Kenneth Robeson - Doc Savage 090 - Tunnel Terror

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TUNNEL TERROR
A Doc Savage Adventure By Kenneth Robeson
This page copyright © 2002 Blackmask Online.
http://www.blackmask.com
Scanned and Proofed
by Tom Stephens
? Chapter I. STRANGE FOG
? Chapter II. CALL FOR HELP
? Chapter III. LIVING DEAD MAN
? Chapter IV. THE DISAPPEARING MEN
? Chapter V. MESSAGE FROM CHICK
? Chapter VI. "J. L."
? Chapter VII. STRANGE WORLD
? Chapter VIII. ESCAPE
? Chapter IX. TRAIL TO TROUBLE
? Chapter X. THE BIG PEOPLE
? Chapter XI. THIRD DEGREE
? Chapter XII. THE PHOTOGRAPH
? Chapter XIII. GOVERNOR MISSING
? Chapter XIV. HARDROCK FINDS A CORPSE
? Chapter XV. TUNNEL OF DOOM!
? Chapter XVI. THE DEAD AND THE LIVING
? Chapter XVII. DANGER OVERHEAD
? Chapter XVIII. DEATH FOR TWO
Chapter I. STRANGE FOG
HARDROCK HENNESEY had once been called the toughest little mucker who had ever crawled
through a river's belly. It was said that if a drill broke while he was on a tunnel job, he could eat his way
through rock. He looked as though he had been eating rock now.
He spat on the dusty highway, stared up and down the deserted stretch of dark road, and started
swearing. He swore for three minutes. He was just getting warmed up. And then he shrugged disgustedly,
spat again.
He murmured, "Ah, nuts!" and started hiking along the dusty road once again. He wished to the blasted
devil that he had never left New York City.
But there were no tunnels being constructed at the moment in New York, and here—in the West—they
were calling for miners and muckers on the greatest water tunnel ever built. A tunnel that was going to
convey nine hundred million gallons of water a day a hundred miles into a great city.
And Hardrock Hennesey needed a job. He was broke. Like every mucker or miner who had ever
helped build a tunnel, he was broke between jobs. Money came fast in this game. And it was spent the
same way. It was a wild, reckless—and dangerous—existence.
Thus he was bumming his way through the country. According to estimations, he had only about three
more miles to go. But on this out-of-the-way back highway, a car hadn't passed him in the last hour.
It was some time after nine o'clock, and the moon was just coming up when the farmer came rattling
along in his old flivver.
Hardrock Hennesey spun around. His leathery, flint-hard features brightened. That is, a few more
wrinkles appeared on his scarred, old-looking face. He hitched up his trousers around his skinny waist
and got his thumb stuck out in a "how-about-a-ride" gesture.
The farmer rolled his heap right on past Hardrock Hennesey.
Hardrock swore. This time he wasn't very subtle about it. He jumped up and down and kicked at the
dust with his worn shoes. He just wished he had his hands on that blankety-blank so-and-so's throat. He
wished—
Ahead, beyond a slight dip in the road, there floated back the sound of worn brake shoes chattering. The
flivver was stopping! The farmer must have decided, after looking Hardrock over as he passed, that it
was all right to give him a lift.
Hardrock went into a sprint, his thin, hard-as-nails legs carrying his tough little body along furiously. He
arrived at the dip in the road, started to yell, "Hey—"
He skidded to a stop in the dust and stared.
He gawked at sight of what might have been ground mist ahead. The night was warm enough, and this
part of the road in a hollow cool enough to cause slight ground fog.
And yet what he saw wasn't fog. He could see through it. It was like the kind of mirage effect you see
coming off tarred pavements on August days. It wasn't quite white, nor quite gray, and it seemed to float
and swirl up from the dust.
Yet it wasn't this that held Hardrock Hennesey spellbound. He rubbed his eyes, deciding that he'd never
drink any more of that stuff that he'd bought last night. It must have been distilled from coal. Perhaps he
was getting astigmatism.
