The War of the Worlds Murder

by Max Allan Collins

  A weary, somber voice took over: “I have been requested by the governor of New Jersey to place the counties of Mercer and Middlesex as...as far west as Princeton, and, uh, east to Jamesburg, under martial law. No one will be permitted to enter this area except by special pass issued by state or military authorities. Four companies of state militia are proceeding from Trenton to Grovers Mill, and, uh, will aid in the evacuation of homes within the range of military operations.... Thank you.”

  “You know,” Gross said, rising from a half-consumed portion of roast beef, “I think I better be getting back to the office. Some listeners might really believe this....”

  “How on earth could they?” his hostess asked. “They announced it was by H.G. Wells—that means it’s fiction!”

  But his host said, “Dear, those who tuned in late didn’t hear the announcement.”

  Gross turned to his wife. “What do you think, dear?”

  “I think,” Kathleen said, “that’s the most realistic, scary program I ever heard—and you need to get back to the city room.”

  He grinned at her, said, “Thanks, honey,” excused himself, and went down to hail a cab.

  Grandfather Chapman called his son Luke at home.

  “It’s an emergency,” he said. “Have you had the radio on this evening?”

  “No. I was reading to Alice. She’s asleep, now....”

  “Don’t wake her.”

  “Dad, what is it?”

  “You just get over here. Bring your shotgun.”

  “You make it sound like we’re being invaded!”

  “We are.”

  “...What the hell—the Germans?”

  “Just get over here.”

  James Roberts, Jr., and his friend Bobby, had heard every moment of the broadcast on the Buick coupe’s car radio.

  At first the news coverage of the fallen meteor had been exciting, and James had said, “Jeez, Bobby, CBS News is really tops, aren’t they? They’ve got people on the spot, for every emergency!”

  Bobby, who would have preferred his dance music uninterrupted, did allow as the Columbia Broadcasting System knew its stuff.

  And when Professor Pierson had first come on, James said, “I think I’ve heard of him—at school.”

  “Does sound a little familiar,” Bobby said.

  James and Bobby were business majors.

  Then all the horror had come over the air, and both boys were concerned and even scared, particularly James, whose family lived in Trenton, New Jersey.

  When the general came on and said the route to Trenton was closed, James got really worried and upset. At Newark they stopped at a drugstore, to phone and see if James’s folks were okay.

  Two people were working in the drugstore—a pharmacist and a cashier—and three people were there picking up various needs. James and Bobby couldn’t believe these fools were going around like nothing was wrong in their lives, except maybe a headache or athlete’s foot!

  James stood up at the front of the store and said, “Everybody—listen to me!”

  The cashier put her hands up, and Bobby said, “It’s not a stickup, lady.”

  And James—in a clear, concise manner that, had he summoned this in speech class, would have got him far better than his C-minus—told the drugstore audience about what he and Bobby had heard on the radio.

  Then James ran to the bank of phone booths, ensconced himself in one, dropped a nickel in the slot and was quickly told that all the lines were jammed and that his call couldn’t go through.

  When he stepped from the booth, James saw everyone in the store, including Bobby, seated at the closed soda fountain, listening to a radio on the counter. The pharmacist was on the stool beside the cashier with his arm around her, she was crying. The other patrons were wailing and moaning and praying.

  Professor Pierson’s voice was coming over the air, but the reception was weak: “... these creatures have scientific knowledge far in advance of our own. It’s my guess that in some way they are able to generate an intense heat in a chamber of practically no absolute conductivity.”

  James put a hand on Bobby’s shoulder and whispered: “Can’t get through to Mom and Dad. Hell, can’t get through to anybody....”

  Bobby turned haunted eyes toward James. “If Trenton’s blocked, then...then we have to go back. To Manhattan. We have to make sure Betty’s all right!”

  “...by means of a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition, much as the mirror of a lighthouse projects a beam of light. That is my conjecture of the origin of the heat ray....”

