_The Attack upon New York_
I must sketch now the main events following this night of May 15th
and 16th as the outside world saw them. The frantic reports from
Bermuda were forced into credibility by the appearance of
apparitions at many points along the Atlantic seaboard of the
southern States. They were sporadic appearances that night. No
attacks were reported. But in all, at least a thousand wraithlike
figures of men must have been seen. The visitations began at
midnight and ended with dawn. To anyone, reading in the morning
papers or hearing from the newscasters that "ghosts" were seen at
Savannah, the thing had no significance. But in Washington, where
officials took a summary of all the reports and attempted an
analysis of them, one fact seemed clear. The wraiths were traveling
northward. It could almost be fancied that this was an army,
traveling in the borderland of the Unknown. Appearing momentarily as
though coming out to scout around and see the contour and the
characteristics of our realm; disappearing again into invisibility,
to show themselves in an hour or so many miles farther north.
The reports indicated also that it was not one group of the enemy,
but several--and all of them traveling northward. The most northerly
group of them by dawn showed itself up near Cape Hatteras.
The news, when it was fully disseminated that next day, brought a
mingling of derision and terror from the public. The world rang with
the affair. Remote nations, feeling safe since nothing of the kind
seemed menacing them, were amused that distant America, supposedly
so scientifically modern, should be yielding to superstition worthy
only of the Middle Ages. The accounts from Bermuda were more
difficult to explain. And England, with Bermuda involved, was not
skeptical; as a matter of fact, the British authorities were
astonished. Warships were starting for Bermuda; and that morning of
May 16th, with the passenger lines in New York not sailing for
Bermuda, American warships were ordered to Hamilton. The menace,
whatever it was, would soon be ended.
* * * * *
That was May 16th. Another night passed, and on May 17th the world
rang with startled horror and a growing terror. Panics were
beginning in all the towns and cities of the American seaboard north
of Cape Hatteras. It was no longer a matter of merely seeing
"ghosts." There had been real attacks the previous night.
There had been a variety of incidents, extraordinarily
horrifying--so diverse, so unexpected that they could not have been
guarded against. It was a dark night, an area of low pressure with
leaden storm-clouds over all the Atlantic coastal region, from
Charleston north to the Virginia Capes. A coastal passenger ship off
Hatteras sent out a frantic radio distress call. The apparitions of
men had suddenly been seen in mid-air directly in the ship's course.
The message was incoherent; the vessel's wireless operator was
locked in his room at the transmitter, wildly describing an attack
upon the ships.
The white apparitions--a group of twenty or thirty men--had been
marching in mid-air when the ship sighted them directly over its
bow. In the darkness of the night they were only a hundred feet
ahead when the lookout saw them. In a moment the vessel was under
them, and they began materializing.... The account grew increasingly
incoherent. The figures materialized and fell to the deck, picked
themselves up and began running about the ship, attacking with
little green light-beams. The ship's passengers and crew vanished,
obliterated; annihilated. It seemed that young women among the
passengers were being spared. The ship was melting--the wooden
decks, all the wooden super-structure melting.... A few moments of
fantastic horror, then the distress call died into silence as
doubtless the green light-beams struck the operator's little cabin.
* * * * *
That vessel was found the next day, grounded on the shoals off
Hatteras. The sea was oily and calm. It lay like a gruesome shell,
as though some fire had swept all its interior. Yet not fire either,
for there were no embers, no ashes. Diseased, leprous, gruesomely
weird with parts of its interior intact and other parts obliterated.
And no living soul was upon it save one steward crouching in a lower
cabin laughing with madness which the shock of what he had seen
brought upon him.
On land, a railroad train in Virginia had been wrecked, struck
apparently by a greenish ray. And also in Virginia, during the early
evening in a village, an outdoor festival at which there were many
young girls was attacked by apparitions suddenly coming into
solidity. The report said that thirty or more young girls were
missing. The little town was in chaos.
