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Title: Nothing but terror
Author: Jesse F. Bone
Release date: October 24, 2026 [eBook #79850]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1958
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79850
Credits: Tom Trussel - Stories of Futures Past (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTHING BUT TERROR ***
Nothing But Terror
by J. F. Bone
=A haunting story of a man and his girl--but not the kind of girl you
might think.=
It seemed a long time since the last speeding car had roared past this
spot where her man lay, bearing others who fled with mindless terror
from the plague that was already gnawing at their vitals. She touched
his unresponsive hand disfigured by confluent ulcers and discolored
by the purplish cast of capillary hemorrhage. He looked asleep lying
there against an angle of the wall, but she knew that it was the long
sleep, the sleep from which there is no awakening. He was gone and the
closeness, the love, the rapport were all gone with him and in their
place was nothing but stark loneliness.
The immensity of her loss was beyond words. All she could do was let
her grief flow out in a wild paroxysm that echoed down the street with
lingering reverberations as the sound reflected from the fronts of the
buildings around her. They towered into the air, black against the
setting sun, their cold window eyes glowing red with the reflection
from the western skies and the uncontrolled fires raging in the suburbs.
She shivered as the sun vanished from sight and the cool air swept in
from the bay. To the east the moon rose above the jagged hills, a red
bulbous moon that shattered the darkness with pallid light limning the
tall buildings faintly against the speckled backdrop of a star studded
sky.
The city was empty of the sound of man. No horns blew. No engines
throbbed their notes of muffled power. No voices livened the silent
air. No whistles drowned the lapping noise of wavelets along the
waterfront. But there were other sounds.
A dog howled at the rising moon.
An owl hooted mournfully from the upper reaches of one of the buildings.
The strengthening wind drove rustling shreds of paper before it
through the deserted streets, piling them in grotesque heaps in
sheltered corners, plastering them against stranded cars clogging the
intersections.
The dog howled again and she responded to the pain in that thin voice
whose agony was a mirror of her own.
And then the air was riven by the clatter of horny feet against the
pavement as a band of cattle from the outlying stockyards rushed past,
running with fear driven haste, crashing into cars and lampposts,
galloping noisily up the street, fleeing from the death that came
behind.
* * * * *
Death came with a yelping rush,--a huge pack of dogs of all breeds and
sizes. They ran at the cattle’s heels, nipping at the laggards until
one dog tired of the sport and leaped at the throat of the weakest
laggard to bring it crashing to the earth.
In an instant the steer was smothered under a horde of hairy bodies and
slashing jaws. A choked bawl of fear was silenced in the middle of its
terror and drowned in a medley of growls and snarls as the pack fed.
In an incredibly brief time the steer was gone save for some bits of
hide and offal, and the dogs trotted off in little groups with only the
faint click of their claws against the pavement to mark their passing.
Then from the wrecked fronts of the buildings, from the alleys and
sewers came tiny rustlings as rats moved in to probe with quivering
noses through the offal the pack had left behind. They came from all
sides, creeping blobs of gray hunger lured by the scent of blood.
And out of nowhere, stalking them on silken feet came cats, lean
flanked predators moving silently in the shadows. The whispering night
wind muffled their stealthy approach as they crept upon the swarming
rodents who gnawed at the tattered shards of the dogs’ abandoned kill.
Squalls of feline rage and triumph,--squeaks of pain and terror,
rustlings and scramblings of pursuer and pursued made a faint
diminuendo in the darkness, as an antiphony of predator and prey as
clouds swept out of the west to hide the moon and rain fell to soak the
littered streets, plastering the torn scraps of paper against steel
and concrete, swaddling the city in wet wrappings of papier mache. The
water trickled forlornly through choked gutters to drip into hollow
gurgling storm sewers as the clouds swept past and the moon shone low
and pale against the gray light of dawn.
The red headlines of a newspaper plastered against an overturned car
stood out in stark relief against the growing light. The headline six
inches high carried all the news that was important.
It contained only three letters and an exclamation point. It read quite
simply----WAR!
And in the light of the new day, she realized at last that there was
no further need nor reason for her to remain. Stiffly she rose to her
feet, looked down at her man, and then turned and walked slowly away....
* * * * *
The hospital was a charnel house, a grisly monument that poked a long
fingered spire toward the sky, a symbol of hope that failed. Men had
come here for help and had remained to die. Hundreds of cots filled
the wards and halls, each bearing a bloated burden of dissolution.
