by Earl
III.
TWO THINGS happened almost simultaneously to shock Walwin Hoffman, immured in his small bathysphere, out of a state of dreamy contentedness. First, a gust of acid, reeking air came down the inlet tube. Walwin coughed and spluttered as the noisome stuff seared his lungs. Then he heard Finny’s screech of fear.
“What the devil! Finny——”
“I’m choking, sir! Poison gas! I——”
“Finny, quick! Wet your handkerchief—hold it over your nose! No, tie it over your face—and haul me up. Hurry!”
For a minute Walwin heard only a racking cough from above. Fear clutched his nerves in an icy grasp, fear not for himself, but for the man above, exposed to the biting fumes, whose slight taint in the bathysphere was enough to make his throat raw.
“Finny! For Heaven’s sake, answer me if you’re alive!”
An answering voice came down the tube at last, but hoarse and tortured: “I’m not dead yet. I’m going to pull up now, sir—if I can!”
Slowly, the bathysphere arose. Several times it stopped as though the man above were resting and gathering strength. At last the diving ball came up in its place in the raft, and Walwin swung the hatch open.
He staggered back as a cloud of thick, red mist swept over him. Holding his nose, he scrambled out, picked up the sprawled figure of Finny, unconscious, and dumped him unceremoniously into the bathysphere. In another moment he was in himself, and had closed the hatch tightly.
Lungs retching violently, he opened the release valve of his emergency pressure cylinder. A blessed wave of fresh oxygen swept through the small inclosed space. When the air was freed of the alien gas, Walwin shut off the hissing oxygen tank.
Then he turned his attention to Finny, and after five minutes of pumping his diaphragm, like that of a half-drowned man, succeeded in clearing his lungs of the red gas. Finny opened his eyes, groaned and sat up.
“Mr. Wally, sir,” he whispered weakly, “I’m going to die.”
“Oh, no you aren’t,” contradicted Walwin. “If you had breathed enough of that gas to kill you, you wouldn’t have revived at all. You’re safe enough now. But the people outside——”
A disturbing picture had come up in Walwin’s mind. A picture of hundreds, perhaps thousands, filling their lungs with the terrible red gas, and dying wretchedly. What was it? A poison gas attack by a warring, cowardly, enemy nation? An eruption from Earth’s interior? Something from space?
Walwin could not know. Nor could he realize that the picture he had formed in his mind fell far short of truth. He could sense nothing of the nightmarish thing that was happening outside his protective bathysphere. His uneasy mind, though, realizing it was some holocaust, did not picture more than a few thousand dying from this mysterious mist death. It must be some localized phenomenon, he conjectured, centering at this spot on Virginias coast.
Not having read the newspapers, and having lived a Crusoelike isolation from the world for over a year, in order to pursue his fetish of undersea painting, he could not know that all the world was bathed in this deadly red gas!
THE RED CLOUD had first touched Earth’s atmosphere over the Sahara Desert. Like a world-sized amoeba, it had then extended pseudopodia over Africa, Europe and Asia. In a few hours it had engulfed Earth completely, surrounded it, infused its entire atmosphere. Billions upon billions of tons of it, composed of cyanogen, bromine, carbon monoxide and other noxious or asphyxiating gases. Every nook and cranny of Earth’s surface was searched out by the virulent molecules.
Lungs that drew in oxygen also drew in the poisonous red gas. It killed in less than a half hour. Life ebbed away before this withering breath from the brew pots of hell. People were stricken everywhere from the suddenness of it—in their homes, in offices, in factories, in cars, on boats, running or walking, sleeping or waking.
A hypothetical observer, skimming over Earth’s surface in an inclosed airship, would have seen a sight unparalleled in our history, though not, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of Earth.
He would have seen ships wallow at sea, manned by an asphyxiated crew; automobiles gyrating wildly off the road to crash into ditches or buildings. Factory machines running on unattended for hours, till the supply of electricity or coal ran out; electric lights burning on, though there were no eyes to need them; a thousand and one devices of mankind surviving by a few hours the death of their masters and creators.