  And so it was that James and Bobby—having done the good deed of warning those in the drugstore of the deadly invasion—raced back out into the night to rescue “the girls” (Betty’s sixteen-year-old sister, naïve or not, suddenly seeming well worth saving from Martians).

  State Troopers Chuck and Carmine were not listening to the radio; their Ford Phaeton didn’t even have one.

  So when, as they continued patrolling the highway, they noticed traffic heading north was picking up, and picking up speed, they asked, “What the hell?” to each other, a substantial number of times in a short period.

  Drivers were travelling at unusually high rates of speed, and in fact the whole traffic pattern seemed erratic.

  “Think it’s time to do our job, buddy,” Chuck said.

  “Roger,” Carmine said.

  Time to start writing out tickets for speeding and reckless driving.

  A guy in dark green Chevy sedan streaked by, and the two troopers decided to make him their first example. Carmine, behind the wheel, turned around and took off after him.

  The driver showed no signs of realizing state troopers were on his tail.

  They hit their siren.

  He did not slow down, and—though their Ford was putting out a solid eighty miles per hour—the troopers were hardly gaining on the guy. For almost five minutes, on a winding country road, the chase went on, and finally the Ford pulled up alongside the Chevy, and—siren screaming—as Chuck blasted on the horn, Carmine motioned sternly, then wildly, for the son of a bitch to pull over.

  The driver shook his head and kept his eyes on the road.

  “My God,” Carmine said, over engine roar, “bastard’s got his wife and kiddies in the car with him! Little boy and little girl!”

  “What is wrong with this idiot?” Chuck asked.

  “Can’t force him off the road—might hurt those innocents....”

  Then other honking cut through the thunder of engines and shriek of sirens...

  ...and Carmine looked behind him and saw other motorists, right on the speeder’s tail and the troopers’ tail, too—and each others’....

  An armada of autos, honking for the troopers to get the hell out of the way—and the troopers were going eighty-five!

  The father behind the wheel of the Chevy was hunkered over like a fighter pilot, and Chuck said, “Carmine—fall in behind this s.o.b.”

  “What? You can’t—”

  “Fall in behind him, and let these maniacs pass us.”

  Glancing behind him, even as he rode herd on the Chevy, Carmine swallowed and said, “Shit,” and let the Chevy get out in front, and pulled in behind him, slowing to sixty, while one car after another flashed by, passing not only the troopers but the madman in the Chevy.

  Carmine pulled over. “What the hell?...”

  “Something’s happened. Something big.”

  “Has law and order completely broken down on this highway?”

  Chuck nodded. “Yes.”

  They sat and watched as car after car flew wildly by.

  “You know,” Carmine said, “we maybe oughta check in with headquarters. Let’s find us a phone.”

  At a gas station, Carmine used the phone; it took a while to get through; the HQ switchboard must’ve been buzzing. But finally the duty corporal came on.

  Carmine began to tell the corporal about the crazy traffic conditions, but got cut off.

&nbs
p; “They’re fleeing the area, Carmine. The countryside’s on fire, monsters from outer space are eating people alive, it’s a goddamn Martian invasion.”

  “Little green men from Mars?”

  “They’re not green and they’re not little. Get your asses back to headquarters, for further instructions.”

  The phone clicked dead.

  And the worst part, Carmine had to now go report this to Chuck....

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PUNKIN PATCH

  IN STUDIO ONE, DAN SEYMOUR was at the microphone, saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, here is a bulletin from Trenton. It is a brief statement informing us that the charred body of Carl Phillips has been identified in a Trenton hospital.”

  At a nearby table, “Carl Phillips”—that is, Frank Readick—was sitting going over his script; like most radio actors, he had more than one part in the drama.

  “Now here’s another bulletin from Washington, D.C.,” Seymour was saying. “The office of the director of the National Red Cross reports ten units of Red Cross emergency workers have been assigned to the headquarters of the state militia stationed outside Grovers Mill, New Jersey.”

