10 - Menace from Below by Harl Vincent

An entire subway train filled with unsuspecting passengers vanishes without a trace in the depths of the New York subway! A murder victims body appears to dissolve into the ground right before a witnesss eyes! What dark secrets do the mysterious subterranean ape men hold? Dive into this enthralling tale of wild science fiction and uncover the truth for yourself! - Summary by Ben Tucker

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter ten of The Menace from Below by Horal Vincent.
The LibriVox recordings in the public domain. Chapter ten Rumblings
of insurrection. The hours the days that followed were miserable
ones to Margaret and increasingly hopeless ones for Tony. Charley

(00:21):
Frazy remained in confinement, and Margaret's brother was also pinned
up in some unknown part of the castle. To Margaret's
tearful entreaties, Talbot replied that Bob was in no danger
and would come to no harm at his hands. To
their inquiries concerning Charlie, he replied in the same manner,
but he was rarely seen by the two prisoners, who,
though they were permitted more liberty about the castle in

(00:44):
the city than they had hoped for, found that the
time dragged very heavily on their hands. Tony was religiously
keeping his watch running, and he marked off the days
those dragging stretches of twenty four hours on a notebook calendar.
He had been in the habit of carry. When the
days lengthened to a week, and finally ten days had passed,

(01:05):
he grew increasingly fearful for Margaret's safety. In his own.
It seemed that Talbot was becoming more and more intolerant
of their presence, and at the few times they saw him,
he spoke to them in short, gruff monosyllables. Then there
came a night or sleeping period of horror, when Margaret
was awakened by terrible sounds of strife and agony from

(01:26):
the corridor, and was so unnerved that she pounded on
the connecting door for admittance to Tony's quarters. For more
than an hour, she shivered in the darkness, with Tony's
protecting arms encircling her horror shaken body as they listened
to the screaming and cursing and groaning that told of
a fearful conflict between the supermen and the morons in

(01:46):
the hall. The strident voice and curses of Talbot, and
the screeching rage of Ainsworth told of their difficulty in
regaining the mastery of which they had boasted they had
created Frankenstein monsters. Long after the noises had subsided, Margaret
lay in the arms of the strong man she had
come to know and trust so implicitly in the few

(02:07):
days since their first meeting. Silently they sat, and silently
there came to each a great yearning for the love
of the other. Margaret finally burst from Tony in a husky,
faltering voice. I love you. I have always loved you,
it seems if we ever get out of this place,
I want you from my wife. Can you Could you

(02:31):
ever feel the same way? Oh? I do, Tony, She whispered,
I have loved you since that first terrible night back home.
If we could only return there, how happy we would be.
She sobbed anew and buried her head in his shoulder.
It was with a feeling of great tenderness and exultation
mixed with the hopeless fear that had come during the

(02:53):
past few days, that he kissed her tear moistened lips
for the first time. Revolt there came still another day,
when Talbot spoke cheerfully to the captives at meal time. Well,
he said, after that one insurrection, things have been looking
up considerably, but our raw material is entirely used up,

(03:14):
and we are planning an expedition against Chicago directly overhead.
We need a couple thousand new subjects. You mean, asked Tony,
that all of those kidnapped from New York have become morons,
all excepting those that Ainsworth did not consider fit to
use and put out of the way he killed them,

(03:36):
if you must call it that, they were merely removed
by the simple fourth dimensional process. Margaret kept her eyes
steadfastly on her plate, but her food remained untasted. After that,
Tony lapsed into silence, while Talbot held forth in the
old optimistic and boastful vein. Ainsworth had not even appeared
for this meal, evidently being too busily engaged in the

(03:58):
preparations for the coming visitation of horror. May I visit
my brother? Margaret finally ventured, why, yes, agreed Talbot, I
guess so we'll go to his cell directly the meal
is finished. He was indeed in good humor, and Margaret
brightened considerably at his ready acquiescence. But when they reached

(04:18):
Bob van Austein's prison cell and she peered through the
bars at his gaunt, drawn face, she once more felt
the unnameable fear of this dreadful realm and of its
menace to her brother and herself. Talbot stood by, watching
and listening with little concern. Oh, Bob, she said, why
did you do it? He shrugged his shoulders resignedly. I