And the chaos, that next day, spread everywhere. It was obvious now
that the enemy was advancing northward. In Washington, Baltimore,
Philadelphia, panics were beginning. New York City was seething with
excitement. People were leaving all the towns and cities of the
area. An exodus north and westward. In New York, every steamship,
airplane and railroad train was crowded with departing people. The
roads to Canada and to the west were thronged with outgoing
automobiles.
But it was only a small part of the millions who remained. And the
transportation systems were at once thrown into turmoil, with the
sudden frantic demands threatening to break them down. And then a
new menace came to New York. Incoming food supplies for its millions
crowded into that teeming area around Manhattan, were jeopardized.
The army of men engaged in all the myriad activities by which the
great city sustained itself were as terrified as anyone else. They
began deserting their posts. And local communication systems went
awry. The telephones, the lights, local transportation--all of them
began limping, threatening to break.
* * * * *
Tremendous, intricate human machine by whose constant activity so
many millions are enabled to live so close together! No one could
realize how vastly interwoven are a million activities which make
life in a great city comfortable and safe until something goes
wrong! And one wrong thing so swiftly affects another! As though in
a vastly intricate mechanism little cogs were breaking, and the
breaks spreading until presently the giant fly-wheels could no
longer turn.
If the startled Federal and State officials could have foreseen even
the events of the next forty-eight hours they would have wanted New
York City deserted of the population. But that was impossible. Even
if everyone could have been frightened into leaving, the chaos of
itself would have brought death to untold thousands.
As it was, May 17th and 18th showed New York in a growing chaos.
Officials now were wildly trying to stem the panics, trying to keep
organized the great machines of city life.
It is no part of my plan for this narrative to try and detail the
events in New York City as the apparitions advanced upon it. The
crowded bridges and tunnels; the traffic and transportation
accidents; the failure of the lights and telephones and broadcasting
systems; the impending food shortage; the breaking out of disease
from a score of causes; the crushed bodies lying in the streets
where frantic mobs had trampled them and no one was available to
take them away. The scenes beggar description.
* * * * *
And in all this the enemy had played no part save that of causing
terror. Warships gathered in New York harbor were impotent. State
troops massed in New Jersey, across the Hudson from New York, and in
Putnam and Westchester Counties, were powerless to do more than try
and help the escaping people since there was no enemy of tangible
substance to attack. Patrolling airplanes, armed with bombs, were
helpless. The white apparitions were gathering everywhere in the
neighborhood of New York City. But they remained only apparitions,
imponderable wraiths, non-existent save that they could be dimly
seen. And even had they materialized, no warships could shell the
city, for millions of desperate people were still within it trying
to get away.
The news from little Bermuda was submerged, unheeded, in this
greater catastrophe. But on the night of May 17th when the American
warships arrived off Hamilton, the Paget invaders were gone.
The menace in Bermuda was over; it was the great New York City which
was menaced now. The apparitions which had advanced from the south
were suddenly joined by a much more numerous army. On the night of
May 19th it had reached New York. Two or three thousand glowing
white shapes were apparent, with yet other thousands perhaps
hovering just beyond visibility. They made no attack. They stood
encamped on the borderland of the Unknown realm to which they
belonged. Busy with their preparations for battle and watching the
stricken city to which already mere terror had brought the horror of
disease and death.
It seemed now that this Fourth Dimension terrain co-existing within
in the space of New York City, must be a tumbled, mountainous region
of crags and spires, and yawning pits, ravines and valley depths.
Jagged and precipitous indeed, for there were apparitions encamped
in the air above Manhattan and harbor--higher in altitude than the
Chrysler or the Empire State towers. Other wraiths showed in a dozen
places lower down--some within the city buildings themselves. And
yet others were below ground, within the river waters, or grouped
seemingly a hundred feet beneath the street levels.
Fantastic army of wraiths! In the daylight they almost faded, but at
night they glowed clearly. Busy assembling their weapons of war.
Vanishing and reappearing at different points. Climbing or
descending the steep cliffs and crags of their terrain to new points
of vantage; and every hour with their numbers augmenting. And all so
silent! So grimly purposeful, and yet so ghastly silent!
It was near midnight of May 19th when the wraiths began
materializing and the attack upon New York City began!