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CHAPTER 11

THE ESCAPE OF THE DRUG

For the next hour the four friends busily planned their preparations for the journey. When they began to discuss the details of the trip, and found themselves face to face with so hazardous an adventure, each discovered a hundred things in his private life that needed attention.

The Doctor’s phrase, “My patients can go to the devil,” seemed to relieve his mind of all further responsibility towards his personal affairs.

“That’s all very well for you,” said the Big Business Man, “I’ve too many irons in the fire just to drop everything—there are too many other people concerned. And I’ve got to plan as though I were never coming back, you know.”

“Your troubles are easy,” said the Very Young Man. “I’ve got a girl. I wonder what she’ll say. Oh, gosh, I can’t tell her where I’m going, can I? I never thought of that.” He scratched his head with a perplexed air. “That’s tough on her. Well, I’m glad I’m an orphan, anyway.”

The actual necessities of the trip needed a little discussion, for what they could take with them amounted to practically nothing.

“As I understand it,” said the Banker, “all I have to do is watch you start, and then take the ring back to the Museum.”

“Take it carefully,” continued the Very Young Man. “Remember what it’s got in it.”

“You will give us about two hours to get well started down,” said the Doctor. “After that it will be quite safe to move the ring. You can take it back to the Society in that case I brought it here in.”

“Be sure you take it yourself,” put in the Very Young Man. “Don’t trust it to anybody else. And how about having that wire rack fixed for it at the Museum,” he added. “Don’t forget that.”

“I’ll have that done myself this week,” said the Doctor.

They had been talking for perhaps an hour when the Banker got up from his chair to get a fresh cigar from a box that lay upon the desk. He happened to glance across the room and on the floor in the corner by the closed door he saw a long, flat object that had not been there before. It was out of the circle of light and being brown against the polished hardwood floor, he could not make it out clearly. But something about it frightened him.

“What’s that over there?” he asked, standing still and pointing.

The Big Business Man rose from his seat and took a few steps in the direction of the Banker’s outstretched hand. Then with a muttered oath he jumped to the desk in a panic and picking up the heavy paper-weight flung it violently across the room. It struck the panelled wall with a crash and bounded back towards him. At the same instant there came a scuttling sound from the floor, and a brown shape slid down the edge of the room and stopped in the other corner.

All four men were on their feet in an instant, white-faced and trembling.

“Good God,” said the Big Business Man huskily, “that thing over there—that—”

“Turn on the side lights—the side lights!” shouted the Doctor, running across the room.

In the glare of the unshaded globes on the wall the room was brightly lighted. On the floor in the corner the horrified men saw a cockroach nearly eighteen inches in length, with its head facing the angle of wall, and scratching with its legs against the base board as though about to climb up. For a moment the men stood silent with surprise and terror. Then, as they stared they saw the cockroach was getting larger. The Big Business Man laid his hand on the Doctor’s arm with a grip that made the Doctor wince.

“Good God, man, look at it—it’s growing,” he said in a voice hardly above a whisper.

“It’s growing,” echoed the Very Young Man; “it’s growing!”

And then the truth dawned upon them, and brought with it confusion, almost panic. The cockroach, fully two feet long now, had raised the front end of its body a foot above the floor, and was reaching up the wall with its legs.

The Banker made a dash for the opposite door. “Let’s get out of here. Come on!” he shouted.

The Doctor stopped him. Of the four men, he was the only one who had retained his self-possession.

“Listen to me,” he said. His voice trembled a little in spite of his efforts to control it. “Listen to me. That—that—thing cannot harm us yet.” He looked from one to the other of them and spoke swiftly. “It’s gruesome and—and loathsome, but it is not dangerous—yet. But we cannot run from it. We must kill it—here, now, before it gets any larger.”

The Banker tore himself loose and started again towards the door.

“You fool!” said the Doctor, with a withering look. “Don’t you see, it’s life or death later. That—that thing will be as big as this house in half an hour. Don’t you know that? As big as this house. We’ve got to kill it now—now.”

The Big Business Man ran towards the paper-weight. “I’ll hit it with this,” he said.

“You can’t,” said the Doctor, “you might miss. We haven’t time. Look at it,” he added.

The cockroach was noticeably larger now—considerably over two feet; it had turned away from the wall to face them.

The Very Young Man had said nothing; only stood and stared with bloodless face and wide-open eyes. Then suddenly he stooped, and picking up a small rug from the floor—a rug some six feet long and half as wide—advanced slowly towards the cockroach.

“That’s the idea,” encouraged the Doctor. “Get it under that. Here, give me part of it.” He grasped a corner of the rug. “You two go up the other sides”—he pointed with his free hand—“and head it off if it runs.”

Slowly the four men crept forward. The cockroach, three feet long now, was a hideous, horrible object as it stood backed into the corner of the room, the front part of its body swaying slowly from side to side.