Because he stared at the fog ahead—the stuff that he was positive he could see through—and he couldn't
see what should be parked there. No car. No farmer.
Hardrock Hennesey growled, "Say, who's kiddin' who?" and stalked ahead toward the vague stuff that
was like mist. He reached the spot.
And he let out a whoop of pain and leaped backward as though someone had hit him with a ten-foot
pole. He jerked up and down, waving his hands and blowing on his fingers. He felt of his face, drew his
hands away quickly.
It was just as though he had been burned by live steam!
THE tough little tunnel worker backed off from the spot, squinting out of his intense gray eyes. He got
down on his hands and knees in the dust. He stared. He tried to see beneath the peculiar, wispy-gray
stuff ahead. In a way, it made him think of a huge spider's web.
He got up again, walked cautiously forward and stuck out a questing finger.
The finger felt as though he'd plunged it into the spout of a hot teakettle.
"What the hell?" Hardrock Hennesey asked himself, and started doing some more enthusiastic swearing.
He knew damned right well he wasn't drunk. He hadn't had a drink all day. And he didn't have a
hangover.
He moved to the side of the road, climbed a fence that adjoined a farmer's field, started circling the funny
gray stuff that floated in the air in the dip in the road.
Hardrock Hennesey was certain he could see through the stuff. And he knew, absolutely, that he'd heard
the old flivver come to a chattering stop. But where was it now? Where was the farmer?
Dammit, something was cockeyed here and he was quite sure it wasn't himself. He edged toward the
foggy stuff.
And got burned again. Howling with pain, Hardrock Hennesey once more backed off and sat down on a
rock to watch the stuff. He rubbed his eyes. He stared at his raw-red fingertips. He couldn't figure it out.
He sat there for perhaps fifteen minutes, and no other cars came along, and the night was very quiet, with
the moon climbing up in the sky like a white, round face.
Hardrock Hennesey had once whipped a dozen muckers in a tunnel riot. For a small-looking man—who,
from his weathered features, could have been forty or sixty—he was about the hardest individual on two
feet. Nothing much ever scared him.
But there was something uncanny about this strange fog stuff that had stopped him now. He put his head
in his gnarled hands and sat there thinking, and he wondered if he was cracking up. Perhaps too many
years of working "under pressure" had caught up with him. Maybe.
He looked up, and the fog had dispersed.
Hardrock jumped up, started carefully forward, stretching out his hands in front of him. This time they
didn't touch anything hot. There seemed to be nothing ahead.
Nothing, that is, except the farmer's old car. He saw it clearly now, there in the roadway. He gulped. He
stood very still and rubbed his eyes and swore. His fists knotted, and he stalked furiously forward.
Somebody was damned well going to pay for pulling this gag on him. And that somebody was going to
be that gangling farmer, that guy seated behind the wheel.
But there was no gag about the dead man slumped over the steering wheel of the car. Hardrock
Hennesey jerked back in horror at sight of the withered features, and skin that was like old, brown
leather. He stared at the man.
The corpse that was like a dried-up mummy!
HARDROCK HENNESEY had, at various times in his dangerous career, seen men die. He had
observed half a dozen men buried—smothered beneath muck in a tunnel cave-in; he had seen a giant
Negro shot through planking and sand and water in a "blow" beneath the East River. He had seen men
crushed to death beneath tons of falling rock.
But what he observed now sort of sickened him. He took off his dusty old hat and wiped at his perspiring
brow. Then he reached out an inquiring finger and touched the corpse's face.
The browned, dried skin literally cracked beneath his touch. The entire face was shrunken like something
out of a tomb thousands of years old.
Hardrock Hennesey shuddered. But he got up nerve enough to reach inside the car and push the
mummified thing across the seat. Then he climbed in behind the wheel and started up the engine.
He had to get to the town that he knew was ahead; he had to tell them of what he had seen. He figured
he might have to bust a few noses before he got anyone to believe his story.
The car ran forward perhaps a quarter of a mile before it started hammering and bucking. Hardrock
Hennesey could even smell the engine heat. Then the motor stopped completely, "froze up."
