The War of the Worlds Murder d-6

by Max Allan Collins

  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.

  “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. amp; 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 Brook
lyn, 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 this 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.

  A harried switchboard girl sounded like she was doing a skit on the Jack Benny program. “No, madam…no, sir-we don’t know anything about an explosion in New Jersey…. Men from Mars?… Yeah, we know it’s on the radio, but…it didn’t happen…. Nothing’s going on, I tell you!.. No madam…No sir…there ain’t no men from Mars!”

  Nearby, another city desk assistant, frazzled beyond belief, was telling an official from the police commissioner’s office, “It’s just a phony-a radio play!”

  The assistant city desk man finally hung up, then turned to Gross and pointed an accusatory finger. “You’re the one always touting this guy Welles! You either get CBS on the line, or get your tail over there and see what in God’s name’s going on.”

  Gross walked into the radio room and two phones jangled; he picked up a receiver in either hand.

  A female voice said, “Are they abandoning New York?”

  “No, lady, it’s just a play.”

  “Oh no it isn’t!” she screamed, and hung up.

  On the other wire was a guy from the Red Cross. “I hear they’re broadcasting about a terrible catastrophe in New Jersey-do you know where it is, so we can get our people out there?”

  “It’s only Orson Welles-he’s on with a fantasy, tonight.”

  “That can’t be! My wife just called and said thousands have been killed.”

  Gross reassured the man that the show was just a show, hung up, and his young female assistant bounded in, looking far less attractive than usual, her hair tendrils of despair, her eyes pools of frustration.

  “My God, Mr. Gross! These calls have been driving me batty!”

  The radio reviewer said nothing, merely headed for the door.

  His assistant nearly shrieked, “You’re not going to leave me all alone with these…these phones, are you?”

  “Yes,” he said, already halfway out.

  In moments he was on the street, hailing another cab.

  Climbing in, Gross realized the cab’s radio was tuned to WEAF.

  “Put CBS on,” Gross said, “would you?”

  The cabbie did so.

  “It’s something moving…solid metal, kind of a shield-like affair rising up out of the cylinder…. Going higher and higher. What?… It’s, it’s standing on legs…actually rearing up on a sort of metal framework. Now it’s reaching above the trees and the searchlights are on it. Hold on!”

  “God almighty!” the cab driver said.

  “It’s just fiction,” Gross said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “You don’t see any panic-stricken people running around the streets, do you, bud?”

  And as if to prove the reviewer wrong, the cab passed a movie house on Third Avenue, from which half a dozen women and children streamed, while men poured out of nearby bars, to take root on the sidewalks and stare at the sky.

  On Lexington Avenue and 51st Street, a woman sat on the curb, crying and screaming, while a cop in the middle of the street stood mobbed by agitated citizens.

  “Fiction or not,” the cabbie said, “something the hell’s goin’ on!”

  And yet when Gross was dropped off at the Columbia Broadcasting Building, no sign of outer or inner turmoil could be seen-the usual number of pedestrians strolled by, traffic seemed about normal.

  No one would ever guess that this was the County Seat of Hysteria in the United States, right now.

  In six weeks, the American Institute of Public Opinion would estimate 9,000,000 Americans had heard the “War of the Worlds” broadcast, a majority tuning in too late to catch the disclaimer opening. The Chapmans, the Dorns, James Roberts and his friend Bobby, Sheldon Judcroft and Professor Barrington, and the troopers at the HQ in upstate New York were among the estimated 1,700,000 listeners who believed they were hearing actual newscasts, including the following one:

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I have a grave announcement to make. Incredible as it may seem, both the observations of science and the evidence of our eyes lead to the inescapable assumption that those strange beings who landed in the Jersey farmlands tonight are the vanguard of an invading army from the planet Mars.”

  State troopers Chuck and Carmine made it back to headquarters, despite a highway fill
ed with lunatics driving north like the devil was on their tails.

  But HQ was no better. Everyone was doing their best to follow Corporal Stevens’s orders; previously cool in any crisis, the corporal was on edge, snapping at his men wildly.

  The quartermaster sergeant had come in from home to issue the troopers rifles, machine guns and ammunition, and he, too, was caught up in it, yelling like a boot-camp drill instructor.

  Then Lt. Flanders showed up. Ol’ Flannel Mouth had loaded up his car with household possessions, leaving room for his wife, a blowsy middle-aged blonde who had a crucifix in one hand and a bottle of rye in the other (she would alternately kiss the cross and swig the bottle).

  The lieutenant took over from the duty corporal, who had clearly been enjoying the power and disliked having it taken away from him. After Lt. Flanders gave several orders that Corporal Stevens disagreed with, the latter decided he’d had enough of the former.

  “Lieutenant, I know we’re all going to die,” the corporal said. “And I’ve been waiting seven long years to tell you something.”

  “Well, spit it out, man! We have things to do.”

  They were outside the front of HQ, the troopers all around, weapons in hand, waiting for their orders.

  The corporal was saying, “Nothing is more urgent than me saying this: you are a flannel-mouthed son of a bitch, no-good, rotten bastard. I have half a mind to grab you by your miserable neck and squeeze it till your tongue turns black.”

  That wouldn’t take long, as the lieutenant was already turning purple; in the background, his wife toasted the corporal with her rye bottle, in “hear hear!” manner.

  Corporal Stevens had more: “I’d be doing everybody in this troop a favor by shoving this.45 up your tail and pulling the trigger. But I just hate the thought of wasting a good bullet on your miserable carcass, when we have an enemy to fight.”