  Readick felt the show was going well—it had really come together at rehearsal, and tonight the thing was like clockwork—literally: Paul Stewart seemed almost bored in the control booth window, poised at his stopwatch.

  “Here’s a bulletin from state police, Princeton Junction—the fires at Grovers Mill and vicinity are now under control. Scouts report all quiet in the pit, and there is no sign of life appearing from the mouth of the cylinder....”

  Howard Koch had slipped out perhaps ten minutes ago. Readick could hardly blame the writer—the poor guy was bone tired, and had been worked like a dog by Welles and Jack Houseman. Let the guy rest up—tomorrow would be the start of another week of radio “war.”

  Still, this was going well, very well indeed.

  Yes, once again, Orson had worked his magic....

  From Trenton Police Headquarters report, October 30, 1938: “Between 8:20 P.M. & 10 P.M. received numerous phone calls as a result of WABC broadcast this evening re: Mars attacking this country. Calls included papers, police depts including NYC and private persons. No record kept of same due to working teletype and all three extensions ringing at the same time. At least 50 calls were answered. Persons inquiring as to meteors, number of persons killed, gas attack, military being called out and fires. All were advised nothing unusual had occurred and that rumors were due to a radio dramatization of a play.

  “We have received a request from the state militia at Trenton to place at their disposal our entire broadcasting facilities. In view of the gravity of the situation, and believing that radio has a responsibility to serve in the public interest at all times, we are turning over our facilities to the state militia at Trenton.”

  In a residential section of Trenton, a Mrs. Thomas went to answer a banging at her door to find her neighbor friend from across the way with her car packed with belongings and her seven children.

  “For God’s sake, Gladys, come on!” the neighbor shouted. “We have to get out of here!”

  Elsewhere in Trenton, thirteen-year-old Henry Sears, doing his homework, heard the news flashes about the invasion and went downstairs into the tavern owned by his parents. He and a dozen patrons of the bar listened to the broadcast with growing fear and, finally, a well-lubricated contingent proclaimed they were getting their guns and going to Grovers Mill, to find the Martians.

  Indeed, as panic spread to pockets of the country, Trenton and its environs were the hardest hit, many residents believing the arrival of the interplanetary invaders imminent. Gas masks from the Great War were dug out of mothballs, while some wrapped their heads with wet towels, to fight the inevitable poison gas. The highways were jammed as cars streamed toward New York or Philadelphia, in hopes of staying one step ahead of the Martian forces.

  The Mienerts of Manasquan Park, New Jersey—barrelling down the highway, kids, dog and canary making the trip with them—took a break for fuel and nature at a gas station; the pause also provided an opportunity to get the latest news (their car radio was on the fritz). Other motorists, who hadn’t heard the broadcast, reacted as if the Mienerts were mad people; so did the gas station attendant and cashier.

  A desperate Mr. Mienert, hoping for an update, called his cousin in Freehold, New Jersey, praying to get an answer, as the cousin’s farm was directly in the destructive path of the invaders.

  But his cousin, right there on the front lines, answered cheerfully.

  Confused, Mr. Mienert asked, “Are the Martians there?”

  “No,” said his cousin, “but the Tuttles are, and we’re about to sit down to dinner.”

  The Mienerts went back home.

  “This is Captain Lansing of the Signal Corps, attached to the state militia, now engaged in military operations in the vicinity of Grovers Mill. Situation arising from the reported presence of certain individuals of unidentified nature is now under complete control. The cylindrical object which lies in a pit directly below our position is surrounded on all sides by eight battalions of infantry. Without heavy field pieces, but adequately armed with rifles and machine guns. All cause for alarm, if such cause ever existed, is now entirely unjustified.”

  In Manhattan on East 116th Street, a restaurant hosted the wedding reception of Rocco and Connie Cassamassina. No one was listening to the radio in this happily preoccupied private dining room; in fact, almost everyone was dancing to the five-piece band, spiffy in maroon-and-gray tuxes, playing romantic tunes of the day.