And everywhere he would have seen insane figures fleeing the descending cloud of deadly scarlet, to stagger, clutch at their throats—a few minutes of convulsive writhing—then stretched-out forms, still and quiet——
The billions of mankind, and the trillions of other animate forms of life were dead! Their innumerable corpses strewed the Earth from pole to pole. Death rode supreme over a ravished planet!
But no! There is life! Two hearts beat strongly, defiantly, there in a little sphere of metal anchored to a raft. And up in a cabin on the Upper Hudson——
IV.
THE FIRST TANG of an alien gas in the air he breathed, as he stood outside his cabin, brought a measure of satisfaction to John Appleton. It meant that, after all, he had not been such a fool for expecting the Red Cloud to collide with Earth. But it was with no satisfaction that he watched the venomous red color in the sky deepen. And later, when the thickest of the mists came, swirling violently beyond his window, he turned sick at heart, thinking of the millions who must be dying in agony.
Appleton had no idea how long he would be immured, but he was determined to fight it out to the last. He had fresh oxygen enough for a week. If, in that time, the red mists failed to dissipate or lose their potency, he would meet a belated death.
He resigned himself to staring out at the smoky mists that writhed beyond his window like carnelian snakes. The mist seemed to beckon to him. It seemed to speak to him above the steady, swishing roar which had ushered in the first of the Red Cloud. It seemed to be telling him, gloatingly, that it would get him, too—that he might as well come out now and have it over.
“I will strike all life on Earth low,” it might have said to the straining man, “all life!”
“Great heavens!” mumbled Appleton, suddenly turning pale. “What if I am the last living man—the last living thing—on Earth!”
It was perhaps this thought that made him welcome the buzzing of a fly in the room. He watched it fly in aimless circle and finally land within reach of his hand, on the wall. He mentally pledged the insect immunity from death at his hand, and a free choice of any food in the place.
“Who knows, brother,” he tried to say whimsically, to bolster his own spirits, “but what you and I—a fly and a man—are the last of a once great civilization! Two lives, and if I were to kill you, I would be killing off half the population of Earth!”
He tried to laugh at his own joke, but something caught in his throat. A picture had sprung unbidden into his mind, a picture of Times Square as seen from his office in Manhattan. By some magic of idea association he saw as clearly as though he were there the hideousness of that turmoil, with thousands of people trying to escape the red death. People fleeing, trampling one another, jamming subways and elevators, shrieking, choking, gasping—dying.
It was so real that Appleton moaned a little to himself. Oh, if only they had taken his warning, those miserable, dying thousands and millions. If only they had sacrificed their pride enough to prepare halfway for the possible holocaust, fantastic as it had seemed just a few hours ago. Why had they been so obstinate, so willing to believe Earth was safe from harm? Why——
And so his jumbled thoughts went. It seemed to him that hours had passed in these first five minutes of his incarceration.
SUDDENLY he jerked upright in his chair. Were his eyes playing him tricks, or did he see something vague and black coming through the mist? After an intense moment of staring, he became convinced the black shape actually was there, and was coming down the road that led to the highway. In a hypnotic fascination he watched
the black form resolve itself into an automobile.
It careened, slued sharply, and came to a grinding stop fifty feet away. Appleton caught a glimpse of a white face, before it slid beneath the line of the car window.
With an exclamation, Appleton ran to the door and began carefully peeling away the layers of leather which were held in place with tape. It was done in another minute. Before going out he wet his handkerchief from a bottle of water, and, holding this to his nose, jerked open the door.
A wave of nauseating gases swept over him as he leaped out and banged shut the door. The penetrating stuff seemed to eat through his handkerchief, and he had the sensation of being choked, as though the red mist had fingers with which it was constricting his throat. His eyes began to run with tears, as the corrosive stuff swirled about him relentlessly, houndingly.
