Humanoid Puppets

by Ray Barry, Denis Hughes

Genres: Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Alien Contact; Space Opera

Synopsis

Partly, it was Gina's curiosity that started the trouble. If she had never gone to Morgan Tors to search for the fabulous puppets she might not have broken the seal of Thaa-an. But the damage was done and the full force of elemental evil unleashed. Gina found herself plunged into an adventure such as no mortal being would choose of their own free will...

Release date: October 27, 2016

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 95

Sample

The coming of dusk, further intensified by banked-up ‘storm-clouds way back of the hills, did little to relieve that vague sense of discomfort which Gina always associated With Great-Aunt Tabitha’s lonely home. Morgan Tors, the house itself, was an eerie place to start with, and its surroundings, its masses of gloomy old furniture in Colonial style, its weather-darkened cedar-wood shingles and peeling paint-work, all added to the girl’s inherent uneasiness when she went there. But with night coming on, a storm brewing in the mountains, and the knowledge that Great-Aunt Tabitha’s restless spirit might be watching her efforts, Gina was conscious of even more deeply-rooted nervousness than usual.

“I always did hate this place,” she muttered, glancing round in the dim and cluttered half-light of the entrance hall. She was frightened, but wouldn’t admit it. And she was goaded by the most powerful influence in the world curiosity.

At her back the front door stood ajar, swinging a little in the rising wind that moaned through the cedars on either side of the isolated house. Out on the driveway the Ford convertible was a means of escape. She had only to turn round and run for it, drop behind the wheel and start up. An hour’s drive would take her into town, into brightly-lit Los Angeles, along Sunset Boulevard past the glaring neons and coloured fronts she knew so well.

But Gina did not turn and run for the car. She was here for a purpose and meant to carry it through. Even her sense of guilt at having lied to Martin about not being able to keep their evening date failed to change her mind. Martin would understand. He’d have to, and if he didn’t it would be too bad. She simply had to find out about the puppets.

Very slowly, her breath coming more quickly than usual, the dark-haired girl in the flowered two-piece crossed the hall and headed for the creaking shadows of the stairway. On the mohair seat of the Ford outside lay a wide-brimmed summer hat. She still wore thin lace gloves, scarlet sandals and a bandeau round her forehead. She looked very small and afraid as she mounted the stairs. Great Aunt Tabitha was dead, but if her spirit was watching the girl it would have smiled, a smile full of promise, a gloating smile such as one might give watching someone innocent and unwary walking freely into danger. For that was exactly what Gina Collis was doing; she was not aware of it, had not thought about it, in fact, and only knew fear on account of stories she had listened to as a child. It was partly because of the stories, partly because of her own inordinate curiosity, and partly out of sheer bravado that she was here in the gathering dusk instead of dining and drinking amid the bright lights with Martin for company. At bottom she recognised these things, but still she was afraid. No matter how hard she tried to talk herself out of it, there was fear that seemed to breed in the house itself. Morgan Tors was disturbing even in bright sunshine; at nightfall it was a place of dread to a sensitive mind.

At the head of the stairs a long, dark corridor extended away on both sides, giving access to the east and west wings of the rambling building. Dust, even after so short a time, had accumulated thickly on the banisters and overcrowded furniture. Whichever way she looked, Gina saw the visible, tangible evidence of an old lady who until her death less than three weeks ago had lived here among a mass of faded splendour. Great-Aunt Tabitha had lived entirely alone, her only contact with the modern world being through an old coloured servant almost as ancient as she herself had been. And now she was gone, no more real than the dust that stirred slightly as Gina moved her foot across the upstairs corridor.

And all this was Gina’s—even the dust and silence.

The girl herself made no bones about it; she had never expected to inherit her great-aunt’s wealth; she had never been a favourite of Tabitha’s, had in fact been terrified of the old woman for as long as she could remember. But Tabitha’s will had been read on the day of her funeral and everything she died possessed of was Gina’s now.

Which included the puppets, always assuming that they really existed.

Gina glanced over her shoulder with a nervous start as the first rumble of thunder stirred the echoes in the pinon woods that clad the hills. It was solely on account of the puppets that she had lied to Martin and sneaked up to Morgan Tors. Now she wished with all her heart that she had been more sensible, but he had grinned in such a knowing fashion, had been so sceptical without saying much, when she told him about the puppets that she had sworn to find them and confront him with their actuality—a thing he and most other people doubted.

“But, darling,” she had said, “you study this kind of thing! You of all people should believe the stories!”

And Martin had smiled that lazy, teasing smile of his and then kissed her gently. But he had not answered her. Well, if she could find whatever the key fitted, it might lead her to the puppets. Then it would be her turn to jeer. But she would do it kindly, of course. After all, Martin meant a great deal to her; she valued him far more than her new-found wealth. But she must prove her point, and the key in her glove, which until that very morning had lain in a safe deposit, was almost certain to be what she wanted.

