Spider Page 18

  The Bat Man! Wentworth's eyes quested upward toward the muggy skies that threw back glare of street lights. Instinctively, he flinched. A bat dodged at his face and Wentworth's gun blasted upward deafeningly. The beast was hurled upward by the impact of lead, thudded softly to the pavement. The air was suddenly full of them, dodging, diving, sweeping on the Spider. His guns spoke deliberately, with a fearful accuracy. Through the night once more rang the wailing, blood-chilling cry of the Bat Man.

  "Master!" Ram Singh shouted. "Master, quickly come to cover. A cloud of bats!"

  Wentworth darted toward the Daimler, while his eyes still searched the heavens. Nothing moved there for the space of a half-dozen seconds, then far up there where the lights just touched him, the Spider saw again the incredible image of the huge bat-like thing he had spotted against the moon when Latham had died—Good God, was it only a few hours ago?—Wentworth's twin guns spat a deadly hail upward toward that gliding figure. But he knew it was futile, knew even as he continued to smash lead upward until his guns were empty.

  "Master!" Ram Singh screamed the warning this time.

  Wentworth sprang toward the car. He felt a gentle touch on his shoulder and brushed frantically with a gloved hand, knocked off a vampire bat. Then he was inside and the door thudded shut behind him. He was not a moment too soon. A cloud of bats blotted out for an instant the street outside, fluttering past the closed window.

  A shudder swept over the Spider's body. He was no coward. No man in the world would ever call him that. But the sight of those hundred deadly little beasts with their soft flight and their teeth whose kiss meant death shook him as no gunman's lead had ever done. The black cloud lifted and he saw that the body of the woman and the child was a moving, black mass of leather-winged creatures. . . .

  Beside him, June Calvert was sobbing, her face buried in her hands. Ram Singh was muttering harsh Hindustani curses under his breath. Up there where this dark side street intersected the brightness of Market, there was a sudden, dark rush of screaming people. Over their heads danced a myriad black, deadly forms. Wentworth's lips were motionless, thin against his teeth as he stuffed fresh clips of bullets into his automatics. He would do what he could, but in heaven's name, what could he accomplish with the slaughter of a few bats? Something like a groan of despair pushed its way out between his clenched teeth.

  Up there in the heavens, that winged monster watched the work of his kindred fiends, the bats. And . . .

  Once more came that wailing, mocking cry. Damn it, the Bat Man was laughing, laughing. . . . !

  Chapter Four

  Bat Man vs. The Spider

  RAM SINGH thrust the Daimler toward where the crowd milled and slapped the air to drive off the deadly bats. Wentworth beat his knees with clenched fists. His guns were so futile against the hundreds of flying things. There must be some other method of fighting against them. . . . !

  As the car rolled out into Market Street, men and women grabbed at the handles and sought to force their way inside. Wentworth had locked the doors. It was necessary if he were to accomplish anything at all. He might save a half-dozen persons inside the car, but that would keep him from work which might save hundreds. . . . He saw a fire-alarm box on a corner and shouted sharply to Ram Singh to halt.

  He sprang from the car, fought his way through the crowds. The bats hovered just overhead. Now and again, one would dart downward and a man or woman would scream and die. Wentworth wore gloves, as always when he was in the Spider's disguise, and now he dragged his long, black cape up over his head, tearing a hole through which he might look. Twice, he felt the feathery touch of a bat lighting upon the cape and the hint of their poisonous death tightened his lips grimly. He reached the alarm box, jerked open the door and yanked the lever. If the firemen could smash through, there might be a chance. . . .

  Across the street, a theater was gay with many-colored lights. Police stood behind the closed, glass doors, he saw. Despite his anger, Harrington had taken the Spider's advice. Perhaps a few hundred who might otherwise die terribly would be saved as a result of that.

  Wentworth dared not uncover his head, lest the bats strike at him and without better vision, he could not shoot. Still, he did not dare return to the car lest he not be able to give the firemen the only suggestion that he thought might help. If they put on smoke helmets and covered their hands, they would be virtually immune to the attack. . . .

  A crashing blast across the street pulled his startled gaze to the theater. He heard the crash again and saw one of the inner doors crash outward, saw an axe glitter coldly. Even as the police whirled with their nightsticks ready, other doors crashed outward and the entire audience of the theater came streaming out into the street.

  "Bats!" a man screamed. "The theater is full of bats!"

  Wentworth saw a woman attempting to cover her bare shoulders with a cape, saw a bat settle like a loathsome, black flower upon her bosom. The woman fell. He started across the street, but a new rush of terrified men and women drove him back. The hoarse sirens of the fire engines cut through the medley of terror and pain. The trucks were literally ploughing their way through the crowds. Wentworth saw that the men already had donned their smoke helmets. He nodded approval. If he could find the man who had ordered that, he wouldn't have any trouble putting over his idea. . . .

  A battalion-chief's car jangled its way through solid ranks of screaming, dying people and the chief sprang out. He dodged as a bat flitted at him, ducked back inside the car and put on a smoke helmet. Wentworth rushed to his side, spat out his idea in swift words.

