pay me with the pleasure of listening with me some of my maternally native music. Here is one gramophone. I shall play some gamalan.”

After quite some of this unusual music the doctor asked how she felt. She said she felt sort of funny; he said he would examine her again. She said she would go to the bathroom first; and then, removing her shoes and holding them in her hands, she silently left the premises of Songhabhongbhong Van Leeuwenhoek, Dr. Philosof, and went home.

After a night of odd and restless dreaming, in which she seemed to be rather high up in a greenish place with lots of grass and trees and some rather, well, funny-peculiar people, Dorothy awoke with a faint sick-headache. Was it—? No, it wasn’t; wrong time of the month, for one thing, and it really didn’t feel like that anyway. She drifted back to sleep, this time with no dreams, and awoke again. As she stirred in her bed the thought came that she
did
feel heavier than usual. The medicine! Had it begun to work so soon? She hurried to the bathroom and hopped onto the scales. As she looked down she realized two things: For one, she
had
certainly gained weight! And, for another, her feet were covered with dark hair.

“Oh, my
God
!” she whimpered and, slipping off her nightie, she turned to face the full-length mirror.

It wasn’t just her feet.

It was all of her.

As far as she could see, and even in the mirror she couldn’t see all of her—she had turned into a gorilla.

It was certainly better than turning into a giant cockroach. But that was all she could think of in its favor.

The pounding on the door had been going on for a long time. Of course it was impossible to let anyone see her—and what good luck that her father had gotten one of the irregularly occurring jobs which kept the household going, and was away helping build sets on location somewhere. She’d better speak through the door. But someone was speaking through the door to
her
!

“I know you’re in there, hairy!” the voice was shouting.
Hairy
! Then…then they already
knew
! How—? Who—?

She peered through a gap in her bedroom curtain, being careful not to move it, but in vain! Though she scuttled away in terror, whoever was outside began tapping, rapping on the bedroom window. Suddenly she remembered whom she’d seen. Not “hairy”! The man was shouting for “Harry,” her father!

Dorothy’s mother, smelling of whisky and perfume, had vanished from their lives some years ago—but she had left debts. Lots of debts. Dad had borrowed to pay the debts, then he borrowed to pay the money he had borrowed.

The whole thing had spiraled and doubled and tripled, and then fallen into the hands of the Greater Los Angeles Punitive Collection Agency. In fact, as she tiptoed into the living room she saw that another of the familiar cards had been slipped under the door. Bang! Bang! Bang! “
I know you’re in there, Harry! Better open up and let me talk, Harry! We can’t wait forever, Harry
!”

On the card was printed the name of Hubbard E. Glutt, District Agent. Mr. Glutt wasn’t an entire stranger. He wore a once-white shirt and a once-gray suit, both with ingrown ketchup stains, and he had
extremely
hairy nostrils. It could not be said, even with the best of intentions, that he was a very nice man. His breath smelled, too.

“Go away, please go away,” Dorothy said through the door. She was thankful to note that her voice was unchanged. She wasn’t thankful for much else. “My dad’s not in—”

“I don’t care who’s not in,” yelped Mr. Glutt. “Ya gunna pay sompthing?”

“But I have no money!”

Mr. Glutt made a noise between a grunt and a snarl. “Same old story: ‘My dad’s not in and I have no money.’ Huh? Still not in? Well, I gotta sudgestion.” Here his voice sank and grew even nastier. “Lem
me
in, and I’ll tell ya how we can, mmm, take mebbe twenty dollas affa the bill, liddle gurl, huh, huh, huh…”

Dorothy could stand it no longer. She jerked the door open and pulled Mr. Glutt inside. The scream had not even reached his throat when Dorothy’s new-formed fangs sank into it.

As though in a blur, she dragged the suddenly inert body into the breakfast nook. And feasted on it.

Moments passed.

The blur vanished. Oh God, what had she done? Killed and partially eaten someone, was what. But how? Gorillas don’t eat people, gorillas eat bananas…
don’t
they?