  The bride and groom were not dancing right now, because Rocco—a singing waiter from Brooklyn—was sitting in with the band, doing a romantic version of “I Married an Angel” just for Connie.

  The last verse was wrapping up when some agitated late-comers wandered in and one of them—stone sober, it would later be recalled—snatched the mike away from Rocco and said, “We’re under attack! We’re being invaded!”

  The five-piece group stopped playing, in one-at-a-time train-wreck fashion, and the guests at first laughed. But the speaker—another waiter from Brooklyn, who many of them knew and trusted—told in quick but vivid detail of what he’d heard on the radio newscasts.

  Murmuring confusion built to complete panic, as the guests ran to grab their coats and flee before the outer-space invaders could crash the party.

  Connie, in tears, rushed to the stage and took the mike to beg her friends and family to stay. “Please don’t spoil my wedding day, everyone!”

  A handful remained.

  Rocco was again at the microphone.

  He began singing “Amazing Grace.”

  “The things, whatever they are, do not even venture to poke their heads above the pit. I can see their hiding place plainly in the glare of the searchlights here. With all their reported resources, these creatures can scarcely stand up against heavy machine-gun fire. Anyway, it’s an interesting outing for the troops. I can make out their khaki uniforms, crossing back and forth in front of the lights. It looks almost like a real war.”

  At the Chapman farm, the children’s father, Luke, had arrived.

  Grandfather had been moving from window to window, staring into the foggy night, his old double-barrel shotgun (retrieved from a kitchen hiding place) ready to blast Martians into green goo. He’d already organized the two boys (even the skeptical Leroy) in the effort of barricading the farmhouse doors with furniture—which of course meant unbarricading the front door to let their father, carrying his own double-barrel shotgun, inside.

  Leroy gave it another try, tugging on his father’s sleeve. “Papa...”

  “Yes, son?”

  The boy gestured toward the glowing radio. “That isn’t real—it’s just a show, a story. The Shadow is on it.”

  His father, whose face resembled Grandfather’s minus most of the wrinkles, smiled gently and knelt—leaning on the shotgun—to look the boy right in the eyes. “Son—we’ve had t
his talk, haven’t we?”

  “What talk?”

  “About make-believe and real life. I know you love your shows. I know you love to play cowboy and soldier and spaceman. I know you love the Shadow. But you simply have to learn the difference between fantasy and reality.”

  “I know the difference. Do you?”

  And the kindness left Luke’s expression. He took the boy roughly by the arm and almost threw him onto the sofa.

  “You just sit there, young man!”

  Leroy shrugged; his eyes were filling with tears, but he refused to let any fall.

  Les sat before the radio hugging his sister, who had stopped crying and lapsed into a trembling silence. The altar of news continued issuing forth updates, none of them encouraging. Right now the Signal Corps captain was describing the battle scene at a farm that was within a few miles of the farmhouse the Chapmans currently cowered within.

  “Well, we ought to see some action soon,” the captain was saying. “One of the companies is deploying on the left flank. A quick thrust and it will all be over. Now wait a minute, I see something on top of the cylinder. No, it’s nothing but a shadow. Now the troops are on the edge of the Wilmuth farm, seven thousand armed men closing in on an old metal tube. A tub, rather. Wait...that wasn’t a shadow!”

  And Leroy, over on a sofa now, arms folded, smugly smiling as he brushed away a tear with a knuckle, thought, Oh yes it was....

  Passing photographers laden with full gear, who were scurrying toward the elevator he’d just departed, Ben Gross entered a Daily News city room that bustled like election eve.

  An assistant at the city desk called out, “Hey, Ben—what the hell’s going on tonight?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  The switchboard was ablaze, lines jammed, phones ringing like a swarm of mechanical baby birds demanding to be fed. In their cubicles, rewrite men frantically tried to get through to CBS with zero luck.