Hardrock climbed out, looked into the radiator. He stuck his finger in the top. Dry! He raised the hood
and tried the petcock drain located at the bottom of the radiator. No water ran out.
Puzzled, Hardrock recalled that the car had been running all right when it passed him on the road the first
time. Even though it had rattled considerably, there had been no indication of its being without water.
He noted the license number of the old car, went back to take one look at the mummified farmer. He'd
have to walk the remainder of the way into town.
He was standing up on the running board, and just as he started to turn away again something that was
on the back seat caught his eye.
It was a package, neatly wrapped and apparently addressed for mailing. Hardrock leaned over and
looked at the thing. He picked it up.
The package was about six inches square and half an inch thick. It was very light in weight. It was
addressed merely:
To:
Clark Savage, Jr.
New York City
New York
Hardrock Hennesey stared.
"Hell's fire!" he exploded, and got down off the car and started running down the road toward town. He
had heard of Clark Savage, Jr. In fact, he knew a fellow who worked for him. What connection had this
mummy with the remarkable person known as Doc Savage?
A mile down the road Hardrock came to a roadside tavern from which was coming enough racket to tell
him a certain fact. The racket from inside indicated either a revival meeting or a riot. Ten chances to one,
it was the latter. Also, it was Saturday night.
And that meant—tunnel mockers!
HARDROCK HENNESEY hurried inside and immediately big men lined up at the bar turned and hailed
him and started yelling things like:
"Well, you old buzzard!"
"Hardrock! Line up, boy, and drink!"
"Say, boy!" another man yelled. "It's about time Hardrock showed up. Now you'll see some work on this
new tunnel job!"
A new man among the muckers asked a question of an old-timer. He was told:
"Look, fella, Hardrock Hennesey's the greatest little mucker that ever ate hardrock. He ain't afraid of hell
and dynamite. He's worked on every big job from New York to Frisco, the South, everywhere."
Tunnel workers—miners and muckers and hardrock men—probably make up the greatest fraternity of
workmen in the world. You'll find the same gangs on jobs from Boston to Alaska. You'll find them
working like demons, drinking hard and fighting on their nights off. And you'll find them sticking together.
Hardrock Hennesey was perhaps the best hardrock man in the game. He was known everywhere.
Hands now slapped him on the back and drinks were pushed in his face.
But suddenly, and strangely, other muckers realized that their old friend was not accepting the drinks or
returning their greetings. He was just standing there staring at them oddly, his intense gray eyes wide and
bright.
"Look," Hardrock demanded. "I'm not drunk, am I? And—"
Someone laughed. "Hell, no! Maybe that's what's wrong with you. Come on, fella, catch up!"
"And I don't look crazy, do I?" Hardrock Hennesey managed to get in.
The men quieted somewhat. They grouped around the hard little tunnel worker and looked at him
puzzledly.
Someone in the group finally managed to describe the thing that everyone saw—but was afraid to admit.
"I'll be damned!" the man exclaimed. "Look at 'im! Hardrock is . . . well, he's scared!"
Just about that moment someone got a drink into Hardrock's hand. It was a water glass half full of
whiskey, a hundred proof. Hardrock Hennesey took the stuff down at a gulp.
He grabbed the one who had called him scared. His right fist traveled in a short are. The fellow went
down without even a grunt.
Then Hardrock rapped, "Now, listen to this."
He started talking. He told about walking along the road a mile or so back. He mentioned the peculiar
fog, the misty stuff that you ought to be able to see through—but somehow could not.
He said, "The stuff burned me!"
Someone asked, "You mean . . . the fog?"
"Whatever was there around the car that I couldn't see," Hardrock said.
Men stared. Someone laughed.
Hardrock grabbed the big man and slapped his face, and the fellow's head jerked around on his neck.
"You ever see a man change into a mummy?" Hardrock demanded.
Apparently no one had ever seen such a phenomenon. Hardrock led the way toward the door.
"You guys come along with me," he ordered, "an' I'll show you something that'll knock your ears down."