  "Get hoses going," he shouted. "Knock people down and keep the streams going above them. Bats can't get through."

  The battalion-chief was a gray-haired man. Wentworth saw his shrewd, smoke-narrowed eyes through the goggle eyes of the helmet. The driver of the car was rigid with fear, fear of the bats, fear of the man whose face he glimpsed when Wentworth lifted the hood of his cape. The chief nodded. He took off the smoke helmet long enough to shout orders. Wentworth dashed back to his car, ducked inside and began shooting.

  "Get in front," he ordered June Calvert. "In front, but leave the glass slide open."

  The girl hesitated, then clambered over the back of the seat. There were two panes of glass that slid in grooves between front and rear of the car. She left one open. Wentworth took off his hat, then flung open one door of the car. For long, dreadful seconds nothing happened, then a bat flicked into the interior, dropped toward Wentworth's face. He swept his hat swiftly up and knocked the bat to the seat. It would be helpless there. Bats have no way of taking off from a horizontal surface. They cannot take off from a porch which is less than several feet from the floor, for a bat takes off by dropping free, spreading its wings, then gliding. With its wings already spread, it might take off from a lower object, but the seat would not permit that. Wentworth waited, his hat poised, his split-second muscles set for the perilous task of capturing bats whose merest bite would be fatal.

  One hose already was hissing out its stream of water into the crowd of Market Street. Men and women were bowled over and bats were washed out of the air to flutter helplessly on the pavement. Given time, they might work their way up the side of some building and fly again, but they would be given no opportunity for that.

  Time after time, Wentworth's hat swept a bat from midflight to the seat and finally he slammed the door, crawled into the front section of the car and closed the glass slide. He sat looking over the water-flooded street. Many of the crowd had caught the idea of the hoses—a dozen were operating now—and were throwing themselves down beneath the protecting streams. The battalion-chief had evidently sent in a call for more trucks for the hoarse cry of their sirens filled the air.

  Crowds were streaming now from every theater with cries that they were filled with bats. Wentworth's heart was heavy within him. It had been at his order that people had been kept prisoner in those theaters. Harrington would be glad to give the excuse that the Spider had
advised the action. He could hear the man's grandiloquent voice now.

  "Gentleman of the press, you all know what the Spider has done for us in the past. I thought him an honorable man, fighting for the law in his own peculiar way. Naturally when he advised a thing, I considered it seriously. Hold the people in the theaters—yes, it seemed a good idea. How could I know that the Spider had turned into a mad dog who should be exterminated on sight? I have given my men orders to that effect. To shoot the Spider on sight. . . ."

  Yes, Harrington would talk like that. The Spider had tried to serve and he had led the people he sought to protect into a trap for the Bat Man. Regardless of whether he had convinced June Calvert, her earlier testimony that she had seen the Spider carrying a cage of bats would be revived. Wentworth laughed grimly. It only made his task more difficult. He closed his eyes, pressed them with heavy fingers. There was so much death, so much tragedy all about. What, in heaven's name, could be the purpose behind this wholesale slaughter of the innocents? If only he could have foreseen what was happening, have had Nita here earlier. . . .

  Wentworth pulled up his head. There was work to do. Not yet had the Bat Man called home his charges with that thin, gigantic squeaking. . . . He turned to Ram Singh.

  "I must thank you for standing by the Spider in time of trouble," he said crisply. "Many men would have fled from the scene of disaster the moment a gun was taken away from their back. You must tell me your master's name that I may commend you to him. Meantime, get us away from here at once. Miss Calvert, I am sure that soon it will be safe to go abroad. I am going to put you in the protection of some building. . . ."

  Wentworth's words cut off as he met the black, blazing regard of her eyes. There was hatred there, more than suspicion, certainty. Good lord! Had she penetrated his subterfuge with Ram Singh? Had she detected the fact that they worked together, that the Hindu was in reality the servant of the Spider? If she had . . .

  "You, you fiend!" she choked. "You almost tricked me. But it was you who kept those people in the theaters so that the bats could kill them. You are the Bat Man, and. . . ."

  Wentworth shrugged, motioned to Ram Singh and the great car purred away from the spot where the dead lay in the streets beside the panicked living who crouched beneath the protection of the fire hoses. June Calvert ceased to talk and only glared at him angrily. Luckily, she had no gun. . . . She was put out presently at the entrance of a subway that would shelter her from bats. Wentworth spun to Ram Singh.

  "Find me a taxi immediately," he said sharply. When the Daimler surged forward, Wentworth rapidly instructed the Hindu in the course he must follow. Moments later, the Spider, stripped of cape and hat, part of the disguise removed from his face, sprang into a cab.

  "Fifty dollars if you make the airport in twenty minutes," he ordered. "Ten more for every minute you shave off of that."

  The taxi's forward lurch hurled him back against the cushions and he eased to a more comfortable position, drew out cigarettes and lighter. If only the Bat Man would delay for a while his signal to the bat horde. . . . He shook his head. There was small hope of that. Already the attack must have lasted for over half an hour, the hungry bats were becoming sated. Probably he would have no such luck.

