by Ray Cummings
CHAPTER XI
_The Devastation of New York_
That night of May 19th and 20th in New York City will go down inhistory as the strangest, most terrible ever recorded. The panicscaused by the gathering apparitions of the previous days were nearlyover now. The city was under martial law, most of it deserted bycivilians, save for the dead who still lay strewn on the streets.
Lower and mid-Manhattan were an empty shell of deserted structures,and silent, littered streets, which at night were dark, and throughwhich criminals prowled, braving the unknown terror to fatten uponthis opportunity.
Soldiers and police patrolled as best they could all of Manhattan,trying to clear the streets of the crushed and trampled bodies;seeking in the deserted buildings those who might still be there,trapped or ill, or hurt so that they could not escape; protectingproperty from the criminals who en masse had broken jail and werelurking here.
Warships lay in the harbor and the rivers. The forts on StatenIsland and at Sandy Hook were ready with their artillery to attackanything tangible. Airplanes sped back and forth overhead. Troopswere marching from outlying points--lines of them coming in over allthe bridges.
By midnight of May 19th and 20th there were groups of ghosts visibleeverywhere about the city. They lurked in the buildings, permeatingthe solid walls, stalking through them, or down through thefoundations; they wandered upon invisible slopes of their own world,climbing up to gather in groups and hanging in mid-air over the cityrooftops. In the Hudson River off Grant's Tomb two or three hundredof the apparitions were seemingly encamped at a level below theriver's surface. And others were in the air over the waters of theupper bay.
* * * * *
Toward midnight, from the open ocean beyond Sandy Hook spectralvehicles came winging for the city. Rapidly decreasing what had atfirst seemed a swift flight, they floated like ghostly dirigiblesover the bay, heading for Manhattan. The forts fired upon them;airplanes darted at them, through them. But the wraiths came onunheeding. And then, gathering over Manhattan at about WashingtonSquare, they faded and vanished.
Within thirty minutes, though the vehicles never reappeared, it wasseen that the spectral invaders were now tremendously augmented innumbers. A line of shapes marched diagonally beneath the citystreets. Patrolling soldiers in the now deserted subways saw themmarching past. The group in the air over the harbor was augmented.In Harlem they were very near the street levels, a mass of athousand or more strung over an area of forty blocks.
In mid-Manhattan soldiers saw that Tiffany's jewelry store housedthe lurking shapes. Some were lower, others higher; in this sectionaround Fifth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street the apparitions were attremendously diverse levels. There were some perched high in the airmore than half way up the gigantic Empire State Building; and stillothers off to the west were in the air fifteen hundred feet or moreabove the Pennsylvania Station.
* * * * *
At Tiffany's--as indeed in many other places--the soldiers madeclose visual contact with the apparitions. A patrolling group ofsoldiers entered Tiffany's and went to the second floor. Theyreported a seated group of "ghosts," with numbers of white shapesworking near them at a lower level which brought them into Tiffany'sbasement.
The soldiers thought that what was seated here might be a leader.Apparitions rushed up to him, and away. And here the soldiers sawwhat seemed the wraiths of two girls, seated quietly together,helmeted and garbed like the men. And men seemed watching them.
By one-thirty there was great activity, constant movement of theapparitions everywhere. Doing what? No one could say. The attack, soclosely impending now, was presaged by nothing which could beunderstood.
There was one soldier who at about one-thirty A.M. was watching thespectres which lurked seemingly in the foundations of Tiffany's. Hewas called to distant Westchester where the harried Army officialshad their temporary headquarters this night. He sped there on hismotorcycle and so by chance he was left alive to tell what he hadseen. The wraiths under Tiffany's were placing little wedge-shapedghostly bricks very carefully at different points. It occurred tothis soldier that they were putting them in spaces coincidental withthe building's foundations.
And then came the attack. The materialization bombs--as we knew themto be--were fired. Progressively over a few minutes, at a thousanddifferent points. The area seemed to be from the Battery toSeventy-second Street. Observers in circling airplanes saw itbest--there were few others left alive to tell of it.
* * * * *
The whole thing lasted ten minutes. Perhaps it was not even so long.It began at Washington Square. The little ghostly wedges which hadbeen placed within the bricks of the arch at the foot of FifthAvenue began materializing; turning solid. From imponderability theygrew tangible; demanded free empty space of their own. Wedged andpushed with solidifying molecules and atoms, each demanding itslittle space and finding none. Encountering other solidity.
Outraged nature! No two material bodies can occupy the same space atthe same time!
The Washington Arch very queerly seemed to burst apart by astrangely silent explosion. The upper portion toppled and fell witha clatter of masonry littering the avenue and park.