Panic gripped him, and for an instant he thought of turning back, lest the next dawn would find him a corpse crumpled to the ground halfway between the car and the cabin. But the sting of near death by the blind forces around him aroused something in the man—something defiantly indomitable—and he ran forward in great bounds, holding his breath as best he could.
He reached the car blind and tortured, ribs aching from the effort of keeping his lungs inflated. He gained a momentary respite by gulping in a huge lungful of air from the interior of the car, which was comparatively pure. Then, with the speed of desperation, he flung the driver’s body to his shoulders and staggered back toward the cabin. He stumbled on in a delirium of pain and exhaustion, and was never able, later, to remember the details of traversing that mist-ridden stretch of hell, nor opening the door and entering the haven of the cabin.
IT WAS fifteen minutes later, by his watch, that he picked himself off the floor and began meticulously patching the cracks around the door with tape and leather, coughing all the while. This done, he turned his attention to the figure he had tossed on his cot. Alarmed by the elderly man’s purplish face, he began feverishly chafing his wrists and finally pumping his lungs. At the first sign of returning color, Appleton dashed a glass of water in his face, finding time to thank a beneficent providence that a live man had come out of the curtain of death to him.
Professor Joel Masters’ first words, upon regaining consciousness, were typical of his sensitive scientist’s mind. He sat up and looked through Appleton, through the walls—out to the ends of the Earth.
“The whole world,” he said, his voice edged with an infinite bitternesss, “is suffering—dying——”
“Maybe not the whole world,” Appleton tried to say in optimistic tones, “after all, it’s a big place.”
“The whole world!” repeated the scientist. “That ball of red gas contained enough matter to poison every cubic inch of Earth’s atmosphere. There is no hope.”
Appleton was suddenly aware that the man was weeping. No tears were in his eyes, nor sobs in his throat, but within him the scientist was weeping in a great and silent sorrow that was insoluble in tears. He wept for the world, this man who had served the world.
Appleton made a savage effort to say, “Stop it, you fool!” but failed. He turned his back to the man and gazed out at the crimson mists of doom. He was aware that the scientist continued his silent wailing, as though he were officiating the wake of each and every soul that was now being released from corporeal bondage. Appleton felt like screaming. He continued to stare out at the red confusion of gases, with an abysmal hollow in his stomach.
V.
IT WOULD BE questionable to say whether in the event of an inescapable world doom it is better for the authorities to inform the masses or not. Inform them and let each work out his own preparation for the end? Or let the doom fall upon them with the suddenness of a striking ax? Which would be the kinder?
It would take a super-Solomon to answer that problem, since each such problem has no recorded precedent. It would seem that the shorter the realization of doom, the less mental suffering. But it might be argued that the terror of death, when death is inexorable, strangely fades rather than sharpens. Thus it might be less horrifying to know of the coming doom and be able to face it, if not happily, at least calmly and resignedly.
The authorities all over Earth, following some beaten track of ruling psychology, chose not to publish official confirmation of the approaching disaster. Perhaps they hoped for an eventual escape. Or perhaps they underestimated the coming menace. At any rate, the overwhelming masses of Earth knew nothing of the near doom, except through rumor, which they optimistically disbelieved. When the Red Death struck, these millions upon millions passed from quick terror to rising panic—and then to death.
Among the small percentage who knew of the doom stalking them, most knew too late to do anything about it, and many reacted by falling into states of mental paralysis, panic-stricken incapacity to act helpfully, and actual insanity. There were a pitiful few indeed, of Earth’s population, who knew of their fate, and acted in time to save themselves by preparations for incarceration.
And of these very few, how many were to survive the other hazards that came in the wake of the red mists: the fires, falling buildings, lack of an oxygen supply, and more subtle things such as weakened lungs and shocked, bruised minds?
A HALF HOUR after the rescue, Professor Masters was able to recount how he had come to Appleton’s cabin. He had been driving from New York City to his family in the north. The incredible traffic snarl occasioned by the rapid spread of panic in the last hours before the arrival of the Red Cloud had delayed him so much that he knew he would never reach his destination in time. He had driven grimly on. When the red mists surrounded his car, he had crammed papers and rags around the window edges and turned off toward the river. Here he had some vague, desperate idea of keeping underwater and perhaps escaping the red death.
