The War of the Worlds Murder d-6

by Max Allan Collins

  The corporal folded his arms, held his chin high and waited for a response.

  The purple left the lieutenant’s face. He seemed to be working hard to retain his composure.

  All the men had gathered around as the confrontation had built, and now Lt. Flanders said to them, “Men-this is no time to pull old chestnuts out of the fire. Let’s let bygones be bygones, forgive and forget, that’s what I’ve always said.”

  If so, no one assembled here remembered hearing it.

  “Let us pool our energies,” the lieutenant said rousingly, “and fight the common enemy that threatens us. We will make our last stand on the hill. Get to your posts…. You men with machine guns will concentrate your fire on the approaches to headquarters, and you men with rifles will make the last-ditch defense from high ground.”

  Shouts of support and even applause came from the troopers-with the notable exception of the stiff-necked corporal.

  Then the lieutenant showed his true colors: as his troopers were busy setting up the defenses, he got into his car with his missus and roared off into the foggy night. Heading north.

  Corporal Stevens was shaking his head. Carmine and Chuck were standing nearby, and he said to them, “I knew it!.. I’ll never regret telling off that worthless son of a bitch.”

  Then Rusty, corncob pipe puffing smoke signals, leaned out from a second-floor window and shouted, “Come on in, you guys! The whole thing is a phony! It was just a radio show by some joker named Orson Welles!”

  Carmine smiled at Chuck and Chuck said to Stevens, “ ‘Never,’ Corporal?”

  And the troopers sheepishly shuffled back inside HQ to put their firearms away.

  As the Buick hurtled at top speed, James Jr. and Bobby kept the car radio blasting.

  What they heard was unsettling, to say the least.

  “The battle which took place tonight at Grovers Mill has ended in one of the most startling defeats ever suffered by an army in modern times-seven thousand men armed with rifles and machine guns pitted against a single fighting machine of the invaders from Mars. One hundred and twenty known survivors…the rest strewn over the battle area from Grovers Mill to Plainsboro, crushed and trampled to death under the metal feet of the monster, or burned to cinders by its heat ray.”

  Bobby was smoking; he had his window down. James told him to roll it up.

  “Why, James?”

  “The Martian gas…I think I can smell it.”

  “The monster is now in control of the middle section of New Jersey and has effectively cut the state through its center. Communication lines are down from Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean. Railroad tracks are torn and service from New York to Philadelphia discontinued except routing some of the trains through Allentown and Phoenixville.”

  James began to pray, watching the headlights cut through the foggy darkness as best they could. In his mind, he said, If there is a God, please help us now!

  “Highways to the north, south, and west are clogged with frantic human traffic. Police and army reserves are unable to control the mad flight. By morning the fugitives will have swelled Philadelphia, Camden, and Trenton, it is estimated, to twice their normal population.”

  Bobby was sitting forward, frowning. “James-we were just in Trenton. We didn’t see any crowds like that….”

  “Martial law prevails throughout New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.”

  Bobby began to twirl the radio dial, trying to find other reports.

  Walter Gibson remained clueless as to the imaginary invasion having spread nationwide; but he was seeking a clue to something else by having a conversation in the eighteenth-floor men’s room.

  As elevator “boy” Leo had predicted, Louis didn’t get talkative until Gibson offered him a couple of dollars. Louis, in a gray uniform that would have been at home in a prison, leaned against the door to a stall, plunger in hand, bell down.

  “I don’t know Mrs. Welles, but I didn’t see no woman who looks like that in the building. I’d remember. I got an eye for the ladies.”

  Louis weighed around two hundred fifty pounds, was perhaps five-eight, had greasy black hair, bulging cow eyes, yellow crooked teeth, and cheeks and chin so blue with the need for a shave that it was safe to say the ladies did not have an eye for him.

  Descriptions of Balanchine and the three thugs also fell on deaf ears.

  Gibson, smoking his umpteenth Camel, had a stray thought. “Louis, are you the only janitor on duty?”

