by Ray Cummings
CHAPTER VI
_The Attack upon New York_
I must sketch now the main events following this night of May 15thand 16th as the outside world saw them. The frantic reports fromBermuda were forced into credibility by the appearance ofapparitions at many points along the Atlantic seaboard of thesouthern States. They were sporadic appearances that night. Noattacks were reported. But in all, at least a thousand wraithlikefigures of men must have been seen. The visitations began atmidnight and ended with dawn. To anyone, reading in the morningpapers or hearing from the newscasters that "ghosts" were seen atSavannah, the thing had no significance. But in Washington, whereofficials took a summary of all the reports and attempted ananalysis of them, one fact seemed clear. The wraiths were travelingnorthward. It could almost be fancied that this was an army,traveling in the borderland of the Unknown. Appearing momentarily asthough coming out to scout around and see the contour and thecharacteristics of our realm; disappearing again into invisibility,to show themselves in an hour or so many miles farther north.
The reports indicated also that it was not one group of the enemy,but several--and all of them traveling northward. The most northerlygroup of them by dawn showed itself up near Cape Hatteras.
The news, when it was fully disseminated that next day, brought amingling of derision and terror from the public. The world rang withthe affair. Remote nations, feeling safe since nothing of the kindseemed menacing them, were amused that distant America, supposedlyso scientifically modern, should be yielding to superstition worthyonly of the Middle Ages. The accounts from Bermuda were moredifficult to explain. And England, with Bermuda involved, was notskeptical; as a matter of fact, the British authorities wereastonished. Warships were starting for Bermuda; and that morning ofMay 16th, with the passenger lines in New York not sailing forBermuda, American warships were ordered to Hamilton. The menace,whatever it was, would soon be ended.
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That was May 16th. Another night passed, and on May 17th the worldrang with startled horror and a growing terror. Panics werebeginning in all the towns and cities of the American seaboard northof Cape Hatteras. It was no longer a matter of merely seeing"ghosts." There had been real attacks the previous night.
There had been a variety of incidents, extraordinarilyhorrifying--so diverse, so unexpected that they could not have beenguarded against. It was a dark night, an area of low pressure withleaden storm-clouds over all the Atlantic coastal region, fromCharleston north to the Virginia Capes. A coastal passenger ship offHatteras sent out a frantic radio distress call. The apparitions ofmen had suddenly been seen in mid-air directly in the ship's course.The message was incoherent; the vessel's wireless operator waslocked in his room at the transmitter, wildly describing an attackupon the ships.
The white apparitions--a group of twenty or thirty men--had beenmarching in mid-air when the ship sighted them directly over itsbow. In the darkness of the night they were only a hundred feetahead when the lookout saw them. In a moment the vessel was underthem, and they began materializing.... The account grew increasinglyincoherent. The figures materialized and fell to the deck, pickedthemselves up and began running about the ship, attacking withlittle green light-beams. The ship's passengers and crew vanished,obliterated; annihilated. It seemed that young women among thepassengers were being spared. The ship was melting--the woodendecks, all the wooden super-structure melting.... A few moments offantastic horror, then the distress call died into silence asdoubtless the green light-beams struck the operator's little cabin.
* * * * *
That vessel was found the next day, grounded on the shoals offHatteras. The sea was oily and calm. It lay like a gruesome shell,as though some fire had swept all its interior. Yet not fire either,for there were no embers, no ashes. Diseased, leprous, gruesomelyweird with parts of its interior intact and other parts obliterated.And no living soul was upon it save one steward crouching in a lowercabin laughing with madness which the shock of what he had seenbrought upon him.
On land, a railroad train in Virginia had been wrecked, struckapparently by a greenish ray. And also in Virginia, during the earlyevening in a village, an outdoor festival at which there were manyyoung girls was attacked by apparitions suddenly coming intosolidity. The report said that thirty or more young girls weremissing. The little town was in chaos.
