The world will long remember the morning of August 5, 1939, when the full nature of the Menace burst upon it. All that had passed before paled into insignificance at the startling news from Florida. That state of palms and oranges, that winter playground of the idle rich, no longer exists. But its name will long remain in the minds of man as the region where first the Menace came upon the land.
Baking in the glare of the August sun, terrifically hot, though still but an hour above the horizon, a small group waited on the platform of the ramshackle station of St. Nicholas, a few miles inland. Southern railway schedules were proverbially elastic and thus little thought was given to the fact that it was a full half hour past the time when the west-bound “number 9” should have made its appearance. The station-master (baggage-man, telegrapher, porter, etc.) had reported that the wires were down to the east but this was a none too rare occurrence. The talk was, of course, of the vacant Atlantic (for now even the searching warships had been withdrawn) and the horror which had cleared it of shipping.
“It’s my idee,” quote the village druggist, who was on his way to Jacksonville for his monthly buying trip, “It’s my idee that the Germans are gonna start another war and they’ve got millyuns of submarines out there. If I was President—What the heck is that up the track?”
The oracular dictum was interrupted by the appearance to the east of a hand-car on the rails, traveling at the uttermost speed of which this conveyance was capable. It was being operated by one man, and his frantic heaving at the pump handle gave evidence of more than ordinary haste. The four-wheeled platform fairly flew along the steel pathway—“Jingo Neddy, he’s clippin’ it some!” “Who is it, kin you make out?” “It’s Bob, the agent at Pablo Beach—musta been a wreck!” “What’s he yellin’?”
There was time for but a few startled observations when the hand car had already reached the station. Its operator, pale, disheveled, staring with panic, shaking in an ague of fear, was shouting, “Run, run, it’s coming. All gone, all gone, wiped out. Oh my God. Get ’em all out. Run, run!”
That fateful morning of August 5th, the little town of Pablo Beach; one of the many which once dotted the East coast of Florida, just waking to another day of toil, had been overwhelmed by a tremendous mass of quivering jelly suddenly heaving itself out of the ocean. “It was higher than the biggest house in town, and it stretched along the shore as far as I could see. It quivered like jelly, and it rolled—it rolled on up the beach and over the houses and the people. Everybody run toward it at first, only me, and I would have only ‘number 9’ was due, and I had to stick by my key. Everyone run toward it, and it just rolled on and over them. It ’peared to move slow, but it must have been coming fast ’cause, when folks started to run away from it, it just kind of sent out part of itself a bit faster, and it caught them. God, it was terrible. Just before I grabbed the hand-car and got away it caught Pop Saunders, the postmaster. I saw it catch him. It just kind of heaved, and swallowed him up. I saw him inside of it, just like a fly in calf’s foot jelly, just as clear, with his mouth open, and his eyes staring, and his legs kicking and his arms working, but his kicking and squirming didn’t bother the thing any. And then his face kind of run together till it was just a blotch—and that’s all I saw!”
* * * *
In London, in Berlin and Paris men stopped their midday occupations to read aghast the story of the Florida station-agent. In New York, Boston and Baltimore the wheels of industry never started that day, as the office workers, the laborers, and the corporation presidents were halted on their way to their day’s occupations by the dread tale. Sleeping Denver and ’Frisco waked to nightmare terror by the shouting of the extras in the streets.
In the Mt. Wilson observatory Donald Standish, keeping his sleepless vigil at the eyepiece of his beloved telescope, was startled by the ringing of the “emergency news” bell on the broadcast receiver in a corner. Hurriedly switching on the speaker, he heard the terrible tale. “Gosh! I was right.”
The stars were forgotten now. Standish joined the world in anxious waiting for the next report. It came:
U.S. News Service. Bulletin 25.
The governor of Florida has mobilized the militia and troops are already moving rapidly toward Pablo Beach. Federal aid has been called for. The Secretary of War has ordered all available regulars with railroad artillery, flame-throwers, and gas projection apparatus to the threatened region. It is confidently expected that all danger will be over shortly.