Then a house nearby went down; then another. Everything seemed to becrumbling, falling. That was the beginning. Within a minute thechaos spread, running over the city like fire on strewn gasoline.Buildings everywhere came crashing down. The street heaved up,cracking apart in long jagged lines of opening rifts as though anearthquake were splitting them. The subways and tubes and tunnelsyawned like black fantastic chasms crossed and littered by brokengirders.
The river waters heaved with waves lashed white as the great bridgesfell into them; and sucked down and closed again with tumultuouswhirlpools where the water had rushed into the cracked tunnels ofthe river bed.
* * * * *
Of the towering skyscrapers the Woolworth was the first to crumble;it split into sections as it fell across the wreckage which alreadylittered City Hall. Then the Bank of Manhattan Building, crumbling,partly falling sidewise, partly slumping upon the ruins of itself.Simultaneously the Chrysler Building toppled. For a second or two itseemed perilously to sway. Breathless, awesome seconds. It swayedover, lurched back like a great tree in a wind. Then very slowly itswayed again and did not come back. Falling to the east, its wholegiant length came down in a great arc. The descent grew faster,until, in one great swoop it crashed upon the wreckage of the GrandCentral Station. The roar of it surged over the city. The crash ofmasonry; the clatter of its myriad windows, the din of its rending,breaking girders.
The giant buildings were everywhere tumbling like falling giants;like Titans stricken by invisible tumors implanted in their vitals.It lasted ten minutes. What infinitude of horror came to proud andlordly Manhattan Island in those momentous ten minutes!
Ten thousand patrolling soldiers and police, bands of lurkingcriminals, and men, women and children who still had not left thecity, went down to death in those ten minutes. Yet no observer couldhave seen them. Their little bodies, so small amid these Titans oftheir own creation, went into oblivion unnoticed in the chaos.
* * * * *
The little solidifying bombs of the White Invaders did their worksilently. But what a roar surged up into the moonlit night from thestricken city! What tumult of mingled sounds! What a myriad ofsplintering, reverberating crashes, bursting upward into the night;echoing away, renewed again and again so that it all was a vastpulsing throb of terrible sound. And under it, inaudible, what faintlittle sounds must have been the agonized screams of the humans whowere entombed!
Then the pulse of the great roaring sound began slowing. Soon itbecame a dying roar. A last building was toppling here and there.The silence of death was spreading over the mangled litter of thestrewn city. Dying chaos of sound; but now it was a chaos of color.Up-rolling clouds of plaster
dust; and then darker, heavier cloudsof smoke. Lurid yellow spots showed through the smoke clouds whereeverywhere fires were breaking up.
And under it, within it all, the vague white shapes of the enemyapparitions stood untouched, still peering curious, awed triumphantat what they had done.
Another ten minutes passed; then half an hour, perhaps. Theapparitions were moving now. The many little groups were gatheringinto fewer, larger groups. One marched high in the air, with faintlurid green beams slanting down at the ruins of the city; not asweapons this time, but as beams of faint light, seemingly toilluminate the scene, or perhaps as signals to the ghostly army.
The warships in the Hudson were steaming slowly toward the Batteryto escape. Searchlights from them, from the other ships hoveringimpotent in the bay, and from a group of encircling planes, flashedtheir white beams over the night to mingle with the glare of thefires and the black pall of smoke which was spreading now like ashroud.
* * * * *
There were two young men in a monoplane which had helplessly circledover mid-Manhattan. They saw the city fall, and noticed the lurkingwraiths untouched amid the ruins and in the air overhead. And theysaw, when it was over, that one great building very strangely hadescaped. The Empire State, rearing its tower high into the serenemoonlight above the wreckage and the rising layers of smoke, stoodunscathed in the very heart of Manhattan. The lone survivor,standing there with the moonlight shining upon its top, and thesmoke gathering black around its spreading base.
The two observers in the airplane, stricken with horror at what theyhad seen, flew mechanically back and forth. Once they passed withina few hundred feet of the standing giant. They saw its two hundredfoot mooring mast for dirigibles rising above the eighty-fivestories of the main structure. They saw the little observatory roomup there in the mooring mast top, with its circular observationplatform, a balcony around it. But they did not notice the figureson that balcony.
Then, from the top of the Empire State Building--from the circularobservation platform--a single, horribly intense green light-beamslanted out into the night! A new attack! As though all which hadgone before were not enough destruction, now came a new assault. Thespectral enemies were tangible now!
