The third day, there were no more newspapers. No one dared leave his
home--not with the Invaders at large. No newspapers, no radio, no
television--the channels of communication began to break down.
On the fourth day, armed forces from the rest of the country began to
arrive. They combed the city, searching for the creatures. Bullets
had no effect, though. They passed right through the bodies of the
Invaders, splattered off buildings and lampposts as though there had
been nothing in the way.
* * * * *
Damn Harwood, I thought, as I stood at my window and watched the
fruitless attempts to drive away the Invaders. All the time, I knew,
that damnable vortex was still open, and more and more of them were
pouring through every second.
It was funny, in a way, that the world should end this way. It _was_
the end of the world, of course; we had no defense against them, and
they burned and killed unstoppably. The streets were blockaded; we
could go nowhere, see no one. Communication was impossible; telephones
were no longer working, ever since the Invaders had discovered what a
juicy supply of radiation the coaxial cables provided. We were walled
up with ourselves, waiting for the end.
As I paced my room impatiently, I thought of Laura, there with her
father--her father who had, unwittingly or otherwise, brought this
destruction into the world. Then I looked around at my equipment, my
partially-designed force-field generators. An idea struck me.