U.S. News Service. Bulletin 26.
Troops have now arrived within a mile of the infested territory. Infantry is being deployed, armed with gas bombs and flame throwers. The 16 inch railroad guns are being prepared for action.
Bulletin 26a.
Artillery is now firing high explosive shells into the advancing mass. Infantry is rapidly approaching within range.
U.S. News Service. Bulletin 27.
Artillery fire is utterly ineffective. Its only result is to hurl great globs of jelly into the air. They fall on the advancing infantry and envelop them. The loss is appalling. Indescribable scenes of horror are being witnessed. Even before the enfolded soldiers cease their struggles against asphyxiation their forms begin to melt away. They appear to be digested by the jelly. The big guns have been ordered to cease fire. The effect of the poison gas which is being released in great clouds is now being observed.
Donald could restrain himself no longer. “Fools,” he burst out. “All their big guns and their gases will never stop that stuff. Some scientific method of attack must be found.”
The next bulletin proved him right.
Poison gas has no effect. Flame-throwers wither the jelly when they reach it, but on both sides of each point of operation the mass continues its relentless march. Reports reach us now that the east coast as far north as Charleston has been invaded.
Donald burst out again. “We must find a way to stop the advance of the jelly, and then to kill it. Perhaps Doug will have a notion. He ought to, he’s been working with cells long enough. I’ll call him. Besides, I haven’t spoken to Mary since noon yesterday.”
As the astronomer made his way to the personal communications set, the call light on that device began to flash. He answered it. “Mt. Wilson Observatory, Standish speaking.”
“Professor Standish, this is President Adams’ office. There will be a radio conference of scientists in half an hour. You are requested to listen in.”
“Right.”
“Now to get Doug,” rapidly whirling the dials to Cameron’s wave length.
Quickly the connection was completed. “Hello Doug, did you get the news? They know now that I was right. What, you haven’t heard! Might have known nothing matters to you but your blasted cancer. There soon won’t be anybody left for you to save from cancer. Get this—”
In quick, succinct phrases the savant outlined to the bacteriologist the tale of horror which was echoing round the earth. He did not get very far, however, for an exclamation of horror stopped him. As he listened to the broken phrases of Cameron, the tanned face of the astronomer paled with horror. His knuckles whitened with the force of his grip on the receiver.
“What’s that? Mary flew to New York yesterday to get you some pigments. Man, don’t you realize that it’s a matter of hours till the protoplasm visits New York. Get Mary back at once.
“Damnation! You can’t? The radio on her phone is out of order? How was she flying, by sight? Can’t you reach her? No? Then I’m going after her. The devil with the conference. One hair on Mary’s head is worth more than the rest of the world to me. You’ll go with me? Get ready then, I’ll make it as fast as I can.”
In a trice Donald’s flying suit was on, the hangar’s doors were opened, and the trim little sport plane zoomed up to the 5,000 foot speed level, then like an arrow flew to the east.
Meanwhile message after message of terror had been wingi
ng its way into the ether. All the east coast of Florida, Southern Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, in rapid succession had seen the creeping, iridescent terror. Resistlessly out of the sea it was heaving, twenty-five feet high, hundreds of miles long, this vast jelly-like tide of destruction. It was as if the sea had congealed and was making a final triumphant drive for mastery over its eternal enemy, the land. With the inevitableness of fate itself the thing rolled up, enveloping all that opposed it, enfolding the shrieking mobs which tried to flee before it, and most horribly of all, digesting them.
* * * *
In New York the streets were packed with pale-faced throngs. Although every home had its receiver, the desire for the companionship of others had sent the entire population into the streets. The public loud-speakers, the newspaper bulletin boards were the nuclei of the masses. As one item after another of disaster was broadcast by the news-purveying agencies, a groan would rise from the crowds and then silence would come again. For these were silent crowds; the magnitude of the calamity had stricken the people dumb.
