Our Children's Children by Clifford D. Simak Page B

“Why would you want to cover the tunnel, with all them poor people coming out of it?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said the officer. “No one bothered to explain to me. I simply got my orders and I’m about to carry them out, flower bed or no flower bed, owner or no owner.”
    â€œSomehow,” said Bentley, “you don’t sound like no gentleman to me and that’s what you’re supposed to be, ain’t it, an officer and a gentleman. There wouldn’t be any gentleman set up no gun in the middle of a flower bed and there wouldn’t be any officer aim his gun at a bunch of refugees and.…”
    A shrill scream split the night and Bentley spun around and saw that there was something very terrible happening in the tunnel. There were people still coming out of it, but they weren’t marching out four and five abreast, the way they had before. They were running out of it, fighting to get out, and overriding them and plowing through them was a horror that Bentley, in that moment, never quite got sorted in his mind. He had the impression of wicked teeth and drooling jaws, of mighty talons protruding from massive, furry paws, of terrible power and ferocity, and quite by habit his hands went down to grip a camera and bring it to his eye.
    Through the lens, he saw that there was not one, but two of the creatures, one almost through the tunnel and the other close behind. He saw the bodies of people flying through the air like limp dolls thrown about by children, and others that were crushed beneath the monster’s treading feet. And he saw, as well, writhing tentacles, as if the creatures could not quite make up their minds if they were animals or octopi.
    Behind him sharp orders rang out and almost at his elbow the gun belched sudden flame that lit up all the houses and the yards and gardens. A thunderclap concussion knocked him to one side and as he hit the ground and rolled, he saw a number of things slantwise out of the corner of his eyes. The tunnel had suddenly blinked out in an explosion that was little more than a continuation of the concussion, although it was more mind-numbing and nerve-shaking than the concussion and there were dead people and a dead monster that smoked as if it had been fried. But while one of the monsters lay upon the lawn beneath the great oak tree that had marked the tunnel, the other monster was very much alive and somehow the one live monster and the gun and gun crew were very much mixed up and people were running, screaming and in terror.
    Bentley scrambled to his feet and took one quick glance around and in that single glance he saw the gun crew dead, ripped and flung and trampled, with the gun tipped over, smoke still trailing from its muzzle. From down the street came shrill, high screams and he caught, for an instant only, the flickering motion of something large and dark, moving very swiftly, whipping across one corner of a yard, with a picket fence exploding in a shower of white slivers as the dark thing went straight through it.
    He sprinted around the corner of the house and burst through the kitchen door, clawing for the phone, dialing almost by instinct, praying that the line was open.
    â€œGlobal News,” said a raspy voice. “Manning.”
    â€œTom, this is Bentley.”
    â€œYes, Bentley. What is it now? Where are you?”
    â€œI am home. Out at Joe’s place. And I got some news.”
    â€œAre you sober?”
    â€œWell, I stopped by a place I know and had a drink or two. Sunday, you know. None of the regular places open. And when I come home I found a gun crew out in the yard, right in Edna’s flower bed.…”
    â€œHell,” said Manning, “that is not any news. We had that a couple of hours ago. They set up guns at all the tunnels for some reason.”
    â€œI know the reason.”
    â€œWell, now, that’s nice,” said Manning.
    â€œYeah, there was a monster come through