The air was heavy with decay, a fetid miasma rank with the odors of
decomposition. But in the midst of this carnival of death there was
life.
There were the flies.
They clustered in black masses upon the walls and ceilings and upon the
liquefying flesh of the dead, and the air swirled sluggishly to the
beat of their myriad wings. A muffled drone augmenting and diminishing
with uncertain rhythm echoed through the corridors of the dead as the
flies sought the upper reaches of the halls for a warmer resting place
to withstand the chill of approaching night.
But there were more than flies and maggots and the corpses upon which
they fed in this rat proof tomb of steel and concrete. Close to the
ground a light gleamed in the growing darkness, a square of white that
brightened as the night fell, a glow that shone from a barred window
reflecting answering gleams from the eyes of a semicircle of dogs
outside.
They watched the man behind the bars, and some remembered dully that
here was what had once been their god. But that was no more. Man had
deserted them and left them to shift for themselves. They owned this
one no allegiance. To them he was merely food, hidden safely behind the
iron rods that separated them.
Edward Falkland looked out at the ring of glowing eyes and cursed
softly and monotonously. He fingered the pistol tucked in the waistband
of his trousers as his sunken eyes scanned the room, checking its
security for the thousandth time. The room, bright with the light from
a Coleman lantern was his refuge,--his cave from which he could look
with safety into the jungle outside.
He smiled grimly. The dogs were getting bolder, which meant that they
were hungrier. One had even thrown itself madly against the bars, foam
dripping from its jaws as it tried to chew through the hardened steel
and get at the man inside. It was a good sign. Soon hunger would drive
most of them from the city, and it would be safe to venture outside
again. It wouldn’t be long now. Winter was near and the cold would
help. He trimmed the lamp and stroked the pistol in his belt. The light
and the gun were his comforts in the grim hours of darkness. For like
the dogs, he didn’t sleep at night. Night was a time of wakefulness--of
looking forward to the dawn when the dogs would leave and he could
sleep. He feared and hated them, these stinking scavengers that fed
upon dead and living alike.
* * * * *
The ghost of a smile touched his lips as he looked at the dogs outside.
He was in the strongest position. The supplies in the hospital kitchen
would last for years if necessary, and he could afford to wait.
They couldn’t.
They had to eat, and there was no food here that they could reach. And
in a few more weeks the flies and their maggots would remove the lure
that brought them clustering to this place. He almost felt grateful to
the flies,--although he hadn’t in that horrid moment of awakening when
he had regained consciousness to find himself covered with them and
surrounded by the dead in one of the upper corridors.
The flies had fled in terror as he moved, but their terror was no
less than his. He too had fled, a slow crawling flight past the rows
of bodies toward the cool green door at the end of the corridor that
beckoned to him like a beacon of safety. That hundred foot crawl
through corruption still haunted his sleep,--and even awake he could
feel the sting of fear sweat upon his face and the gall bitterness of
vomit in his throat as he recalled that endless journey.
But he had made it.
The door had opened into the Superintendent’s office and there had been
a water cooler there. Later he managed to find the kitchens with their
enormous stores of food, and there he stayed, sleeping in the head
dietician’s quarters, gaining strength with nightmare slowness until
he had recovered enough to venture outside. That had been foolish. He
knew it now, but then he had merely been conscious that he was at last
free of the stink and corruption of the hospital. It did not surprise
him that the city was dead. He had expected it. After all, biological
and nuclear warfare shouldn’t leave too many people alive upon a war
wracked earth. It only surprised him that anyone, even the Pan Asians,
would be fools enough to start something they knew that they couldn’t
finish.
But perhaps they were like the dogs,--too hungry for either fear
or caution, and perhaps they looked with envy upon the scattered
population and fertile lands of the West. Whatever it was, war had come
and the first blow was the last. At the time he was certain that there
would be some survivors, for no weapon, no matter how deadly it might
be would be able to kill everyone.
* * * * *
At the time he didn’t know about the dogs.
He walked nearly a half mile through the empty streets before he found
a clothing store. The door was unlocked and he entered to change the
stink of his hospital pyjamas for something cleaner and warmer. He took
what he wanted, and as he stepped from the store his eyes caught the
flicker of movement down the street,--a movement that became four dogs
walking toward him along the lines of silent cars parked at the curb.
He sighed with relief. Dogs meant companionship if nothing else. He
stepped out into plain sight and whistled. And the dogs came running.