He led the men back along the dusty roadway. There were perhaps two dozen tunnel workers in all. Big
men. Hard men. Guys who knew Hardrock Hennesey from former jobs. They were now convinced that
hard-boiled little Hardrock Hennesey was far from being drunk or crazy.
They were all now anxious to see a farmer who had become a mummy. They pushed past one another as
they arrived at the old battered car.
They stared. They turned and looked at tough Hardrock Hennesey and their faces were grim.
A worker said, "This ain't a very funny gag."
"Let's take him apart!" suggested another.
But Hardrock elbowed them aside and himself moved up to the car.
The mummified man had disappeared.
This wasn't the only thing that held him rigid. His gaze had jerked to the rear seat, to the object that he
had left there. It was the one thing that might have explained a part of this mystery. Hardrock was
thinking of the small package that had been addressed to the man known as Doc Savage.
The package, also, was missing.
Chapter II. CALL FOR HELP
THE free-for-all battle that followed was somewhat of a honey.
It started when the fellow who was new to the gang called Hardrock Hennesey a liar. Hardrock climbed
down off the old car's running board and commenced throwing punches in various directions.
Several of the muckers had had enough to drink to get sore about the whole business. They joined the
mêlée enthusiastically.
Hardrock Hennesey knocked two men down, swung on a third and growled, "Now are you convinced,
wise guy? I tell you the fog burned me. It musta burned up that farmer in the car!"
"Crazy as a loon!" said the big tunnel worker, and that got him a bust on the nose. He howled with pain
and sailed into tough Hardrock Hennesey. Others helped out. They finally got Hardrock down in the
dusty road and tried to pound some sense into his head.
But the more they pounded, the more Hardrock Hennesey swore and kicked and battered away at his
opponents.
By the time several State troopers arrived in their white-painted car, the battle was really going great
guns. And it was fifteen minutes before Hardrock was finally subdued and carried off toward the local
jail.
That was after Hardrock Hennesey had tried to tell some of the troopers his story. For now that they had
enjoyed a good fight, few of the tunnel workers wished to see their old friend carted off to the local
hoosegow. And so they merely suggested that Hardrock Hennesey repeat what he had told them about
the mysterious fog and a farmer who became a mummy.
Hardrock was halfway through his account when one trooper looked at another. Then they grabbed
Hardrock and piled him in their car.
"Balmy!" was their opinion.
From conversation that Hardrock Hennesey heard as they rode toward town, he gathered that the
troopers had recognized the old flivver. It appeared the farmer's name was Brown—Zeke Brown.
As one officer remarked, "Zeke's so damn' tight he's always running out of gas. He must have run out
again and walked to the village."
"That's about it," a second trooper agreed.
Hardrock Hennesey started to put in, "Listen, he didn't walk nowheres. He's dead, I tell you! He's as
dead as—"
"Shuddup!" a trooper rapped, and slapped him on the mouth.
Hardrock subsided again. And shortly the trooper car drew up before a small building that bordered the
town ahead. In the distance, Hardrock Hennesey could see a towering steel framework, some buildings
and the reflection of floodlights against the night sky. That would be Shaft 9, where he had been headed.
Shaft 9, one of the many units in the tunnel project.
The troopers climbed out, stood aside, motioned Hardrock Hennesey out also.
Hardrock came out of the car in a flying leap, bowled over two of the three officers, clipped the third on
the jaw, circled the small jail, and took flight in the woods that pressed up close behind the building.
ANGRY bees arrived over his head. The bees were bullets, and they were from the troopers' guns. They
thunked into trees, and were too close for comfort. Luckily, Hardrock Hennesey got deep into the
woods, and none of the slugs found him.
He kept running. He ran for perhaps a mile before he paused to listen. The moon was overhead now,
and it gave enough light to help him find his way. There was no sound behind him save the occasional
scurrying of some small animal through the brush.
Hardrock made his way back toward the highway again. A half hour later, cautiously, he emerged on the
roadway and stared up and down. He was at a point beyond the town, and in the distance he could see
the light of Shaft 9.