  “One and only.”

  “When did you come on?”

  “Around one P.M.”

  “You know Mr. Houseman?”

  “Sure.”

  “You loaned him your passkey, right?”

  “Sure.”

  Well, that was a dead end.

  But Gibson pressed on: “And he returned it?”

  “Sure. First thing.”

  Gibson asked a few more questions, then hitched a ride with Leo back to the twenty-second floor.

  In the lobby, where security guard Williams remained seated at his desk, Miss Holliday-the shapely, sturdy girl was in a blue dress with white polka dots and white collar-stood waiting to catch the elevator.

  “Miss Holliday-hello.”

  She flashed her infectious smile. “Hello, Mr. Gibson.”

  “Got a minute?”

  “Sure. I was just heading over to the theater, to get things ready.”

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah…. There’s a Danton’s Death rehearsal right after the broadcast.”

  “Ah. A few questions?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Let’s sit…”

  They took two chairs in the reception area. Williams was within earshot, but it didn’t seem to matter to Gibson, who asked Miss Holliday about Virginia Welles and George Balanchine, who she too had not seen around here today…“though I’ve been in and out, back and forth, ’tween here and the theater, running errands, ya know?”

  But the three thugs, strangely enough, got Miss Holliday’s pretty brow furrowing.

  “Describe them again,” she said. “In more detail.”

  Gibson did, best he could.

  “Those sound like actors.”

  Gibson frowned. “Actors?”

  “Yeah-spear-carrier types. Mr. Welles uses them in crowd scenes, sometimes.”

  “You’re sure?”

  She made a funny smirk. “No, I’m not sure-you don’t have a picture to show me, right? But your descriptions are good-you’re a writer, aren’t you? And those three goon types sound like minor actors Mr. Welles uses, from time to time.”

  “Thank you, Miss Holliday.”

  “You can call me Judy.”

  He walked her to the elevator, his mind abuzz.

  Finally he had clues-but what he’d learned from the janitor seemed to contradict the direction Judy Holliday’s information indicated….

  Quiet as a mouse, heedful but not halted by the bold ON THE AIR sign over the door, the writer slipped into Studio One, passing through the vestibule, into the live broadcast, and padding carefully up the short flight of stairs into the control booth.

  Kenny Delmar was being introduced as “the Secretary of the Interior,” but the voice he did was a dead-on impression of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

  “Citizens of the nation-I shall not try to conceal the gravity of the situation that confronts the country, nor the concern of your government in protecting the lives and property of its people. However, I wish to impress upon you-private citizens and public officials, all of you, the urgent need of calm and resourceful action.”

  On his podium, Welles was grinning like a big gleeful baby.

  Delmar continued: “Fortunately, this formidable enemy is still confined to a comparatively small area, and we may place our faith in the military forces to keep them there.”

  Gibson had paused in the sub-control booth, and CBS executive Dave Taylor was shaking his head, sighing-Welles had been told not to invoke the president, and (
technically) he hadn’t; and yet of course he had.

  Delmar was wrapping up: “In the meantime, placing our faith in God, we must continue the performance of our duties, each and every one of us, so that we may confront this destructive adversary with a nation united, courageous, and consecrated to the preservation of human supremacy on this earth.”

  Delmar took a dramatic pause, then: “I thank you.”

  The bulletins continued at breakneck speed: from Langham Field, scout planes reported a trio of Martian machines visible above the trees, heading north; in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, a second cylinder had been found and the army was rushing to blow it up before it opened; in the Watchung Mountains, the 22nd Field Artillery closed in on the enemy, but poisonous black smoke dispatched by the invaders wiped out the battery.

  Eight bombers were set on fire by the tripods in a flash of green. More of the lethal black smoke was leaching in from the Jersey marshes, and gas masks were of no use, the populace urged to make for open spaces.

  Recommended routes of escape were shared with listeners.

  When the phone rang, the Dorn sisters-kneeling before their living-room radio as if taking communion-yelped in surprise and fear.