Forcing her way through the packed masses and into the hundred story tower which Columbia University had just occupied, was Mary Cameron. Astounded on her arrival by the terrific news of calamity, she was anxiously intent upon completing her errand and speeding her plane back to her brother. But tremendous difficulties had delayed her. Traffic was well-nigh suspended. It had taken an enormous bribe to persuade a taxi-driver to undertake the journey from the Governor’s Island landing field, through the vehicular tunnel and up Broadway to the new educational centre in what had been Central Park. Held to a snail-like pace by the masses which packed the streets from building line to building line, the trip had taken hours. But now, at dusk, she had reached her goal.
The great building was deserted. But the doors of an elevator stood open and she could operate the simple mechanism. Swiftly she rose through the hundred floors of this latest apotheosis of education to where, in the very tip of the soaring tower, Cameron’s home laboratory was located. She unlocked the door, and entered the room. Quickly dropping her close-fitting cap and leather flying suit she began to assemble the bottles and jars listed on the slip which she had brought from the mountain retreat she had left the night before. But the strain of twenty-four hours of flying by sight and of the terrific scenes she had just witnessed suddenly told on even her wiry constitution, and she dropped into a chair for a moment’s rest. She closed her eyes—in a moment she was sound asleep.
Startled awake by a roar which, ascending from a thousand feet below, rattled the windows with the force given it by millions of throats, she found the room glowing with a green and spectral light. The usual murmur of the great city had changed to a terrific tumult in which she could sense a terrible agony of fear even at this alpine height. She ran to the window. Night had fallen, but it was not dark. From far below came the green light, a glowing luminescence, which reminded her of some rotting fungus which she had one night found in the woods near Cameron’s laboratory. The glowing material made a gridiron there beneath, filling the streets south and west, till it merged in sheets of green flame where she knew the harbor and rivers lay. Immediately beneath her the streets were still clear, but bathed in that unearthly light she could see black streams. In the cupboard she knew her brother had a pair of binoculars. Quickly getting them, she focused them on the black streams. She saw people, thousands, tens of thousands, rushing north, shouting in a frenzy of terror, and there, only a little south, the glowing green light pouring up the streets, towering far above the hurrying struggling mobs, moving with incredible swiftness, engulfing the stragglers. The menace had reached New York!
She swept the glasses north whence came a rolling as of thunder. Far up the Sound she could see flashes—the forts at the upper end of the city were fighting their big guns. South again, and below, quiet now, the glowing jelly had filled the streets. New York was dead.
“Well, I’m in a fine fix now! I’m safe enough here, but how am I going to get away. Probably starve to death. Well that’s better than being swallowed up by that thing down there.”
A terrific crash downtown came to her startled ears; then almost before she could turn, another, and another. Down on the tip of the Island, where first Manhattan had reached toward the sky, there was a clear space where the 85-story Bank of Manhattan building had been. Woolworth’s too was gone, and all the mountainous structures below. As she gazed, she saw the 150-story City Hall Tower, just completed, sway, then, like some giant of the forest felled after centuries of growth by the woodman’s axe, topple over, and gathering speed, crash into the lambent sea which bathed its foot. As it struck the surface of the quivering flood of light there was a tremendous splash, and through the air for hundreds of feet flew huge glowing fragments. They fell on the roofs and the serried façades of the buildings for blocks around, and then, to Mary’s horror, they spread, and wherever the patches of light lay the sturdy structures of steel and granite began to melt.
“Good God! I’m not so safe after all. The ghastly stuff eats even the material of which these buildings are made. I wonder how long this place will last. I guess it’s finish for me.”
* * * *
All this time the yellow sport plane had been rushing across the continent, sliding down the radio beacon from New York. Intent on the path ahead, the two leather clad figures bent over the dashboard. No talk, for the muffler had been cut for greater speed. No talk, but the thoughts of the two were identical. “What’s happening in New York? What’s happening to Mary? Is she safe?” Over and over these thoughts reiterated themselves in the weary brains. These two great scientists, in whose intellects lay perhaps the saving of the world, had forgotten everything save that wisp of a girl in New York, sister of one and sweetheart of the other.