Therefore she wasn’t even a gorilla. She was some sort of monster—like a werewolf? A were-gorilla? Trembling with shock and horror and fear, she stared at her image in the big front hall mirror…and gave a squeal of terrified loathing. The hair that covered her was now darker and coarser, and her facial features had coarsened, too. Her fingernails had become talons, although fragments of the Pearly Peach nail polish still remained. And examining her mouth as the squeal died away, she saw that it was full of yellow fangs. She began to sob.

How could something like this have
hap
pened to her? That’s what girls always asked when they found themselves unwantedly pregnant—as if they didn’t
know
how! But this was worse than pregnancy, a million times worse…and besides, pregnancy had a well-known cause, and she really couldn’t imagine what had caused
this
.

Then a sudden thought came, echoing like a clap of thunder, illuminated as by a flash of lightning: that…that weird glandular-extract
med
icine which she had taken only yesterday! To make her figure fuller. Well, fuller it certainly was! But oh, at what a price! There was nothing to do but call the doctor and have him come over, and give her something to undo its effects. Only—only—would he make house calls? Well, she’d just have to see.

Only alas, she could not see. The most searching examination of the L.A. phone books, all several of them, failed to show any listing for a Doctor Van Leeuwenhoek…however spelled. Nor could she remember a phone in his small apartment. She was afraid to go out as she was now, at least by day. At night? Maybe. If anybody found out about what she’d done to Mr. Glutt they’d have her jailed…or even killed…or put in a mental home. She’d have to conceal the body, run away and hide in the woods of Griffith Park, high in the Hollywood Hills, where she would roam and kill like a wild beast…until she was finally discovered and slain with a silver bullet.

At this thought she gave another tearful squeal.

Weeping, Dorothy cleaned the blood off the Spanish-style tiles in the entry hall and kitchen with her O-Cello sponge mop, and methodically put the remains of the collection agent in a large plastic bag, which she placed in the refrigerator to eat later. Oh, how lucky that her father wouldn’t be home for another week! She had until then to decide what to do. Well, at least she had enough food.

Although, between weeping and listening to Jack Benny, the Whistler, and Stella Dallas on the radio, and watching Uncle Milton Berle and Kukla, Fran, and Ollie cavort on their prized new television set, she grew hungry again—she realized that she had no appetite at all for the rest of Mr. Hubbard E. Glutt. Evidently she had partially devoured him out of mere rage and shock. Listlessly, Dorothy ate some lasagna instead.

And so passed the remainder of the week inside the psuedo-Spanish house in the Hollywood foothills. A few times Angela or Luanne or other friends, and twice religious representatives of two different exclusive Truths, came to the door (besides phone calls)—Dorothy said (over the phone and through the door) that she had a highly contagious flu. She gave the same excuse to the newsboy, the Avon Lady, and the highly confused Welcome Wagon Woman.

As the week’s end approached with no thoughts except flight into the hills, etc., her mood became almost frantic. Then one glorious morning she woke to find the hair vanished, her body lighter, and her teeth and nails returned to normal. She hastened to replace the Pearly Peach Polish.

But…wasn’t there something
else
she had to do? The answer came at the week’s absolute end, with her body again distressingly short and thin—but human. Clicking her tongue reproachfully at her forgetfulness, she dressed quickly and toted Mr. Hubbard E. Glutt’s very chilled remains in their plastic sack, and deposited them fairly late at night in a public trash bin.

Dad Harry returned on schedule, sunburned and exhausted, and demanding fried chicken and beer. Then he went to bed, and Dorothy, again in her padded bra, tight sweater, bouffant skirt, and (very) high heels, went back to school. She felt relieved, she felt worried. A visit to the place where Doctor Funny Name lived disclosed empty windows and a FOR RENT sign: Would the horrible condition recur? Oh, how she hoped not! Better to remain thin and skimpy all the days of her life—and never get into the movies at all!

Luanne and Angela were happy to see her again. They chattered away about the trifling things which had happened at Hollywood High during her absence, and now and again Dorothy squealed with interest which was only sometimes simulated. Would it happen again?

