God's sake hang onto it!"

The darkness swelled like a living thing. It swayed and clutched at the torches. Somewhere a high whining began, like a keening wind.

There were sudden sounds from the house—bangings and scramblings. Carver faltered.

"On!" Jerry said savagely, and began to run. He touched his home-made crucifix to the wood of the porch, and with the other hand brought the torch down. Blue sparks jumped out at him. The dry wood hissed and blazed up furiously.

A frightful scream rang out. There was the tinkle of breaking glass. Formless figures thudded to the ground and scuttled away on all fours, headed up the valley.

Within minutes the farmhouse was a mass of roaring flame. Jerry backed away from it. He saw Carver outlined against the glowing barn, which he had fired. They came together and hurried back to the road. There they stopped to watch the pillar of flame and smoke, boiling upward.

"It worked," Carver said.

Jerry nodded. "We can't kill them. But we can drive them out."

"Wimmen and kids," Carver said bitterly. "Did you see them things that came out?"

"Yes." Jerry was drenched in sweat and the torch trembled in his hand. "Let's get on to the next one, Mike."

They went on to the neighboring farm, and to the one after that, while the shadows pulsed in an unholy turmoil. The night swarmed with malignant invisible forces, that tried to blow the flame from their torches, that flayed them with the naked sword of fear. There were hideous shapes, half-seen. There were waves of terror like a physical shock. There were puffs of ordure, so rank they gagged.

But they plodded through it, faces set, sweating and agonized. Till, halfway up the valley it came....

Carver knew it first. His leathery face paled; his hands fumbled instinctively for the gun he was not carrying.

Then Jerry said hoarsely, "Mike, did you hear that?"

Carver nodded dumbly.

Clearly, now, came the sound of those huge paws, padding first on one side of them, then the other. Jerry clutched his cross till the rough edges bit deep into his hand.

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