The Twelve Frights of Christmas by Isaac Asimov Charles G Waugh

Author:Isaac Asimov, Charles G Waugh, [Isaac Asimov, Charles G Waugh,]
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THE HELLHOUND PROJECT

Ron Goulart

I

The mechanical cop came roving through the ninth floor of the Plaza Hotel, swinging his electric night-stick. “Time’s up there,” he said as he jabbed at the inhabitant of one plastic col and then another.

Dawn light was beginning to show dimly at the barred windows. Heavy rain continued to fall.

A lean scraggly man sat up, massaged his face with scabby hands. “I still got an hour, you dumb tin can.” He pointed at the ticking meter beside his cot.

The robot flophouse cop rolled on, poking his stick into sleepers whose meter time had run out. “Time’s up there. Rise and shine.” He stopped beside another flopcot. “Off your ox, buddy.” He repeated this twice before bolstering his shock stick to grab at the fat man sprawled on the raveled thermal blanket.

From the next bed a black man in a tattered jumpsuit said, “You got yourself one for the Cadaver Service, cop.”

“Time’s up there,” the mechanical cop told the fat man as he shook him by the shoulders. “Rise and shine.”

The black man, yawning and lowering his feet to the floor said, “Cardiac thing. I’d guess.”

Two cots to the left of the dead man, Thad McIntosh awoke. He shook his head from side to side, gulped in the thick musky air of the flophouse. Thad was twenty-eight, long and lanky. Right now he was about fifteen pounds underweight, had a three-day beard and a scabby scar on his forehead. He was dressed in a pair of thin track slacks and a surplus coat from the Brazilian war of 2018. Rubbing his crusty eyes, he told the mechanical rouster, “The guy’s dead, leave him alone.”

The Negro grinned at Thad. “I’m glad you agree with my diagnosis of the stiff. Did you used to be a doctor?”

“Nope.” Thad untied his all-season boots, which he’d fastened around his neck for the night.

“I was. It’s an interesting story how I fell from grace.”

“It always is.” Thad put on his boots, yawned.

“No, I didn’t always live on Manhattan.”

“This man is deceased,” announced the mechanical cop.

Thad ran a hand through his dark tangled hair, wincing whenever he came to a lump or a bruised spot.

The lean scraggly man was sitting up again. “Jesus, I don’t like to be around when people die,” he complained as Thad passed him.

“You came to the wrong island,” said Thad.

“Who had a choice?”

The Plaza elevators still weren’t working. Thad used the stairs. After three flights he found he was wheezing and panting. He halted on a landing, taking slow, careful breaths. Feeling absently into his jacket pocket he discovered a twenty-dollar silver piece. Enough for breakfast anyway. He had no recollection of why he had the money. It was his impression he’d stuck his last ten bucks into the bed meter.

The night doormen were going off duty, turning their stun rifles over to the three men on the morning shift. Campfires were smoldering all over Central Park, their smoke mingling with the gray rain and the thin light of this November daybreak.

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