Mists of Dawn by Chad Oliver Read Free Book Online Page A

along his nerves. He had a wild impulse ly I to shoot crazily into the darkness—shoot anywhere, I I at anything. He mastered the impulse with difficulty. But what could he do? What . . .
    One small corner of his mind still functioned. Wait, it whispered. Don’t lose your head. Wait.
    Mark waited, clutching the gun as though determined to squeeze it into a shapeless mass. The things came closer, closer. He could almost see them now. He stifled a sudden, terrible scream. Those things! What were they? What could they be?
    His hand trembled, but he raised his gun, took careful aim. But he did not fire. There were too many of them. He could make out at least ten shadowy figures in the semidarkness. He had only six cartridges. There was a chance that the shots might scare the things, but that was a long chance to take. They didn’t look like anything would scare them, ever.
    They were nightmares . . .
    Mark waited. His eyes peered through the gloom. He was beginning to make them out—and suddenly he  did not want to see them, not in the light. They were terrible enough dimly glimpsed in the darkness. The things walked on two legs, which were bent slightly, giving them a stooping posture. They were short, about five-feet-five. They had two arms, and they seemed to be carrying weapons of some sort. They were not apes—and yet they were not men either. They were half-men, and Mark knew that if he ever got a good look at them he might well go out of his mind.
    One of them snarled hideously. The thing came forward. It touched him. Mark tensed. A foul animal smell assailed his nostrils. He dug the muzzle of the .45 into the thing’s belly but he did not dare fire. He waited. If he was attacked, he determined to sell his life as dearly as possible. Otherwise—what?
    The thing snarled at him again and jerked his arm.
    “Who are you?” Mark heard a voice gasp. It was his own. “What do you want?”
    There was no answer, of course. The things could not possibly understand what he said, even if they had a language of their own. But Mark had to talk. He felt better talking.
    “What do you want? Get away from me, get . . .”
    The thing snarled again and then screamed hideously. Mark shuddered. The half-men’s eyes seemed to glow redly in the darkness, like monsters, like fiends from Hades . . .
    The thing jerked at his arm again, harder this time. Its hand was rough and as hard as iron. The half-man growled deep in his throat. Again he pulled at Mark’s arm, while Mark kept the .45 buried in the thing’s stomach, his finger curled around the trigger.
    Mark understood dimly what the creature wanted.
    It wanted Mark to come with them somewhere, that was clear. Mark weighed the possibilities. He could shoot the thing arid make a break for it, but where could he go? It was too dark to see now, although the stars were coming out, and he could not find his way back to the space-time machine without a stroke of extraordinary luck. And the others would be all over him in a minute, ripping him apart, tearing at him. He had no chance and he knew it.
    “Okay,” Mark whispered. “Let’s go.”
    The thing understood nothing of the words, but it seemed to sense the meaning of Mark’s voice. The iron hand relaxed and Mark was free. The shadows of the half-men closed in around him and began to walk across the plain into the night. With a sinking heart, Mark kept in the center of them. Whenever he fell back or hesitated, a warning snarl kept him in line.
    Mark kept the .45 ready in his hand. However, he had abandoned all hope of using it. It was very cold now, although the wind had died down with the coming of the night. It was very still, except for the shuffling of feet and the harsh sounds of breathing. From far, far away, as though from another world, he heard an awesome trumpeting like the cry of an elephant.
    Mark shivered. If only he had a fire to keep him warm! He was not used to such cold, nor was he dressed properly to endure it,