THE ATTACKING SPECTRES
I said to Brutar, "You asked my help. But you have let me do nothing
to help you--and you explain nothing, so that I have no idea what is
going on. Am I not enough your friend by now?"
Brutar smiled; I think he was fatuous enough to believe that he had won
me over.
"You will be able to help me, Rob. We're going to place these weapons
everywhere. There is a statue near here somewhere--a giant figure
rising from water. I want you to lead us to it. Later--when we have
finished with this great house."
"Weapons?" I echoed. "What sort of weapons?"
He continued to smile. "You called them bricks a while ago. That's
what they are--inert material we brought with us. I had devised other
things, but thought that these would suffice. Come here--I'll show you."
He took one of the bricks. As I stood with him to examine it, a score
of the ghostly troopers came across the Subway tracks and fronted us.
It was a light substance, but quite ponderable. Solid, yet rather
of the consistency of soft rubber; I seemed to be able to mould
its shape slightly with my fingers. Blue-green of color or silver
phosphorescence; and it glowed and shimmered in my hands.
I gave it back to Brutar. "You're going to place these--where?"
"Everywhere," he said. "You shall see. Let us go watch my men place
them up there in the great house.... This fellow is very bold! He
doesn't seem afraid of me!"
He strode vigorously at the intent and curious soldier--passed through
him; but the soldier did not move.
"Come, Rob--let's go up and watch them."
We moved under the Woolworth Building, up to and through the bottoms
of its great elevator shafts. And climbing--upon what I cannot say or
guess--we passed upward and into the building. Through its walls; its
skeleton framework of steel; floating back and forth through its many
storied offices.... Roaming ghosts!
The ten ghosts of Brutar were floating silently about. We ourselves
could be seen by those within the building--seen as spectres hovering,
moving with what silent, sinister purpose they did not know.
Yet they tried to resist us. We came, for instance, upon one of
Brutar's men, with the brick still in his hand.
"Shall I place it here?" he asked. "We have chosen this side--I thought
this might be a good spot."
We were some four stories above ground. Before us was one of the great
upright girders of the structure.
"I should think so," Brutar agreed.
The man held the glowing, oblong brick within the shadowy steel. He
released it, and it floated gently downward--wafted down like a feather
very slowly. But it kept within the outlines of the girder.
"You'd better follow it," said Brutar. "It will stop presently--and
perhaps where you want it."
Inside the building the Earth-people had seen us--we three hovering
there. Men and soldiers were running from room to room, and up and down
the staircases trying to get near us. There was a room and a portion
of a hallway close to where we now hovered. They were soon thronged
with men, crowding against the walls, within which our white shapes
were visible. But the walls, solid to them, stopped their advance.
They stood regarding us; and now I could see fear upon their faces as
their glances followed the downward floating brick. And as it descended
a story, many of them rushed down, scrambling against the walls,
striving to reach into the place where they saw it.
Did they divine its purpose? I thought so; for as presently it came to
rest, lodged in the upright steel where cross girders were riveted,
I saw men come rushing with crowbars and axes. Frantically they were
tearing at the walls, ripping out the wood and plaster, striving to
reach and perhaps to dislodge that shimmering thing lying there in the
vitals of the building.
Brutar laughed. "You see, Rob? They're beginning to understand now--and
they're frightened. _It is materializing_--that brick, as you call it,
is materializing!"
Growing solid! In a surging torrent of horror complete realization
rushed over me. I scarce heard Brutar's gloating words: "That inert
matter, freed of physical contact with our Borderland bodies, tends
slowly to change to the state of the thing nearest to it. As heat by
contact communicates, so does the vibratory rate of all substances.
That brick, lodged there, is materializing. Slowly now--but soon very
fast. Presently it will be as solid as the steel girder itself--a brick
resting there complete in your Earth-state--demanding space of its own,
for its own existence!"
* * * * *
Space of its own! What diabolical force of Nature would this
unleash! These molecules, atoms, electrons of the steel and brick
thus intermingled! In a Space but half sufficient! A force created
of unknown, unthinkable power--immeasurable as that proverbial
irresistible force meeting an immovable body. Two solid bodies here,
intermingled to their very essence, striving to occupy the same space
at the same time!
Brutar was drawing at me. "Look at them, Rob! Trying to get at it! And
up there--and down below--see them?"
The glowing bricks were lodged up and down the building--all seemingly
on the one side. Down underground, lodged in the very foundations of
the structure I could see three of them piled together. And frantic
shapes of men digging for them through the walls of the cellars.
"Come further away, Rob. We can see it better from a distance. It
should be very interesting."
We retreated, going back until again we were standing just beneath the
level of City Hall Park. Brutar's men gathered around us--two hundred
ghosts clustered there watching the fruit of their diabolical efforts.
There were soldiers with machine guns in the park. The guns impotently,
ridiculously, were trained upon us. And around the edge of the park a
cordon of police kept back the crowds. I wondered what time of night it
might be. Evening, possibly; and then I saw the spectral clock of the
little tower of the squat City Hall. It was just before midnight.
Our march, perhaps not so much sinister as weird to the public, had
drawn a jam of the morbidly curious to this part of the city. They
were packed everywhere. And all the normal activities of the city were
stopped. No traffic on the streets. Vehicles motionless.
The great Woolworth Building stood like the ghost of some grave giant,
serene, majestic in the power of its size. Its summit up there in the
gloom seemed lighted; spots of blurred light were everywhere within it.
The whole scene of shadows seemed unreal. Like a dream. But as I
saw those frantic figures scrambling within the threatened building,
hacking futilely at its foundations to try and remove in time those
dim, glowing bricks materializing from another realm--the stark,
strange reality of it all was forced upon me.
We waited. How long I cannot say. Spectators of two realms, each to
the other mere ghosts, standing there watching and waiting. For a
time nothing happened throughout all the scene. And then a change was
apparent in the crowds about the park. No longer were they watching
us, the ghosts, but they were eyeing now the Woolworth Building. At
first curiously, incredulous to believe the news which was spreading
about. Then restlessly, and then, as orders evidently were passed to
the troops and to the policemen, these began pushing and shoving at the
people. The crowd resisted at first; moved reluctantly. Then a fear
seemed to surge over them--fear growing to panic. They began trying to
run--waves of them everywhere surging in panic away from the doomed
building.
Hundreds went down underfoot, trampled upon in the streets by their
fellows, mad, insane now with fear. And from every nearby building its
occupants came tumbling out like frightened rats; scurrying out to join
the panic of the streets. A chaos everywhere....
And we ghosts stood quiet and serene in its midst.
Brutar murmured. "Watch the great house. They know it is doomed. See,
they have stopped their efforts in there--now at the last, trying to
save themselves."
The Woolworth Building was emptying.... Abandoned....
Breathlessly I stood and gazed upon the ghostly scene. The tremendous
building towered there motionless. But presently I fancied it stirred;
its graceful roof up there seemed swaying.... Shifting.... Or was it a
trick of my straining vision? But then I saw it was not, for palpably
the tower swayed.... Leaned. Further--leaning until all at once I knew
it could not recover.... Poised, and then was toppling.
A breathless instant. Slowly at first, like a felled forest giant, the
great structure was coming down. Slowly, then with a rush it fell to
the south--fell in great shattering segments. Crashed with a soundless
crash upon the several blocks of nearby buildings. Crashed and tore
with the thousands of tons of its weight, smothering everything beneath
its crashing masonry and steel.... A soundless chaotic scene of ruin
and death over all those city blocks, with huge rising clouds of dirt
and smoke mercifully to obscure it.