* * * * *
The single green light-beam was very narrow. But the moonlight couldnot fade it; over miles of distance it held visible. It struck firsta passing airplane. The two observers in the monoplane were at thistime down near the Battery. They saw the giant beam hit theairplane. A moment it clung, and parts of the plane faded. The planewavered, and then, like a plummet, fell.
The beam swung. It struck a warship lying in the upper bay.Explosions sounded. Puffs of light flared. The ship, with all itspassengers vanished and gone, lay gutted and empty.
The source of the light moved rapidly around the circular balcony.The light darted to every distant point of the compass. Thesurprised distant ships and forts, realizing that here for the firsttime was a tangible assailant, screamed shots into the night. Butthe green beam struck the ships and forts and instantly silencedthem.
Now the realization of this tangible enemy spread very far. Within afew minutes, planes and radio communication had carried the news.From distant points which the light could not or did not reach,long-range guns were firing at the Empire State. A moment or twoonly. The base of the building was struck.
Then, frantically, observing planes sent out the warning to stopfiring. The green beam had for a minute or two vanished. But now itflashed on again. What was this? The spectral wraiths of tenthousand of the enemy were staring. The observers in the planesstared and gasped. What fantasy! What new weird sight was this,stranger than all that had preceded it!
CHAPTER XII
_On the Tower Balcony_
Upon the little observatory balcony at the top of the Empire Statesome twelve hundred feet above the stricken city, Don and I werewith Tako as he erected the giant projector. In the midst of thesilent shadowy outline of the stricken city falling around us, wehad carried the projector up the mountain slope. The spectre of theEmpire State Building was presently around us; we were in a hallwayof one of the upper stories. Slowly, we materialized with ourburden. I recall, as the dark empty corridor of the office buildingcame to solidity around me, with what surprise I heard for the firsttime the muffled reverberations from the crumbling city....
We climbed the dark and empty stairs, upward into the mooring mast.Don and I toiled with the box, under the weapons of our two guards.
It was only a few minutes while Tako assembled and mounted theweapon. It stood a trifle higher than the parapet top. It rolledfreely upon a little carriage mounted with wheels. Don and I peeredat it. We hovered close to Tako with only one thought in our minds,Jane's murmured words--if we could learn something about thisprojector....
* * * * *
Then the horror dulled us. We obeyed orders mechanically, as thoughall of it were a terrible dream, with only a vague undercurrent ofreiterated thought: some chance must come--some fated little chancecoming our way.
I recall, during those last terrible minutes when Tako flung theprojector beam to send all his distant enemies hurtling intoannihilation, that I stood in a daze by the parapet. Don had ceasedto look. Tako was rolling the projector from one point to anotheraround the circular balcony. Sometimes he was out of sight on theother side, with the observatory room in the mast hiding him.
We had been ordered not to move. The two guards stood with handweapons turned on so that the faint green beams slanted downward bytheir feet, instantly ready, either for Don or me.
And I clung to the balcony rail, staring down at the broken city. Itlay strewn and flattened as though, not ten minutes, but tenthousand years of time had crumbled it into ruins.
Then shots from the distant warships began screaming at us. With agrim smile, Tako silenced them. There was a momentary lull.
And then came our chance! Fate, bringing just one unforeseen littlething to link the chain, to turn the undercurrent of existingcircumstances--and to give us our chance. Or perhaps Jane, guided byfate, created the opportunity. She does not know. She too was dazed,numb--but there was within her also the memory of what Tolla hadalmost said. And Tolla's frenzy of jealousy....
* * * * *
Tako appeared from around the balcony, rolling the projector. Itsbeam was off. He flung a glance of warning at the two guards towatch us. He left the projector, flushed, triumphant, all his sensesperhaps reeling with the realization of what he had done. He saw thetwo girls huddled in the moonlight of the balcony floor. He stoopedand pushed Tolla roughly away.
"Jane! Jane, did you see it? My triumph! Tako, master of everything!Even of you--is it not so?"
Did some instinct impel her not to repulse him? Some intuitiongiving her strength to flash him a single alluring moonlit glance?
But suddenly he had enwrapped her in his arms. Kissing her,murmuring love and lust....
This was our chance. But we did not know it then. A very chaos ofdiverse action so suddenly was precipitated upon this balcony!
Don and I cried out and heedlessly leaped forward. The tiny beams ofthe guards swung up. But they did not reach us, for the guardsthemselves were stricken into horror. The shot from a far-distantwarship screamed past. But that went almost unheeded. Tako hadshouted, and the guards impulsively turned so that their beamsmissed Don and me.
Tolla had flung herself upon Tako and Jane. Screaming, she tore atthem and all in an instant rose to her feet. Tako's cylinder, whichshe had snatched, was in her hand. She flashed it on as Don and Ireached her.