At last the Appalachians appeared, passed beneath them, fell away behind them. Night had come. Donald who had yielded his place at the stick to Cameron, suddenly clutched his companion’s arm and pointed ahead. On the horizon there pulsated a greenish glow. Standish’s mind flew back to that star in Andromeda, whose passing he had watched months before. Here again he saw the light whose components he had analyzed in his gas spectroscope! The plane was headed directly for New York, and straight ahead of them the luminescence was at its brightest!
Ten minutes now, and they were circling over the great city. From the bay to Westchester, from the Palisades east to the sea, the city was invested. As far north as the ridge of giant erections about 42nd Street the smooth expanse of the phosphorescent sea told of the progress of destruction.
Cameron reached for the lever which silenced the roaring exhaust of the twin engines.
“If only we’re in time; if only she is still in my lab. I’m going to go past the windows and see.”
Throttled down to its slowest flying speed, the little plane dipped gracefully past the doomed tower rising high above the glowing rectangle of the park. Not twenty feet from the tower it glided. And there, in the window which both men sought so eagerly, was the figure they had hardly hoped would be there!
Up again then for consultation.
“Doug, how close can we get to that window?”
“I’ll get within a foot, or we’ll all go to hell together.”
“Then do it, and I’ll get her out, but first tell her what we plan. Get a flashlight; she knows the Morse Code. Remember how I used to signal her in the old days?”
“A long slow glide now, about 500 feet away, lucky that your window faces the park.”
Cameron obeyed, while the astronomer flashed his dots and dashes.
“On the sill, ready to jump.”
A wave of the brave little hand signaling understanding. Then up again.
Up to 5,000 feet and a mile away. Then while Standish creeps out to the end of the wing, the motor is shut off and a long glide begun. Down, on a long slant, straight for that pinnacle rising sheer ahead. Down, eve
r down, with increasing speed hurtles the plane. A miracle of accurate steering, another miracle of perfect timing, and sheer muscular strength are required. Stark courage from all three, or the gallant attempt at rescue must end in disaster. Will they, can they do it? Too near—and a crash; too far and a new attempt cannot be made. For see, already the great tower sways with approaching dissolution.
Perfect aiming, the plane almost grazes the side of the tower. Perfect execution—a hundred feet from the window on whose sill Mary stands, one hand clinging to the sash, the other outstretched; the ship dips, then suddenly rising, almost stalls directly opposite the opening. Perfect timing—the hand of the man on the wing grips the hand of the girl on the sill; a leap, a tug, and there are now two on the wing. Frantically Cameron works at the controls; frantically the lovers cling to the taut surface of the fabric on which they sprawl. Overbalanced, the craft reels drunkenly. Then the roar of the motor, the wings grip the air, and all is safe.
As Cameron zoomed upward, the hundred-story University rocks in ever-widening arcs; then slowly, slowly it begins to fall. Intact, entire, as it had for so short a time soared over the City, so it falls. Slowly at first, then with gradually increasing speed the great structure falls, until with a rush almost too fast for the eye to follow, it crashes into the lucent tide.
Into the little cockpit tumble the lovers, trembling, exhausted with their supreme effort. Cameron too, is trembling, but he must guide the ship with its precious freight. Westward now they turn, westward through the horrible night.
And now for the first time, they can look about them and take stock. The air is thick with darting planes, fleeing westward from the scourge. Below them not a house that is not ablaze with light, not a highway that is not jammed with rushing conveyances, not a railroad which is not crammed with hurrying trains, westward every one. Looking behind, from north to south, in the wide sweep which their height of 7000 feet allowed them, nothing but that terrible spectral green light, nothing but that immense sea, not of water, but of all-devouring jelly, come across that vast infinity of interstellar space to harry the earth and conquer it. And overhead the black velvet sky, and the stars, gleaming still in the wide arch of the heavens as they did when Earth was a whirling mass, as they still shall when this ball is naught but a cold, dead thing.
The Alien MEGAPACK® Page 38