  The motor of the cab snarled with speed. They shot over the bridge toward Camden and the hiss of the wind increased. Wentworth had not doubted that Ram Singh would do his part. He had known just where to send the Hindu for the materials needed. . . . The Spider's mind was weary with futile contemplation of the tragedy he had seen, the hundreds laid in writhing death in the streets. He had certain lines of investigation he could start. That spear which had been hurled through the window of Latham's home. He had noticed certain of its characteristics and was pretty certain that it was of a type used by the headhunters of the extreme reaches of the Amazon, the Jivaro Indians. A ridiculous idea, that those fiercely independent Indians could have been brought to America, or could have come of their own accord. But then it was ridiculous, too, that vampire bats had invaded the temperate zones. Neither seemed possible . . . yet hundreds had died of their poisoned bite this night. Yes, literally hundreds. He glanced at his watch, then out at the dark buildings streaking past. The taxi was making good time.

  Finally the lights of the airport came in view. The driver slammed up to the administration building, twisted about to blink behind horn-rimmed spectacles.

  "I think you will find the exact time about seventeen minutes, sir," he said in polite, precise English.

  Wentworth tossed him a hundred-dollar bill and raced toward the main building. He glimpsed a low-winged monoplane on the tarmac of a nearby hangar, its motor ticking over and swerved in his race. Minutes were precious, terribly precious. It was barely possible that the Bat Man had not yet sounded the recall for the bats. Even if he had, swift action might yet win the day for the Spider. . . .

  Wentworth reached the plane in a pounding sprint. A mechanic stood with a pilot at the door of the hangar and they turned in amazement at sight of the running figure. Something of his purpose they must have guessed, but not in time to accomplish anything. Even as they started forward, shouting, Wentworth toed the wing, sprang to the cockpit and instantly yanked the throttle wide. The plane's engine spluttered, then bellowed. The ship began to trundle down the tarmac. It was a Lockhead, a type with which Wentworth was entirely familiar. He jockeyed to gain speed rapidly. For seconds, there was danger that the pursuing pair could reach the tail and nail it to the ground. Then the ship gathered way. An air-liner was circling the field for a landing and the operations officer atop the administration building's conning tower flicked a red light at Wentworth frantically. The Spider glanced aloft, gauged his distances and sent his powerful monoplane off the ground downwind.

  For seconds, the ship climbed sluggishly, then its speed picked up and he sent it racing at low altitude toward Philadelphia. He could not have wished for a better plane, but he longed for the machine guns of his scarlet Northrup. No way of knowing into what peril he flew tonight.

  The lights of Philadelphia sprang at him. Within minutes, he was circling over its streets, peering down into the canyons and seeking the square to which he had directed Ram Singh. It was difficult at night, but after five minutes of circling, he located the place. His altitude was no more than four hundred feet. He drew an automatic and fired two shots. Staring down at the square, he saw the flashes of Ram Singh's answering gun.

  Suspenseful moments passed then while Wentworth hung the Lockhead in the sky, watching, watching. . . . His panted breath of relief was almost a triumphant shout when, against the blackness of the square, he caught a dozen flitting bats which glowed as with phosphorescence. Ram Singh had succeeded then, had obtained the radiolite paint and sprayed the vampire bats with it, afterward providing them perches so that they could wing from the Daimler at the proper time. Now, if the Spider could keep them in sight and follow them to whatever place they had been kept, it was likely the Bat Man would not be far away!

  At first, the glowing spots that were the bats flew about in seeming bewilderment, then they turned westward and, grouped loosely together, flew steadily in a straight course. Three times, the bats turned from their steady flight and each time a man in the streets died beneath their teeth. Wentworth, circling grim-lipped in the heavens, saw and could do nothing. But he swore a hard oath that the Bat Man and his followers should pay for each of these lives. They were martyrs to the cause of justice. . . .

  Finally, the last of the houses of Philadelphia were gone from under Wentworth and still the bats winged on into the darkness. It was easier to follow them since the city lights no longer blinded him. It was necessary for him to swing in tight circles. The bats flew much more slowly than the plane, yet if he swung wide he might very well lose sight of their glowing bodies.

  The flight moved on and on westward. Wentworth almost despaired of any definite goal for the bats. It seemed impossible that they should have been released so far from the city a
nd yet sweep so directly there. Yet they flew fairly close together and bats generally traveled in pairs at most, generally alone. There must be some reason for this group migration. . . .

  Suddenly, through the vibration of the plane's motor, Wentworth heard a shrill, wailing note that he recognized instantly. It was followed immediately by the squeaking rasp, as of a giant bat. The glowing flight below him faltered in its steady progression. He realized that they were no longer pushing forward, but were climbing straight toward him!

  It was impossible. No one could so direct and guide bats, and yet—and yet here they came directly toward his swift plane! The answer came to him almost with the realization of their approach. The shrill squeak of the giant bat had come from his direction! The bats only flew toward the sound, then—then . . .

  With a cold chill of apprehension racing up his spine, Wentworth tilted back his head to stare upward into the heavens. Then he kicked the rudder violently. The Lockhead rocked, spun to the left and Wentworth snapped a gun into his hand, staring with incredulous eyes at the black shadow that had seemed to float above him in the heavens.