* * * * *
The guards for that instant could not fire for we were allintermingled. Don stumbled in his rush and fell upon Tako and Jane,and in a moment rose as the giant Tako lifted him and tried to casthim off.
My rush flung me against Tolla. She was babbling, mouthing
frenziedlaughs of hysteria. Her beam pointed downward, but as she reeledfrom the impact of my rush, the beam swung up; missed me, narrowlymissed the swaying bodies of Tako and Don, and struck one of theguards who was standing, undecided what to do. It clung to him for asecond or two, and then swung to the other guard.
The guards in a puff of spectral light were gone. Tolla stoodwavering; then swung her light toward Tako and Don. But I was uponher.
"Tolla! Good God--"
"Get back from me! Back, I tell you."
I heard Jane's agonized warning from the floor. "Bob!"
Tolla's light missed my shoulder. Tako had cast Don off and stoodalone as he turned toward us. Then Tolla's light-beam swung on him.I heard her eery maddened laugh as it struck him.
A wraith of Tako was there, stricken as though numbed bysurprise.... Then nothingness....
Shots from the distant warships were screaming around us. One struckthe base of the building.
I clung to my scattering senses. I gripped Tolla.
"That projector--what was it you almost told Jane?"
* * * * *
She stood stupidly babbling. "Told Jane? That projector--"
She laughed wildly, and like a tigress, cast me off. "Fools of men!Tako--the fool!"
She swung into a frenzy of her own language. And then back intoEnglish. "I will show you--Tako, the fool! All those fools out thereunder the ground and in the sky. I will show them!"
She stooped over the projector and fumbled with the mechanism.
Don gasped, "Those apparitions--is that what you're going toattack?"
"Yes--attack them!"
The beam flashed on. But it was a different beam now. Fainter, moretenuous; the hum from it was different.
It leaped into the ground. It was a spreading beam this time. Itbathed the white apparitions who were peering up at the city.
Why, what was this? Weird, fantastic sight! There was a moment ofTolla's frenzied madness; then she staggered away from theprojector. But Don and I had caught the secret. We took her place.We carried it on.
We were hardly aware that the far-off warships had ceased firing. Wehardly realized that Tolla had rushed for the parapet; climbed,screaming and laughing--and that Jane tried to stop her.
"Oh, Tolla, don't--"
But Tolla toppled and fell.... Her body was almost not recognizedwhen it was later found down in the ruins.
Don and I flung this new beam into the night. We rolled theprojector around the platform, hurling the beam in every directionat the white apparitions....
* * * * *
It had caught first that group which lurked in the ground near thebase of the Empire State. Tolla had turned the beam to the reverseco-ordinates from those Tako used. It penetrated into theborderland, reached the apparitions and forcibly materialized them!A second or two it clung to that group of white men's shapes in theground. They grew solid; ponderable. But the space they now claimedwas not empty! Solid rock was here, yielding no space to anything!Like the little materialization bombs, this was nature outraged. Theground and the solid rock heaved up, broken and torn, invisiblypermeated and strewn with the infinitesimal atomic particles of whata moment before had been the bodies of living men.
We caught with the beam that marching line of apparitions beneaththe ground surface--a section of Tako's army which was advancingupon Westchester. The city streets over them surged upward. And somewe caught under the rivers and within the waters of the bay, and thewaters heaved and lashed into turmoil.
Then we turned the beam into the air. The apparitions lost contactwith their invisible mountain peaks. And with sudden solidity, thegravity of our world pulled at them. They fell. Solid men's bodies,falling with the moonlight on them. Dark blobs turning end over end;plunging into the rivers and the harbor with little splashes ofwhite to mark their fall; and yet others whirling down, crashinginto the wreckage of masonry, into the pall of smoke and the luridyellow flames of the burning city.
The attack of the White Invaders was over.
* * * * *
A year has passed. There has been no further menace; perhaps therenever will be. And again, the invisible realm of which Don, Jane andI were vouchsafed so strange a glimpse, lies across a voidimpenetrable. Earth scientists have the projector, with its currentbatteries apparently almost exhausted. And they have the transitionmechanism which we three were wearing. But of those, the vitalelement had been removed by Tako--and was gone with him. Many otherswere found on the bodies, and upon the body of poor Tolla. But allwere wrecked by their fall.
Perhaps it is just as well. Yet, often I ponder on that other realm.What strange customs and science and civilization I glimpsed.
Out of such thoughts one always looms upon me: a contemplation ofthe vastness of things to be known.
And the kindred thought: what a very small part of it we reallyunderstand!