Early one night, about a month later, feeling vaguely ill at ease, she went for a stroll. The malaise increased; she thought a trip to a ladies room would help, but the one in the park was now closed. There was nothing to do but go behind a bush; and it was there, as she adjusted her dress, that she felt her hands again come in contact with—a shaggy pelt. She let out a squeal of anguish. And fainted.

It was a lucky thing that her Dad was once again away, this time on his monthly week-long visit to his girl friend in the unfashionable section of Malibu, the girl friend’s mother then making
her
monthly visit to her other daughter in Chula Vista.

Now it was impossible for Dorothy to fit into her clothes, so she made a bundle and dropped them into a debris receptacle as she passed it by. How to get home? Slinking was the only way, but as she sought out the most dimly lit streets, she only seemed to get further from home rather than nearer. And, oh!
Was
she suddenly hungry! She fought and fought against the desire for immediate food, but her stomach growled menacingly. Well, she knew how wasteful the average American family was. So of a sudden she lifted up the lid of a garbage can near a private home, with intent to delve into its contents.

No sooner had she lifted off the lid and bent over to examine what was inside, than there appeared suddenly, out of the
chiaroscuro
, the figure of a well-nourished early middle-aged man with a small moustache. He had a large brown-paper bag in his hands which looked like garbage for disposal; astonishment was simultaneous. Dorothy squealed and dropped the lid with a clatter. The man said, “Gevalt!” and dropped the brown-paper bag, then recovered it almost immediately. Dorothy would have fled, but there was a high fence behind her. In theory she could have turned upon him with tooth and fang and claw, but unlike Mr. Glutt, this man offered no gross importunity. And beneath the astonishment he seemed to have rather a kindly face.

“For a moment you had me fooled,” said he. “A better-looking gorilla suit I never seen. What, you’re embarrassed. Someone should see you rifling the garbage can, you should have what to eat?”

He shook his head from side to side, uttered a heavy sigh which seemed not devoid of sympathy.

“I’m not wearing a gorilla suit!” exclaimed Dorothy.

This time the shake of the head was skeptical. “Listen,” said the man. “That L.A. has one weird what you might call ecology, this I know: possums, coyotes, escaped pythons, the weird pets some people keep because from human beings they don’t find empathy: okay. But go
ril
las? No. Also, gorillas don’t talk. They make clicking noises is what, with an occasional guttural growl, or a squeal. Say. That was some squeal you gave just now. Give it again.”

Dorothy, partly because of relief at finding the man neither hostile nor terrified, partly because of pride that
any
thing she could do should meet with approbation, obliged.

“Not bad. Not. Bad. At. All. I like it. I like it. Listen, why don’t we do this? Come into the house, we’ll have a little something to eat. I’m batching it right now; you like deli stuffed cabbage? Warming up now on the stove. Miffanwy ran away on me; luck with women I have yet to find, but hope I haven’t given up yet, springs eternal in the human breast.” Gently he urged Dorothy forward towards the house.

“Sandra hocked me a tchainik by day and by night, Shelley would gritchet me in kishkas until I could spit blood, I took up with Miffanwy. We’ll eat a little something, we’ll talk a little business—no commitments on either side. What we’ll eat is anyway better than what’s in the garbage can, although gourmet cooking isn’t my line—listen, you wanna know something about shiksas? They never hock you a tchainik, they never gritchet you in kishkas, they don’t kvetch in public places till you could drop dead from the shame; no. All they do is cheat. Watch out for the step.”

Dorothy had seen better kitchens and she had seen worse. However, kitchen decor wasn’t uppermost in her mind; what was uppermost was friendly human contact; also food. The man of the house (“Alfy is the name”) filled her plate with stuffed-cabbage rolls and plied her with tangerines, asked if she preferred milk or cream soda and set out some Danish, pointed to a bowl of cut-up raw vegetables and pointed out that it kept away the dread scurvy, offered her a choice of seeded rye, pumpernickel, and egg-bread.