The old fellow seated on the rock beside the road watched Hardrock Hennesey's cautious movements.
Then he asked:
"Reckon you saw it too, eh?"
Hardrock lumped. He had not seen the old man. He gawked at him now.
The fellow was all of ninety years old. He was bent over and withered. He leaned on a cane that he must
have cut out of a gnarled piece of hickory. His withered old skin looked like that of a—
A mummy!
The thought gave Hardrock Hennesey a start.
But then this mummy was alive. What was it he had said?
"See what?" Hardrock demanded suspiciously. He looked up and down the road, but he saw no one
approaching.
"The thing that follows you in the night," said the old man. He sounded worried.
"What thing?"
Something about the tone of the old fellow's voice made a chill slide down Hardrock Hennesey's spine.
"The thing that is like a ghost. I reckon, mister, I've seen it a dozen times. It almost got me tother night.
Reckon it'll get me any time now, too. I'm too old to get away from it."
Hardrock swallowed. Maybe this old geezer was nuts. And yet he remembered the strange thing that had
happened to himself. Thinking of that, he recalled the package.
The package that had been addressed to Doc Savage, and which had disappeared.
He suddenly grabbed the old fellow's arm and asked, "Maybe you can tell me where I can find a phone."
And, as an afterthought, "A phone where maybe there won't be too many people around listening when I
make a call?"
The oldster nodded. He almost creaked when he moved, pointing toward town.
"You foller this road a piece until you come to Sam's garage, and in there you'll find a phone, mister.
Sam'll probably be across the road at his house. He only comes over when someone honks for gas. But
you go right ahead and use the phone, and he won't mind a bit."
"Thanks," said Hardrock quickly, and got away from there. The old fellow had sort of got under his skin,
what with all that had happened to him in the past hour.
HE reached the garage without being spotted by any troopers with guns, without being seen by anyone.
A light was turned on above the single gas pump outside the place. As the old man had said, Sam was
apparently across the road in his house. There were lights visible in the kitchen of the place.
So much the better, Hardrock Hennesey figured. He preferred that no one know of the phone call he
was going to make.
Two minutes later, using the phone he located inside the garage building, he was connected with the New
York headquarters of Doc Savage. Hardrock made a single request. He would like to speak to a man
named Colonel John Renwick, the engineer in the organization of Doc Savage.
He got a break. Colonel John Renwick happened, at that moment, to be at the headquarters.
A great, booming voice came over the wire. Hardrock yanked the receiver away from his ear. It had
been so long since he had seen his old friend that he had forgotten about the giant-sized fellow's bulllike
voice.
"Yes?" said the man on the other end.
"This you, Renny?" Hardrock asked.
"Yes. Who's this?" the crashing voice demanded.
Hardrock gave details about himself. He finished with, "Remember that Hudson River tunnel job where
they called you in for advice? Remember that fight one day up in the heading?"
The man named Renny suddenly laughed. Hardrock thought the receiver diaphragm would split.
"Hardrock, you old buzzard!" Renny said. "How's everything? Where are you?"
Apparently the fellow named Renny was glad to hear from his old friend.
Hardrock Hennesey said tensely, "You, Renny, you gotta come here."
"Where?"
Hardrock outlined the particular section of mountainous country where he was. He mentioned Yellow
River Dam, a mammoth storage shed that was being constructed in conjunction with the
one-hundred-mile long tunnel project. Yellow River Dam was only a few miles above Shaft 9, where
Hardrock hoped to get a job.
"There's something funny up here," Hardrock continued.
"What do you mean?"
"Well," said Hardrock Hennesey worriedly, "there was a fella with a package for Doc Savage. He died.
He died, and he looked like a mummy."
The man named Renny said, "Hardrock, you've been drinking again!"
The hard-boiled little tunnel worker rapped, "Listen, Renny; this isn't any joke. An' I'm cold sober. You
just listen to this. There was a peculiar sort of fog. It was sort of transparent stuff, and again it wasn't.