  Miss Jane rose, patted her sister’s shoulder, and went to answer it, in the nearby hallway.

  Her friend Mrs. Roberta Henderson, a third-grade teacher, was calling to ask about the upcoming bake sale. Could Jane and Eleanor provide their usual delicious cherry pies?

  “Haven’t you heard?” Miss Jane asked, frantically, amazed that her friend could be caught up in such mundane matters at a time like this.

  “Heard?”

  Miss Jane’s words tumbled out on top of each other, uncharacteristically, as she told of the news reports of the Martian invasion.

  “You can’t be serious, Jane-that’s the radio.”

  “Of course it’s the radio!”

  “No…no, I mean, it’s just a play.”

  “A…play? Why, that’s nonsense! It’s, it’s…news!”

  “No-just a play. A clever play. Jane, you need to settle down. Is Eleanor handy?”

  “She’s in the living room. Praying. Roberta, surely you understand that the forces of God are overpowering us, and we are at last being given our deserved punishment for all our evil ways.”

  “Hmm-huh. Listen to me, Jane. Call the newspaper office. Promise me you will.”

  “Well…all right.”

  “Do it now.”

  Miss Jane said good-bye, hung up, and asked the operator to connect her with the local paper.

  “We’re getting a lot of calls,” a male voice said. “It’s just a radio show. Kind of a…practical joke.”

  “Well, it’s not very funny!”

  “I agree with you, lady. Have a happy Hallowe’en!”

  “No thank you! It’s a pagan celebration!”

  “Ain’t it though. Good night.”

  Miss Jane went into the living room and, as Miss Eleanor looked up at her like a child, shared what she’d learned.

  Soon they were sitting in their rockers, the radio switched off.

  Miss Eleanor cleared her throat and said, “I’m glad I asked for forgiveness, even if I didn’t have to.”

  Miss Jane shared that sentiment, adding, “It was a good opportunity to atone for our sins. The end will come, and those who have freely indulged will face a horrible reckoning.”

  “It is the life after this life which is important,” her sister added.

  “I don’t mind death,” Miss Jane said, “but I do want to die forgiven.”

  The two women smiled at each other, serenely. They again began to knit. In silence.

  But within themselves, they were furious-though they were not sure why. A vague sense enveloped them that they had been duped by the sinful world.

  Well, the joke was on the sinners. Though the Martians hadn’t come, one day sheets of God’s vengeful fire would sweep over this wretched land.

  And the girls had that, at least, to look forward to.

  Gibson was sitting in a chair behind John Houseman, who sat between stopwatch-watcher Paul Stewart and the sound engineer. That polished scarecrow, CBS exec Davidson Taylor, stepped in, his expression grave.

  “We’re getting calls,” Taylor told Houseman. “Switchboards are swamped downstairs-people are going crazy out there.”

  Houseman, who swivelled toward Taylor, asked, “Crazy in what manner?”

  “If it’s true, deaths and suicides and injuries of all sorts, due to panic.”

  “How widespread?”

  “I don’t know, Jack, but you have to force Orson into making an explanatory station announcement. Right now.”

  Houseman, despite his misgivings about Orson’s approach, took a hard line. “Not until the scheduled break.”

  “This isn’t a request, Jack-”

  “I don’t care what it is. We’re approaching the dramatic apex of the story, and the announcement will be made, as written, just after that. It’s a matter of minutes.”

  Taylor shook his head. “Why do I back you people? You’re insane!”

  Houseman made a little facial shrug, and turned away.

  Amiable Ray Collins was out there, stepping up to a microphone, saying: “I’m speaking from the roof of Broadcasting Building, New York City. The bells you hear are ringing to warn the people to evacuate the city as…the Martians approach. Estimated in the last two hours, three million people have moved out along the roads to the north…”

  Gibson leaned forward and whispered to Houseman, “So you stuck up for Orson, after all?”

  Houseman offered a small, dry chuckle. “That is my fate, I’m afraid.”