* * * * *
A delighted grin split his lean cheeks. They seemed as glad to see
him as he was to see them. A big Doberman led them, running close to
the ground like a wolf, fangs bared, ears laid back. It didn’t look
glad,--deadly was a better word. Suddenly cautious, he stepped back
into the store and closed the door in the dog’s face.
The Doberman leaped and slammed through the glass to land scrabbling
with blunt claws on the slippery tiled floor. That was the only thing
that saved him. The brute was too eager. As it struggled for footing
Falkland darted behind the counter looking for a weapon, and there by
the grace of God lay a pistol. He picked it up as the dog regained its
feet and leaped again. He shot even as the slashing fangs ripped across
his left forearm, just as two of the following dogs leaped through
the broken door. The bullet slammed the Doberman across the room,
dead before it struck the ground. The other dogs stopped, smelled the
blood of their leader and paused uncertainly. He fired again. The shot
missed, but the noise was too much. Tails tucked between their legs,
they fled. They wanted no part of this living man. Too many memories
of the Lords of Creation came rushing back to their hunger-crazed
minds,--too many things that they had nearly forgotten. For Man was
still the living god, and they knew better than to rouse his wrath.
Falkland stood gasping, bleeding from a six inch slash in his forearm,
looking down at the dog he had killed. His strength was gone and he
was weak with reaction. It was fortunate, he reflected wryly, that the
other dogs weren’t trained manhunters like their leader. If they had
been, he wouldn’t have had a chance. But one thing was certain, he’d
never trust another dog....
A grin of animal cunning twisted his lips. The time was coming when
he’d teach those feral brutes a lesson they’d never forget. He’d show
them who was master. It would take time, but he could afford to wait.
He licked his lips with anticipation. He chuckled shrilly, the chuckles
blending into maniac laughter. Deliberately he walked to the window and
threw it open, laughing as a hunger maddened dog threw itself against
the bars. He shot it and the others swarmed over their dead companion
in an ecstasy of hunger,--and as they fed he laughed....
* * * * *
Winter came and snow drifted in the streets, but somehow she managed to
survive. There was still food in the city,--and she found it,--foraging
through the looted stores along the waterfront. And with the snow the
scavengers departed. Most of the food was gone and what remained was
hard to get. Occasionally she killed a dog who invaded the half mile
square she considered hers and left its body in the streets to be
devoured. But that was poor tactics. Rather than being a deterrent, the
dead proved an attraction for their cannibalistic fellows.
So she began to search for a new territory constantly widening her
travels,--until she reached the hills surrounding the harbor.
And then she found a special street. A full dozen frozen carcasses of
dogs barred its entrance, but she paid them no attention. She had seen
dead dogs before, and they didn’t bother her.
The street opened onto a broad avenue, white with snow and oddly
clear of stranded cars. She looked down its length,--and stopped
short,--shivering! For there, standing beside one of the tall buildings
was a man,--living man! A tall man who looked at her with the same
astonished wonder that she looked at him....
The dogs kept Falkland sane. His hatred of them was the bright point
that focused his reason. And with the onset of winter he began to
teach them the promised lesson. The cold had reduced their numbers
enough for him to risk taking one of the hospital ambulances on a short
reconnaissance through the nearly impassable streets. A mile away he
found a sporting goods store with a generous and relatively untouched
stock of the supplies he needed. There were rifles, ammunition,--and
traps,--strong steel traps that would hold the fiercest dog.
And Falkland smiled.
It didn’t take long before the starvelings who remained realized that
man had returned to claim his own,--man the cunning,--man the God,--man
the master of iron. Traps caught them in cruel jaws, poison racked
their bellies, bullets drove life from them. The area around the
hospital became a death trap. At almost any hour of the day or night
unwary dogs entering it died. The lesson was quickly and thoroughly
learned,--the grim law of survival that taught them if they would live
they must avoid this place where man ruled again in all his power....
Falkland swore softly. He had only gotten one dog today, and that one a
gaunt ribbed undersized mongrel shot as he gnawed at the frozen carcass
of one of the earlier victims. He sighed. This area was becoming
safe,--and dull.
* * * * *
A faint noise down the street made him look up. There in the middle of
the road a big Great Dane looked at him, ears pricked and alert, tail
wagging tentatively. He grinned thinly and raised his rifle. It had
been a long time since he had seen a dog bold enough to look him in
the face. They normally fled from him as though he was the Plague. He
brought the telescopic sight to his eye and took up the slack in the
trigger. The dog leaped at him in the sight picture.
