looked asleep. Maybe he was—but no, endlessly, efficiently, the two machines rattled off line after line, as relentless and effortless as death itself. There was something about the monotonous movement of the typewriter keys that fascinated me. I walked over and stood behind his chair reading over his shoulder the type as it came into being, word by word.

Ah, here was another:

CONTENTS

“Flash Xebico CP

“There will be no more bulletins from this office. The impossible has happened. No messages have come into this room for twenty minutes. We are cut off from the outside and even the streets below us.

“I will stay with the wire until the end.

“It is the end, indeed. Since 4 p. m. yesterday the fog has hung over the city. Following reports from the sexton of the local church, two rescue parties were sent out to investigate conditions on the outskirts of the city. Neither party has ever returned nor was any word received from them. It is quite certain now that they will never return.

“From my instrument I can gaze down on the city beneath me. From the position of this room on the thirteenth floor, nearly the entire city can be seen. Now I can see only a thick blanket of blackness where customarily are lights and life.

“I fear greatly that the wailing cries heard constantly from the outskirts of the city are the death cries of the inhabitants. They are constantly increasing in volume and are approaching the center of the city.

“The fog yet hangs over everything. If possible, it is even heavier than before. But the conditions have changed. Instead of an opaque, impenetrable wall of odorous vapor, now swirls and writhes a shapeless mass in contortions of almost human agony. Now and again the mass parts and I catch a brief glimpse of the streets below.

“People are running to and fro, screaming in despair. A vast bedlam of sound flies up to my window, and above all is the immense whistling of unseen and unfelt winds.

“The fog has again swept over the city and the whistling is coming closer and closer.

“It is now directly beneath me.

“God! An instant ago the mist opened and I caught a glimpse of the streets below.

 Prev. P 5/7 next