  “Jack-I know you did it.”

  Houseman looked at Gibson.

  The writer said, “I’ve finished my investigation. And I know you’re responsible.”

  “Ah. Might I request you keep that information to yourself, just for the present? If Mr. Taylor is correct, we may have a crisis on our hands, first.”

  “You can’t be serious…”

  “Oh but I am. And don’t forget-I’m the one who signs your expense-account check.” He smiled beatifically and returned his attention to the window through which Ray Collins could be seen.

  The actor was saying into the mike, “No more defenses. Our army is wiped out…artillery, air force, everything, wiped out. This may be the…last broadcast. We’ll stay here, to the end…. People are holding service here below us…in the cathedral.”

  Ora Nichols blew through a hollow tube, approximating a ghostly boat whistle.

  “Now I look down the harbor. All manner of boats, overloaded with fleeing population, pulling out from docks. Streets are all jammed. Noise in crowds like New Year’s Eve in city. Wait a minute, the…the enemy is now in sight above the Palisades. Five-five great machines. First one is…crossing the river, I can see it from here, wading…wading the Hudson like a man wading through a brook…”

  Around the country, listeners-the fooled and the merely entertained-heard the “last announcer” speak from the CBS Building rooftop of Martian cylinders falling all over America, outside Buffalo, in Chicago and St. Louis.

  Among the radio audience were Professor Barrington and the student reporter, Sheldon Judcroft, who arrived at the quaint, pre-Revolutionary War hamlet of Cranbury, New Jersey (pop. 1, 278), to find half a dozen State Trooper patrol cars parked in front of the post office.

  “So it is real,” Sheldon said breathlessly.

  The professor pulled over, got out and went over to talk to the troopers. Sheldon stayed behind, to monitor the news on the radio.

  The announcer was saying, “Now the first machine reaches the shore, he…stands watching, looking over the city. His steel, cowlish head is even with the skyscrapers…. He waits for the others. They rise like a line of new towers on the city’s west side….”

  Sheldon watched the professor talking to a trooper who was shaking his head. Then it was the professor who was
shaking his head….

  “Now they’re lifting their metal hands. This is the end now. Smoke comes out…black…smoke, drifting over the city. People in the streets see it now. They’re running toward the East River…thousands of them, dropping in like rats.”

  The professor returned, got in the car and just sat there, wearing a stunned expression.

  “Now the smoke’s spreading faster, it’s reached Times Square. People are trying to run away from it, but it’s no use, they…they’re falling like flies. Now the smoke’s crossing Sixth Avenue…Fifth Avenue…a…a hundred yards away…it’s fifty feet….”

  The sound of the collapsing announcer on the roof was followed by ghostly boat whistles, and then…silence.

  “My God,” Sheldon said.

  “Good, isn’t it?”

  Sheldon blinked. Twice. “Good?”

  “It’s a radio show, my boy. Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre. Only question, is-how big a fool should you make out of us when you write up the story for the school paper?”

  “Oh, I don’t believe it-”

  “The trooper says the countryside is crawling with farmers with shotguns, looking for Martians. The fire chief has checked out half a dozen nonexistent fires, already.”

  “Why are these troopers here, then?”

  “To calm the populace, son. To find and disarm these ‘defenders’ before somebody gets hurt.”

  They were halfway back to Princeton before the laughter started-the professor kicked it off, but the student joined in heartily. They were laughing so hard, tears coming down, they almost hit a deer, in the fog.

  It was the second-most frightened they’d been that night.

  All around America, newspaper offices, police departments, sheriff’s offices, radio stations, as well as friends and relatives, received calls from believing listeners. The New York Times received 875 calls from its highly sophisticated readership. The worldly reporters of the New York Herald Tribune donned gas masks when they went out to cover the story. The Associated Press found it necessary to alert its member newspapers and radio stations that the invasion from Mars was not real. Electric light companies were called with demands that all power be shut down to keep Martians from having landing lights to guide them.