I telephoned the hospital, and asked if he was there. I learned that he was, and that the hospital authorities had succeeded in rekindling the fire which a careless attendant had allowed to die some time previously. The doctor was rapidly recovering. I requested the office to connect me with him, and he replied cheerily enough.
He was quite unable to furnish me with any information of the sort that I desired. Finally, I made the proposal that I had in mind. It was the only way that offered even a possible solution of the problem.
“Are you willing to do something for the cause of humanity?” I asked.
“What is it that you want me to do?” he asked rather anxiously. He had already been in dire peril, and I could well believe that he feared the Thing more than anything else in the world.
“I want you to let that fire die out again for a few minutes,” I said slowly and distinctly.
“Good heavens! I can’t do that. You know what it would mean.”
“Yes, I know. And because the matter is so important, I ask you to do this. We will be outside, and ready to light it again, so you will not be powerless.”
“Why do you want me to do this?”
“There is a chance that you may be able to tell us when this invasion will occur. If it is to be soon, all the followers of the Master will have to know it. You must try to remember all that occurs while the fire is out. Will you do this?”
“It’s a lot — but I’ll do it,” he said resolutely.
We hurried over to the hospital, and watched through the aperture of the door while Dr. Prendergast allowed the fire to flicker slowly to death. His face grayed with fear as the last sparks died down and the ashes cooled. I could see, even from that distance, the great drops of perspiration breaking out upon his brow, as the insidious influence stole over him. The room darkened, and the tendrils of vapor slowly gathered about him. He lay upon the bed like one dead, but, by his breathing, I could see that he was still alive.
I saw the distorted ferocity that I had come to know so well these last few days spread over his regular features. I heard the grunts that came from him as from some wild animal. He snarled and spat in a very fury of savage lust, as he became metamorphosed from the doctor into the demon. No longer did he lie motionless, but he moved excitedly about, and began to talk in a language meaningless to me. He seemed to be holding a lengthy conversation; but at last he struggled, as though attempting to throw off some fearful oppression, and I knew that it was time to relight the fire. I entered the room, resolutely shunning the dampness that sought to envelop me with its coils. I soon had a bright fire burning, and slowly the good doctor revived.
“Do you remember anything?” I questioned, anxiously.
“Yes, I remember all. I can scarcely credit it. There will be an invasion from the ocean with the next full moon. Monsters will attempt to blot out the whole civilized world, and the followers of B’Moth are expected to help in the destruction. I myself have been ordered to help.”
“You are sure that it is to be with the next full moon?” I interjected earnestly.
“Yes. The next full moon — when is that?”
I consulted the calendar. “It is a week from today,” I said. “Have you any idea where the attempt will commence?” I suggested.
“None whatever, but I suppose it will be somewhere in this country,” he said dejectedly.
“Well, we will be on our guard everywhere,” I said.
D’Arlancourt and I left the hospital, and hurrying to the secret service offices, we again sent several telegrams, and also radio messages to ships at sea. We requested everyone to keep a sharp watch for any accumulation of monsters both at sea and on land.
We spent some days of enforced idleness, and were becoming hopeless of being able to prevent the awful catastrophe that was about to overwhelm us. We had had great difficulty in influencing the war department in the matter, but finally they had consented to order the forts in various parts of the country to fire upon anything extraordinary belonging to the animal world. That was as far as they would go, and the order was given more out of courtesy than anything else. And who can blame them? They were used to fighting armies, and not spirits.
As the day of full moon approached, the armed forces of a world united for the sake of civilization were mustered and anxious. Then came the message. It was from the steamer Malolana, plying between San Francisco and Hawaii. The broadcast that we had sent out a few days earlier had been effective. The captain reported that he had seen a school of monstrous things swimming rapidly toward the mainland, directly upon the steamer routes forming the great circle to Honolulu. There were thousands of them, like enormous blanket-fish, huge beyond comparison, almost as large as his own ship!
During the day, other messages came in from various vessels on the great circle route to Hawaii, and they all mentioned this huge array of Things. The Presidio at San Francisco was immediately notified, and we caught a fast airplane that took us to Chicago, and Denver, and so to Mills Field.
It was the night of the full moon when we arrived at San Francisco. We motored hastily to the Presidio. Activity was everywhere. The enormous disappearing guns that can shoot a shell thirty miles were ready to hurl destruction at the invading hordes from the deep. The scout planes hovered aloft to signal the approach of the invaders. Telescopes were trained anxiously upon the starlit Pacific. Fort Miley was a scene of activity also. The naval stations at Bremerton and San Diego were watching for any change of course on the part of the hordes from the ocean. And with the full moon, they came! The ocean for miles was a seething, swirling mass of horrid immensity. Green bodies sucked their way through the smooth water. The swish of their swimming was plainly audible to the watchers on the lookouts of the Presidio.
“Fire!” went forth the order, and the range guns belched a message of death. Again and again shells were hurled into the center of the bloated creatures. Still they came on, slowly, relentlessly, ceaselessly.
The air was a deafening hell of shrieks and blasts as the guns did their work. The ocean was red with the blood of the Things. And still they came on!
Mines were exploded outside the Golden Gate — mines placed there to blow up battleships. But still the things came on!
Airplanes dropped bomb after bomb upon the horde, and came back for more ammunition, but still the advance continued! A dense fog that I had learned to dread was enveloping the sea — the breath of Behemoth himself, coming to general his forces!
Time after time the guns spoke. The very hills shook. From Fort Miley there came thunder, too. Battleships anchored in Navy Row steamed to the mouth of the Golden Gate and hurled broadside after broadside at the monsters. They were slowing up now, and their number was greatly reduced, but still the advance was not halted.
At last came frantic word from the coast guard station at the beach that they were landing. The panic-stricken people were leaving their homes, to see them crushed beneath the weight of the horde like so much matchwood. The guns laid down a concentrated barrage upon the landing-place of the monsters and tore the beach to shreds.
Under the glare of the huge searchlights I saw streams of sluggish red, where the awful carnage went on; but at last they turned back — back to the sea whence they came. The fog lifted — had the Master met his fate? — and the filthy things floundered heavily away from the shore, jostling the carcasses of thousands of their dead as they did so. Still the thunder of the guns followed them, far, far out to sea, to the extreme limit of their range; and when it was all over we sank limp to the ground, speechless before the peril that had just confronted us.