She reached the end of the corridor and hesitated outside the door of her great-aunt’s room. She knew what the room was like inside, for on the few occasions on which she had visited Tabitha the old woman had been lying there in bed. Gina remembered that whenever she saw her great-aunt she had visualised Catherine the Great. Tabitha had been just as despotic, just as dictatorial and enigmatic. Even now, when her body was already decaying in the hot Californian earth, the presence of her remained almost as vivid and real as the faded, monkey-like features of her cosmetic-laden face and piercing blue eyes. Gina glanced round uneasily at the heavy lace hangings, the brass rail of the enormous bed, the dozens of knick-knacks. Everything was there, everything one would look for and expect in such a room even down to a brass pot containing a monster aspidistra, the leaves of which were grey with accumulated dust.

Lightning flickered unsteadily over the massed heads of black-crowned piñon beyond the driveway. Gina, suddenly cold in spite of the warmth, shivered. Her hand went out and switched on the electric light, dispersing the gloom and some part of the oppressive sensation of loneliness in the brooding silence. She breathed more freely now. She was sure that somewhere in this strange house there would be something, some lock or other as yet untried, which the key would fit. Tabitha’s own bedroom, in which the old lady had spent her declining years, seemed the most likely place to begin a search. It would have been simpler, thought the girl, if she had known what she was looking for. A cupboard? A secret room? A chest? She didn’t know. But the key was not a large one.

She stood indecisively, looking about, biting her lower lip nervously, frowning a little. The glare of the electric light glinted in the brushed black hair that rested on her neck, free above the coloured bandeau. For once her brown inquisitive eyes were puzzled and grave. She had been here before since Tabitha’s death, examining her inheritance in company with Martin and her great-aunt’s attorney, a little man with a turnip-shaped head and the fussy manners of a bygone generation. But that was before the key had turned up. It had come via the attorney’s office with a note to the effect that a safe deposit authority had been discovered among Tabitha’s effects. The key was the only item stored, but attached to it had been directions to hand it straight to Gina “… for a number of reasons which will become apparent when she uses it.” Instinctively, the girl had known that those reasons, vaguely though they were hinted at, were connected with the puppets. For that reason alone she would have made every effort to find what the key fitted. In the face of Martin’s gentle disbelief her determination was increased a hundredfold. It piqued her that Martin, a professed student of the occult—a term which Gina assumed would cover all manner of strange things beyond the common ken—refused to accept those stories about her late great-aunt. If she could actually produce the puppets around which they centred at least she would have established their existence, a thing which Martin and others refused to accept. The whole trouble was that no one had actually seen the puppets, or if they had they kept silent on the subject. It was a problem, the solving of which had grown to be tantalisingly important to Gina. So much so that she had even gone to the extent of lying to Martin so as to free herself for this evening.

But now the magnitude of the task was brought home to her forcibly. Morgan Tors was a big house, rambling, crammed with out-dated furniture from cellar to attic, lumbered with the fineries of an old, eccentric woman.

At that moment Gina would gladly have climbed down and turned to Martin for assistance. Had she approached him in the right way he would certainly have honoured her by lending a hand in the search. Her own pride had been a stumbling block, however. She was on her own in this thing, this quest after knowledge, the roots of which were deep in the queer macabre stories she had listened to concerning Great-Aunt Tabitha and the fabulous puppets.

Pulling herself together, Gina made sure that all the drawers and cupboards in the littered room were free to open. Some she had already investigated with a certain curiosity on her previous visits to the house. None were locked now, nor capable of concealing any secrets. It was not until she was on the point of giving up and trying some other part of the house that she realised that standing at the foot of the big brass-trimmed bed was an old trunk covered by the folds of a faded length of casement cloth. Had she not kicked her toe against it absently she would not have given it a thought, but there it was, securely locked and simply crying out for investigation.

Her heartbeat increased as she dropped to her knees in front of the trunk. More precisely it was, a leather-bound chest, secured by means of a hasp and padlock. These were not apparent until she had uncovered it and heaved it out from against the end of the bed. It felt heavy, so that her curiosity rose to fever pitch as she wondered what it contained.

Forgetful of the rapidly increasing sounds of the approaching storm, she fumbled with the key, shaking it from her glove excitedly.

She turned the padlock over, only to find a large wax seal over the keyhole. A double end of red silk ribbon hung down from beneath the seal, inviting her to pull it free. It was the sight of the seal with its queer hieroglyphic sign more than anything else which Convinced Gina that this was what she sought. Such a seal, and the mumbo-jumbo attached to it, was exactly what a person like Great-Aunt Tabitha would have indulged in.

The deep-throated roll of thunder echoed loudly as her fingers tightened on the ribbon. The key lay immediately below the lock, on . . .