“We’d better make a dash for it,” whispered the Very Young Man; and jerking the rug loose from the Doctor’s grasp, he leaped forward and flung himself headlong upon the floor, with the rug completely under him.

“I’ve got the damned thing. I’ve got it!” he shouted. “Help—you. Help!”

The three men leaped with him upon the rug, holding it pinned to the floor. The Very Young Man, as he lay, could feel the curve of the great body underneath, and could hear the scratch of its many legs upon the floor.

“Hold down the edges of the rug!” he cried. “Don’t let it out. Don’t let it get out. I’ll smash it.” He raised himself on his hands and knees, and came down heavily. The rug gave under his thrust as the insect flattened out; then they could hear again the muffled scratching of its legs upon the floor as it raised the rug up under the Very Young Man’s weight.

“We can’t kill it,” panted the Big Business Man. “Oh, we can’t kill it. Good God, how big it is!”

The Very Young Man got to his feet and stood on the bulge of the rug. Then he jumped into the air and landed solidly on his heels. There was a sharp crack as the shell of the insect broke under the sharpness of his blow.

“That did it; that’ll do it!” he shouted. Then he leaped again.

“Let me,” said the Big Business Man. “I’m heavier”; and he, too, stamped upon the rug with his heels.

They could hear the huge shell of the insect’s back smash under his weight, and when he jumped again, the squash of its body as he mashed it down.

“Wait,” said the Doctor. “We’ve killed it.”

They eased upon the rug a little, but there was no movement from beneath.

“Jump on it harder,” said the Very Young Man. “Don’t let’s take a chance. Mash it good.”

The Big Business Man continued stamping violently upon the rug; joined now by the Very Young Man. The Doctor sat on the floor beside it, breathing heavily; the Banker lay in a heap at its foot in utter collapse.

As they stamped, the rug continued to flatten down; it sank under their tread with a horrible, sickening, squashing sound.

“Let’s look,” suggested the Very Young Man. “It must be dead”; and he threw back a corner of the rug. The men turned sick and faint at what they saw.

Underneath the rug, mashed against the floor, lay a great, noisome, semi-liquid mass of brown and white. It covered nearly the entire under-surface of the rug—a hundred pounds, perhaps, of loathsome pulp and shell, from which a stench arose that stopped their breathing.

With a muttered imprecation the Doctor flung back the rug to cover it, and sprang to his feet, steadying himself against a chair.

“We killed it in time, thank God,” he murmured and dropped into the chair, burying his face in his hands.

For a time silence fell upon the room, broken only by the labored breathing of the four men. Then the Big Business Man sat up suddenly. “Oh, my God, what an experience!” he groaned, and got unsteadily to his feet.

The Very Young Man helped the Banker up and led him to a seat by the window, which he opened, letting in the fresh, cool air of the night.

“How did the drug get loose, do you suppose?” asked the Very Young Man, coming back to the center of the room. He had recovered his composure somewhat, though he was still very pale. He lighted a cigarette and sat down beside the Doctor.

The Doctor raised his head wearily. “I suppose we must have spilled some of it on the floor,” he said, “and the cockroach—” He stopped abruptly and sprang to his feet.

“Good God!” he cried. “Suppose another one—”

On the bare floor beside the table they came upon a few drops of water.

“That must be it,” said the Doctor. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket; then he stopped in thought. “No, that won’t do. What shall we do with it?” he added. “We must destroy it absolutely. Good Lord, if that drug ever gets loose upon the world—”

The Big Business Man joined them.

“We must destroy it absolutely,” repeated the Doctor. “We can’t just wipe it up.”

“Some acid,” suggested the Big Business Man.

“Suppose something else has got at it already,” the Very Young Man said in a scared voice, and began hastily looking around the floor of the room.

“You’re right,” agreed the Doctor. “We mustn’t take any chance; we must look thoroughly.”

Joined by the Banker, the four men began carefully going over the room.

“You’d better watch that nothing gets at it,” the Very Young Man thought suddenly to say. The Banker obediently sat down by the little pool of water on the floor.

“And I’ll close the window,” added the Very Young Man; “something might get out.”

They searched the room thoroughly, carefully scanning its walls and ceiling, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.

“We’ll never be quite sure,” said the Doctor finally, “but I guess we’re safe. It’s the best we can do now, at any rate.”

He joined the Banker by the table. “I’ll get some nitric acid,” he added. “I don’t know what else—”

“We’ll have to get that out of here, too,” said the Big Business Man, pointing to the rug. “God knows how we’ll explain it.”

The Doctor picked up one of the tin boxes of drugs and held it in his hand meditatively. Then he looked over towards the rug. From under one side a brownish liquid was oozing; the Doctor shuddered.

“My friends,” he said, holding up the box before them, “we can realize now something of the terrible power we have created and imprisoned here. We must guard it carefully, gentlemen, for if it escapes—it will destroy the world.”