Pulp Fiction | The Ghost Riders Affair (July 1966) by Unknown Page B

quivering, holding the gun in his fat hands.
    As Finnish fired, Solo lunged toward him, slapping the gun upward.
    The gun exploded, the sound reverberating in the control room, the sensitive machine reacting, lights flaring.
    Mabel sagged forward. Illya stared at her a moment, unable to believe the old man had shot her. He released her and she sank slowly to the floor. She did not move. She was dead.
    Solo ripped the gun from Finnish's arms. The rotund man staggered forward, falling against a computer.
    The guard whirled toward Illya, but Solo fired. The guard dropped the gun. He took a forward step, then fell as if he tripped over unseen rope.
    He toppled against a machine, clutching at it as he slid down it to the floor.
    Illya ran along the banks of panel controls until he found the one he sought.
    Finnish stared at him, his eyes magnified behind their thick lenses. Gasping for breath, the rotund man could barely speak.
    "Stop him!" he whispered.
    He said it again, hopelessly, looking all around him, speaking to nobody in particular.
    As if in trances, the other men stood unmoving, watching Finnish.
    Illya ran his hand down the panel of watertight door controls. He slapped every button closing doors in every tunnel all through the maze of underground caverns.
    Finnish cried out, pressing his hands to his throat waiting.
    Illya grabbed up a stool then and smashed the control panel. Lights and fires flared through it. Illya kept smashing with the stool until the sparks no longer flew from the wrecked machine.
    Finnish slumped against a computer, clinging to it. He stared at Illya, shaking his head. "Those doors. Now—they can never—be opened."
    Illya turned, panting. His eyes were wild with excitement.
    "Never be opened!" Finnish wheezed.
    "That's the way it crumbles, grandpa!" Illya said.
    Finnish shook his head, barely able to speak. "Four atomic bombs smashing into those steel plates! This whole region! Everything! Destroyed!"
    Illya stared at Finnish a moment, then jerked his head toward Solo. "I suggest we get—out of here."
    The green-clad men stood unmoving for one more moment, then as if all were released at once, they bolted for the doors.
    Sobbing for breath, Finnish sagged against the computer, watching his underlings lumber clumsily, running for the exits.
    "Fools," he gasped after them. "You fools! Where do you think you'll run to?"
    Finnish looked around him. His gray face was rigid, his eyes bleak. His mouth parted widely and he gasped for breath. He slapped his hand around, seeking an oxygen flask but finding none within reach or sight.
    He sank to his knees, sobbing. He sagged forward then, covering his head with his arms. He stayed there, rocking, crying, gasping for breath.
    Illya ran across the empty room, a place of brightly lighted computers, busy panels, all clattering away in a suddenly, tragically doomed world.
    Neither Solo nor Illya looked back. They raced along the white-tiled corridors toward the tunnels where the whistles screamed and people milled in panic.
    "Solo!"
    Howell yelled at them, standing in the atomic powered elevator. The huge lift was crowded with people from the chamber, and with many green-clad beings huddled together.
    Solo and Illya raced across the cavern toward the elevator.
    They leaped into it, going past Harrison Howell at the controls, fighting past the green zombies.
    Howell pressed the up button and the atomic-powered lift erupted upward.
    Solo and Illya, staring at each other, braced themselves against the first explosions that had to come from below, when the first of those trains plowed into those steel plates.
    The elevator raced upward. They were conscious of barely breathing, of the increased tension as they awaited something that had to happen.
    The elevator shuddered, striking its upper moorings. Solo yelled and people crowded past him, racing up the long incline toward lighted exits in the craggy, dark mountainsides.
    An explosion rocked the earth. People