Gigantic, mindless, the Monsters had come out of
interstellar space to devour Earth. They gnawed
at her soil, drank deep of her seas. Where, on
this gutted cosmic carcass, could humanity flee?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1950.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Westover got a shock when he stumbled onto the monster, for all that heknew one had been through here.
He had been following the high ground toward the hills, alternatelysplashing through waist-deep water and climbing onto comparatively dryknolls. To right and left of him was the sullen noise of the river inflood, and behind him, too, the rising water he had barely escaped. Thenight was overcast, the moon a faint disk of glow that left river andhills and even the mud underfoot invisible.
He had not sought in his mind for the flood's cause, but had merelytaken it numbly as part of the fury and confusion of a world in ruin.Anyway, he was dead tired out on his feet.
He sensed more than saw the looming wall before him, but he thoughtit the bare ledge-rock of a stripped hillside until he stepped into asmall pot-hole and lurched forward, and his outflung hands sank intothe slime that covered a surface faintly, horrifyingly resilient.
He recoiled as if seared, and retreated, slithering in the muck. Formoments his mind was full of dark formless panic; then he took a firmhold on himself and tried to comprehend the situation.
Nothing was distinguishable beyond a few yards, but his mind's eyecould see the rest—the immense slug-like shape that extended inponderous repose across the river valley, its head and tail spillingover the hills on either side, five miles apart. The beast wasquiescent until morning—sleeping, if such things slept.
And that explained the flood; the monster's body had formed anunbreakable dam behind which the river had been steadily piling up inthose first hours of night; if it did not move until dawn, the levelwould be far higher then.
Westover stood motionless in the blackness; how long, he did not know.He was hardly aware of the water that covered his feet, crept over hisankles, and swirled halfway to his knees. Only the emergence of themoon through a rift of the cloud blanket brought him awake; its dimlight gleamed all around on a great sheet of water, unbroken save forscattered black hummocks—crests of knolls like that on which he stood,all soon to be hidden by the rising flood.
For a moment he knew despair. The way back was impassable, and the wayahead was blocked by the titanic enemy.
Then the impersonal will that had driven him implacably two days andnights without stopping came to his rescue. Westover plodded forward,pressed his shrinking body against the slimy, faintly warm surface ofthe monster's foot, and sought above him with upstretched hands—foundholds, and began to climb with a strength he had not known was left inhim.
The moonlight's fading again was merciful as he climbed the sheer,slippery face of the foot; but he could hear the wash and chuckle ofthe flood below. His tired brain told him treacherously: "I'm alreadyasleep—this is a nightmare." Once, listening to that insidious voice,he slipped and for instants hung dizzily by his hands, and for someminutes after he had found a new foothold merely clung panting withpounding heart.
Some time after he had found courage to resume the climb, he draggedhimself, gasping and quivering, to comparative safety on the broadshelf that marked the rim of the foot. Above him lay the great blacksteep that rose to the summit of the monster's humped back, a mountain