(04:42):
thought they'd accuse me of father's murder, and I wanted
to get away while I could. I went out to
the airport and stowed away on the first large plane
that left. I got into this. A confused murmur reached
their ears. As they talked. This swelled to the sound
of shouting and of fighting running humans. Talbot straightened too

(05:03):
attention and drew one of the bulb shaped weapons from
his pocket. The screeching voice of Ainsworth reached them, and
Jerry drew them back into a recess, adjoining Bob's cell.
They're coming this way, he whispered. Then came the limping
figure of Ainsworth running through the corridor with full speed
in their direction. The angry voices of his pursuers could
be heard not far behind. God Talbot gasped the panting

(05:27):
Ainsworth when he reached them. They found the arms we
took from the militia. Rifles, revolvers and automatics are in
their hands. Who the morons, asked Jerry. No, our supermen,
and here they come. They've gone mad. He and Talbot
drew back into the recess, with Margaret and Tony hidden
behind them. When the first of the enraged giants came

(05:50):
into view, the weapons of the two scientists glowed into activity.
There sprang forth two of the vicious, crackling blue flames
in the very space of about them groaned with the
ensuing wrench. Four or five of the on rushing attackers
vanished into thin air. But there came from behind these
the spiteful reports of a number of automatics. Ainsworth staggered

(06:12):
and clutched at his skinny breast, bringing his hand away
covered in blood. He choked and gurgled, then crumpled to
the stone floor in a grotesque heap. Bullets and chips
from the stone walls spattered all about them, and Margaret
cowered in Tony's arms. But Talbot stood his ground, and
again and again his weapons spat forth the blue flame
that sent numbers of the enemy into that nothingness from

(06:33):
which there could be no return. When all of the
pursuers had been accounted for, Talbot knelt over the prostrate
form of his partner. He's dead, he pronounced gloomily, then
with an arrogant gesture, But I will carry on. Our
plans must not fail, and I I alone shall be

(06:54):
master of the world. His eyes glittered with fanatical fire,
and Margaret dug her head still deeper into the protecting shoulder.
Then Talbot was gone, speeding off in the direction from
which the contestants had come. In the ensuing silence, a
groan from the cell smote their ears as the despairing
cry of a dying man. Margaret turned to the bars

(07:16):
with a moan of foreboding. Bob, Bob, she called piteously.
But Bob van Olsteen was past aid or comfort. He
lay on the floor of his cell, sprawled awkwardly in
a pool of his own blood. A stray bullet had
entered his prison and wounded him mortally. Yes, I'm done
for sis, he faltered, never lies any gud anyway, and

(07:40):
now you'll have no more worries about me. Be better
for you, for everybody, tell tell. The message was never finished,
for Bob van Alsteen breathed his last. On that final word.
Margaret stared at Tony in an agony of tearless sorrow.

(08:00):
Then she knelt on the cold stone and bowed her
head against the bars as closely to the body of
her brother as possible. Hope and fear, Tony left her
to her grief and tiptoed back to the scene of
the recent struggle, where he picked up two automatic pistols
where they had clattered to the floor when their recent

(08:20):
possessors were removed by the strange weapons of the scientific exiles.
He likewise filled a pocket with loaded clips of cartridges
with which the floor was strewn. Apparently the energy which
made away with the living beings had not taken effect
on the metallic weapons and ammunition, even as it had
failed in the case of Van Elsteen's silk pajamas. A

(08:42):
feeling of courage permeated his being as he returned to
the morning girl. They were at least not defenseless now,
and if things came to the worst, they could always
end their own lives rather than submit to what might
even be more unendurable than death. Gently he disengaged Margaret's
hands from the eye bars they gripped so tightly. Gently,

(09:03):
he raised her to her feet and led her from
the scene. Come, dear, he said, We can do nothing here,
and we may be able to save ourselves if we
leave unresisting. She followed, evidently too dazed with grief to protest,
with one arm about her waist and with a loaded
automatic in his free hand. Tony proceeded cautiously through the

(09:24):
passages until they reached the lift. He had learned to
manipulate its controls, and they soon emerged at their own floor,
where all was in deep silence. He half carried the
stumbling girl into his own quarters and tenderly assisted her
to his own bed, where she lay prone with her
head buried in a pillow. Then, with a pistol in hand,
he took up his position at the door to await developments.