Then, going on the river road, he had seen the cabin through eyes half blinded from gas that had seeped in. Why he had stopped he could not explain. Some instinct had seemed to tell him here was aid. Then the accumulated effect of the gas, which had gotten into the car and into his lungs told, and he had gone unconscious.
“And I woke up in here,” he finished, gazing about the room curiously.
Appleton explained about the room, summarizing finally, “Well, here we are with food, water and air. We’re safe enough—for a time.”
“It would have been a longer time,” murmured Professor Masters, “if I weren’t here. Appleton, you’re a brave, unselfish man. I could have been left out there—no one to later brand you for it. I——”
“Enough of that,” cut in Appleton sharply. “We’re here. Outside is the Red Death. That is the sum total of important things, beside which anything else is pure, senseless drivel. Everything we know or lived before is being swallowed up by that flood of poison gas. And it may get us, too, in the end.”
The two men looked at one another levelly, strangely aware that they would never again speak foolish sentiment to one another. The intensely solid fact of the Red Death outside left no room for smaller thoughts.
Professor Masters broke into a fit of coughing. “Still some of the red gas in here,” he gasped.
“I think we can fix that,” said Appleton. He strode to his supply of pressure tanks and opened the valve of one. The invigorating wave of oxygen brought a look of relief to the older man’s eyes.
FIVE MINUTES LATER a new look came into his eyes. He began walking around the room, sniffing carefully. Finally he swung around to Appleton eagerly. “Do you notice the same thing I do—no slightest trace of the red gas in here now?”
Appleton nodded, frowning. “But how could it escape? If it can’t come in from outside, it can’t do the reverse, either!”
Professor Masters was standing beside a pressure tank, and was stroking its escape valve.
“This is the answer,” he said quietly. “Oxygen. When its percentage is increased measurably in any space, with added pressure, it becomes an extraordinarily active chemical reagent.”
Once again the scientist, Masters, went on: “It then oxidizes almost anything, and rapidly. Carbon monoxide becomes the dioxide. Cyanogen becomes carbon dioxide and free nitrogen. Bromine does not oxidize, but under its influence precipitates, under these conditions, as any of several harmless products.
“Those three gases are the main bulk of the red gas. The free oxygen you allowed to escape into this room cleared the red gas out in five minutes.”
Appleton wet his lips. “Does that mean anything to——” He waved an eloquent hand to the regions outside the window.
“It means that overnight the red gas will have lost its potency! Plants produce oxygen at night—billions of tons of it over Earth. The red gas has not killed plants, not the many hardy ones, for they do not have an oxygen metabolism. Plants utilize——”
“But what does it mean?” burst in Appleton wildly. “Did you say—overnight?”
Professor Masters started, turned slowly pale. For a moment he had forgotten——
“It means”—he clipped out the words harshly, bitterly—“that to-morrow the sun will shine on a world again fit for life, but with no life to inhabit it!”
A peculiar expression came up in Appleton’s mind that was to stick with him the following hours of tormented waiting. “Life disinherited!” he muttered.
Professor Masters did not turn from the window, out of which he stared broodingly. Presently, Appleton stepped beside him. Together they looked out at the vast, lethal flood of crimson fog. Their faces reflected outwardly the red glare; from within, the complete despair of lost souls——
VI.
EIGHTEEN HOURS after they had immured themselves from the deadly red gas, Walwin noticed a lessening of the red glare in the water around the bathysphere. Relief came to his numbed mind. For a while he thought they were but delaying their eventual death, for the red mist had not disappeared. At one time he had even debated whether it would be easier to die from oxygen starvation in the bathysphere, or from poison gas, or from drowning. This had been when the pressure tank had failed to give out even the slightest hiss of escaping oxygen, showing the precious gas was all gone.