He paused. There was something about this one that was different.
There was none of the bright eyed feral look of the others. This one
neither ran towards him or away from him,--just stood there cropped
ears pricked forward eyeing him with a curious look that held within it
surprise more than anything else. And its tail was wagging.
On impulse he whistled. The dog took a tentative step forward, and then
came on at a sidling trot. He lifted the gun again, half undecided,
shocked at the unfamiliar sound his lips had made. With a start of
surprise he realized that he hadn’t whistled to a dog since the time he
was attacked. He grinned bitterly,--possibly the dogs hadn’t given him
a fair shake, but he hadn’t given them any better. He remembered more
than one wagging tail and pleading look caught in his traps,--looks
that he had callously snuffed out. He sighed and lowered the rifle.
He’d see what this one would do.
The thin tail wagged briskly as the dog came forward, her whole
expression one of apparent unwillingness to believe her eyes. She
stopped some ten feet away, and eyed him with cautious friendliness. He
smiled an oddly gentle smile,--the poor girl was thin as a rail--even
worse than the mongrel he had shot. Acting on impulse he stretched
out his hand and called, “Here Lady! Come here girl! Come on, there’s
nothing to be afraid of, here Lady!”
_He knew her name!_ The wonder of it staggered her! She shivered,
her muscles suddenly weak as she heard the familiar word. He was a
stranger, and she had been taught to distrust strangers, but in his
voice she heard a hunger akin to her own....
Whining softly she thrust her scarred muzzle forward, sniffing eagerly
as his hand passed over her head to the sensitive spots behind her
ears,--and scratched!
Her red tongue licked out. Here was the friend,--the god,--the
protector she had sought. No longer did she feel alone. He would
care for her, and love her, and she,--why she would return that love
a thousand fold, as dogs had done since the beginning of time. She
looked with bright happy eyes at the man who claimed her. He smiled at
her,--and when he turned away she followed, trotting at his heels, head
high, tail curved proudly. It was nice to be respectable again....
A vagrant breeze blew dog scent to her nostrils. She growled deep in
her throat, staring with jealous eyes into the alleyway from whence the
odor came,--her hackles raised in a stiff brush along her back as she
halted stiffly, teeth bared in a snarl.
The man eyed her suspiciously, his hand going to the pistol at his
belt, but she ignored him, watching the alley mouth. There was a smell
of carrion about the hidden dog, and she wondered dully why the man
beside her couldn’t sense it. A maneater lurked there in the shadow!
Falkland noted the cant of her head and realized that the bare toothed
snarl was not for him. He whirled to face the alley, his rifle
leaping up to be ready--but he was late. The maneater was already in
midair, driving for his throat,--a huge Irish Wolfhound, grey and
shaggy--larger even than the Dane that followed him. He had barely time
to raise an arm to protect his throat before the dog was on him. But
that leaping body never struck its mark.
A brindle thunderbolt brushed past him, striking the Wolfhound
broadside. The bigger dog snarled as the Dane’s weight spoiled its
leap. Amazement boiled in the hound’s little mind as it twisted madly
in midair to regain its balance, fell heavily to the pavement, slipped,
rolled and scrabbled frantically with blunt claws against the snow
covered concrete. It was still trying to rise as Falkland raised the
rifle and drove a bullet through its brain.
Lady cowered at the sound of the gun, and whimpered as the man stood
over her with the smoking rifle gripped in white knuckled hands.
“Life for a life,” Falkland murmured softly. “It’s balanced.”
She was afraid, but the fear became a wild surge of joy as he knelt
beside her murmuring soft words into her ears, with tender hands.
It was all right. Everything was all right, she had again found the
symbiosis she had lost. She was whole again.
Falkland felt a tightening of his throat as he looked at her and read
the message in her eyes. Here was the companionship, the love and
loyalty he needed to make him complete. He laughed--and this time it
was a happy sound. Together they could do anything. They would find
others,--other men and other dogs that still loved men, and together
they would rebuild the civilization that had been so nearly lost. He
knew it with a bright certainty. His head lifted with confidence as he
rose to his feet.
He moved briskly and beside him, already sensitive to his mood, the
Dane’s pacing turned to a jaunty cakewalk.
=THE END=
Transcriber’s note:
This etext was produced from Fantastic, January 1959 (vol. 8, no. 1).
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
minor inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
public domain.
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NOTHING BUT TERROR ***
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