(09:47):
He had not long to wait for. There was the
sound of a scuffle down the hall. Then three shots
in rapid succession, and one of the supermen came staggering
out of a doorway to fall in a heap on
the floor only a few doors from t Another followed,
clasping a broad hand to his midsection as he groped
his way blindly from the room. With dragging steps and

(10:08):
beseeching eyes, he approached Tony escape. The magnificently built creature
was quite evidently on his last legs, and a feeling
of pity for this product of man's cruel ingenuities surged
through Tony. He recognized the superman as the first one
who had recovered from the psycho transference process, the one

(10:30):
addressed by Ainsworth as Gorth. Are you hit Gorth, he
asked solicitously, Yes, was the painful reply, right through the middle.
And how my head pains. It seems it has always
pained since I became two beings, two beings, asked Tony.

(10:53):
In surprise, Gorth fell to his knees and sat crouched
against the wall, rocking to and fro with arms about
his head stomach, in a futile attempt to stanch the
flow of blood and to relieve his pain. Yes, he said,
two beings, the real Gorth, who is a manufactured man,
produced by those fiends Ainsworth and Talbot, from a less

(11:16):
fortunate creature than the other. Me, a poor captive from
that great land which is now in the memory that
never before existed. This other self has been so unhappy.
There was a wife, two children, wonderful companions in that
faraway land where all was so bright. And now the pain,

(11:38):
the pain of longing that never ceases to tear at
this great breast, the pain in the head that cannot
be relieved, the faces that come to torture in the darkness.
I go gladly, another victim of Talbot's and Ainsworth's ambition

(11:59):
had paid the price, and Tony stepped into his room
and obtained a sheet with which he covered the form
of Gorth where it had slipped to the floor in
its final struggle. He returned to Margaret, closing and bolting
the door behind him. She had recovered her poison was
sitting on the edge of the bed, a sad smile
on her pale face. Tony was about to make some

(12:19):
attempt to console the girl he had come to love
so intensely, when there was a faint rap at the door.
Then a quick, insistent pounding. It is I Talbot, came
the voice of their captor. Let me in with pistol,
ready for any emergency. Tony unbolted the door and Jerry
Talbot literally fell into the room. He too, was mortally wounded,

(12:40):
and Tony helped him to a large easy chair, where
he faced the two captives with something of sorrow in
his dark eyes. Bring pen and ink paper, he ordered,
with a hint of his former imperious manner. Tony did
as he requested, placing the writing materials at Talbot's hand
on the broad arm of the chair. Thanks, continued Jerry

(13:04):
I'm about to write my last orders, and they are
entirely to save you, to people whom I have so wronged,
your friend Charlie as well. I'll die a bit happier
if I know that at least as much of my
sin has been rectified. You can fly a plane, yes,

(13:24):
replied Tony eagerly. Ours is in front, and it handles
exactly the same as any standard plane, with the exception
of the atomic motor, which is controlled by a small lever.
You will find the side of the stick. But first,
here are the keys. He produced a bunch of keys,
which he handed to Tony, denoting the several that would

(13:45):
be needed. He told them where to locate Charlie, how
to reach the entrance of the long tunnel, how to
operate the car that would carry them to the Arizona retreat,
how to blow up the tunnel to forever, close the
entrance to Subterranea, and seal the tomb of the blasted
Hopes with the monsters of his making. Then he swiftly
penned an order to Marin, the leader of his band

(14:06):
on the surface. This will see you safely through, he said,
handing the paper to Tony. Now be off before it is
too late. The supermen and the morons are locked up temporarily,
but none of our doors are strong enough to halt
them for long, and without my control they'll take things

(14:27):
in their own hands. So make haste. There was a
certain majesty in the bearing of this man, who, so
recently inflamed with his dreams of empire, was now about
to pay the supreme penalty for his misdeeds. Tony hesitated,
Is there nothing we can do for you? He asked, nothing,

(14:48):
leave me at once, His head drooped, and he waved
them weakly from the room. Somehow they pitied him. A
sense of loss came to them as they took their
last look at the dejected figure of the dying man.
They crept from the room and started for Charley's cell
end of Chapter ten.