DOC SAVAGE: THE INFERNAL BUDDHA (The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage) Read Free

one perfectly synchronized voice.
    “Eh?”
    “The Chans. Haven’t you heard of us?”
    “No,” admitted Dang Mi.
    “We didn’t think you had,” they assured him calmly. Their easy way of speaking in unison was striking—not to mention weird. They might have shared one brain between them.
    Dang Mi glowered. It was a funny time for kidding, and it certainly looked as if they were kidding him.
    He started forward, his boots making mushy sucking noises in the wet sand of the beach.
    “If you come any closer—” the man-twin warned.
    “—we will open up the box,” finished the girl-twin.
    “You wouldn’t want that,” added the man-twin.
    “Definitely, you wouldn’t,” the girl said firmly.
    “Us rovers are kinda like raccoons,” Dang announced.
    What he meant by that was that he knew it was incongruous that his most intense curiosity should be aroused by the one thing in evidence that was sealed, when there was so much else that he didn’t understand.
    Dang asked a perfectly natural question, given his avaricious disposition.
    “What’s in that dang box, anyway?”
    “A terrible thing,” said the man-twin.
    “A wonderful thing,” said the girl-twin, her voice blending in with her twin’s, except on the middle spoken word.
    Dang grunted. “Well, which is it?” he demanded.
    “Both,” they replied.
    “In that case,” said Dang, whipping out his pistols, “it’s all mine.” He started to advance, the dry portion of the beach crunching under his hard heels.
    That was when the man-twin whose name was Chan opened the blue box.
    He didn’t do it right away. First, he threw on his hood. The girl did, too. Hastily, she fastened it about her throat, and went to make her twin’s hood fast.
    Then, with incredible calmness considering the eerie violence of what next transpired, the man-twin opened the box.
    He opened it only a crack. The crack was pointed in Dang Mi’s specific direction.
    Dang narrowed his one slanted eye at the crack expectantly. He cocked the pistol. He planned to shoot whatever came out of the blue box, if necessary.
    But nothing came out of the box.
    Instead, the moist white atmosphere of fog surrounding them all began to move. Like a great ghost impelled by an unfelt wind, it surged toward the odd duo. The cottony stuff gathered speed. The Chans were instantly lost from sight, consumed in a ball of the stuff.
    As Dang watched, his droopy eye popped open in shock.
    One moment, he was striding through a cool world of mist. Then next, it was clear. And the fog was—incredibly—pouring into the blue box as if fleeing the realm of normalcy. There was no mistaking what was happening. The box—or something inside the box, Dang suddenly realized—was consuming the thick fog with greedy voraciousness.
    The ball of fog rapidly thinned, revealing the Chans, standing cool, calm and collected. In their coverall garments, they resembled a pair of sleek-skinned ebony seals.
    Fleet tendrils of white mist slipped into the blue box. When the last wisps withdrew from sight, the box was clapped shut.
    Dang Mi no longer cared by that time. He was running, running for the water with both hands clutching his throat, his pistols tossed carelessly in the sand.
    Out of his open mouth came a croaking. One word. He could barely get it out.
    “Water,” was the word Dang Mi croaked.
    When he reached the surf he threw himself in with a great splashing. On his hands and knees, he began drinking brine in great sobbing gulps. This went on for nearly a minute.
    When Dang had had his fill, he stood up. He was facing the Devilfish, now visible through remarkably clear air that had moments before been befogged. Beyond the ship, not a little ways, fog hung low. It seemed to drift closer, as if curious, toward the clear void that had been so misty moments before.
    Poetical Percival Perkins stood on the rail. On either side were Dang’s cut-throats. Their eyes were so wide their bland faces lost all Asiatic