Well, this farmer—this fella that died—got into the stuff and I couldn't get near him. He's the one who
had the package for Doc Savage."
"Have you the package now?"
"No, it's gone. But about this fog—"
"Yes?"
Hardrock paused, wiping at his brow with the crook of his arm. He realized that it was a warm night, but
suddenly he felt unusually hot.
He continued: "This fog stuff was as hot as a furnace. It burned like live steam. Later, I found this farmer
and he looked just like a dried-up mummy!"
Renny said nothing for a moment. Then he put in, "And he's the one who had the package for Doc
Savage?"
"Yes. And, Renny, there's something else!"
"What?"
"It's—"
This time, Hardrock Hennesey felt the heat that seemed to crawl over him like something alive and
menacing. He turned slightly away from the phone, staring over his shoulder.
And he let out a yell as the instrument slipped from his stiff fingers.
Because the fog stuff was right there behind him; floating like tendrils of clawing, ghostlike fingers through
the open doorway. Hardrock Hennesey could apparently see through the strange stuff, and yet couldn't.
It was uncanny.
He leaped out of the chair where he had been seated, stared frantically around the small space. His face
already felt as if it was frying in the steamy heat. The stuff was slowly enveloping him with ethereal,
opaque fingers.
With a gasp of horror, Hardrock Hennesey jumped toward the rear of the room. He sought a window.
But before he could locate one, the floating, peculiar fog was upon him. He sank down in a shuddering
heap, and as the strange veil dropped over him he let out a frantic yell.
"Renny! Help! It's got me!"
Chapter III. LIVING DEAD MAN
THE fast, streamlined plane came down out of the night sky, circled the field, landed and taxied to a stop
not far from the roadside gas station in the mountains.
The first person who stepped out of the plane was indeed a strange-looking individual. He was about as
broad as he was wide. All parts of his exposed body contained bristly, red hair that looked like stubby,
thin nails. He had incredibly homely features made to hold up traffic at street corners.
In a squeaky, almost childlike voice he piped, "Blazes! We oughta fumigate that plane. Something's been
bitin' me all the way from New York."
Without bending forward, the homely one scratched at his leg, in the vicinity of his knee. This was
accomplished because the man's arms dangled well below his knees. He was built like an oversized ape.
From the plane had followed a slender, nattily dressed man with a waspish waist. He carried a neat black
cane. He frowned in disgust at the apelike individual and said, "Did you ever try soap and water for
that?"
Immediately, the hairy one made a roundhouse swing at the dapper-looking man. He glared and said,
"That sounded like a dirty remark."
The slender one grinned. "It was suited to the occasion, you hairy baboon!"
Just then, two queer-looking animals scurried from the plane door. One was a pig, a scrawny-looking pig
with beanpole legs and a snout made for rummaging inside long tin cans. The other animal was a
runt-sized ape that looked suspiciously like the hairy individual who spoke in the childlike voice.
The runt ape moved toward the person who looked not unlike himself, and took a nip out of the man's
leg. The spot where the animal took the bite was right where the fellow had been scratching.
Abruptly, understanding leaped into the hairy one's eyes.
"Ye-o-ow!" he squalled. "It's that blasted Chemistry that's been biting me all the way up from New
York!"
He made a dive for the chimp. The tall, well-dressed man got in the way and quickly swung the animal up
in his arms. Apparently Chemistry was his pet.
He kicked at the scrawny pig, remarked icily, "Take that Habeas away from here before I annihilate him!
He must have fleas!"
摘要：

TUNNELTERRORADocSavageAdventureByKennethRobesonThispagecopyright©2002BlackmaskOnline.http://www.blackmask.comScannedandProofedbyTomStephens?ChapterI.STRANGEFOG?ChapterII.CALLFORHELP?ChapterIII.LIVINGDEADMAN?ChapterIV.THEDISAPPEARINGMEN?ChapterV.MESSAGEFROMCHICK?ChapterVI."J.L."?ChapterVII.STRANGEWOR...

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