And the chaos, that next day, spread everywhere. It was obvious nowthat the enemy was advancing northward. In Washington, Baltimore,Philadelphia, panics were beginning. New York City was seething withexcitement. People were leaving all the towns and cities of thearea. An exodus north and westward. In New York, every steamship,airplane and railroad train was crowded with departing people. Theroads to Canada and to the west were thronged with outgoingautomobiles.
But it was only a small part of the millions who remained. And thetransportation systems were at once thrown into turmoil, with thesudden frantic demands threatening to break them down. And then anew menace came to New York. Incoming food supplies for its millionscrowded into that teeming area around Manhattan, were jeopardized.The army of men engaged in all the myriad activities by which thegreat city sustained itself were as terrified as anyone else. Theybegan deserting their posts. And local communication systems wentawry. The telephones, the lights, local transportation--all of thembegan limping, threatening to break.
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Tremendous, intricate human machine by whose constant activity somany millions are enabled to live so close together! No one couldrealize how vastly interwoven are a million activities which makelife in a great city comfortable and safe until something goeswrong! And one wrong thing so swiftly affects another! As though ina vastly intricate mechanism little cogs were breaking, and thebreaks spreading until presently the giant fly-wheels could nolonger turn.
If the startled Federal and State officials could have foreseen eventhe events of the next forty-eight hours they would have wanted NewYork City deserted of the population. But that was impossible. Evenif everyone could have been frightened into leaving, the chaos ofitself would have brought death to untold thousands.
As it was, May 17th and 18th showed New York in a growing chaos.Officials now were wildly trying to stem the panics, trying to keeporganized the great machines of city life.
It is no part of my plan for this narrative to try and detail theevents in New York City as the apparitions advanced upon it. Thecrowded bridges and tunnels; the traffic and transportationaccidents; the failure of the lights and telephones and broadcastingsystems; the impending food shortage; the breaking out of diseasefrom a score of causes; the crushed bodies lying in the streetswhere frantic mobs had trampled them and no one was available totake them away. The scenes beggar description.
* * * * *
And in all this the enemy had played no part save that of causingterror. Warships gathered in New York harbor were impotent. Statetroops massed in New Jersey, across the Hudson from New York, and inPutnam and Westchester Counties, were powerless to do more than tryand help the escaping people since there was no enemy of tangiblesubstance to attack. Patrolling airplanes, armed with bombs, werehelpless. The white apparitions were gathering everywhere in theneighborhood of New York City. But they remained only apparitions,imponderable wraiths, non-existent save that they could be dimlyseen. And even had they materialized, no warships could shell thecity, for millions of desperate people were still within it tryingto get away.
The news from little Bermuda was submerged, unheeded, in thisgreater catastrophe. But on the night of May 17th when the Americanwarships arrived off Hamilton, the Paget invaders were gone.
The menace in Bermuda was over; it was the great New York City whichwas menaced now. The apparitions which had advanced from the southwere suddenly joined by a much more numerous army. On the night ofMay 19th it had reached New York. Two or three thousand glowingwhite shapes were apparent, with yet
other thousands perhapshovering just beyond visibility. They made no attack. They stoodencamped on the borderland of the Unknown realm to which theybelonged. Busy with their preparations for battle and watching thestricken city to which already mere terror had brought the horror ofdisease and death.
It seemed now that this Fourth Dimension terrain co-existing withinin the space of New York City, must be a tumbled, mountainous regionof crags and spires, and yawning pits, ravines and valley depths.Jagged and precipitous indeed, for there were apparitions encampedin the air above Manhattan and harbor--higher in altitude than theChrysler or the Empire State towers. Other wraiths showed in a dozenplaces lower down--some within the city buildings themselves. Andyet others were below ground, within the river waters, or groupedseemingly a hundred feet beneath the street levels.
Fantastic army of wraiths! In the daylight they almost faded, but atnight they glowed clearly. Busy assembling their weapons of war.Vanishing and reappearing at different points. Climbing ordescending the steep cliffs and crags of their terrain to new pointsof vantage; and every hour with their numbers augmenting. And all sosilent! So grimly purposeful, and yet so ghastly silent!
It was near midnight of May 19th when the wraiths beganmaterializing and the attack upon New York City began!