The Project Gutenberg EBook of Small World, by William F. Nolan

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Small World

Author: William F. Nolan

Release Date: July 4, 2009 [EBook #29308]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SMALL WORLD ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

_What will happen when the alien ships strike Earth? And later? Who
will survive? What will life be like in that latter-day jungle?
William F. Nolan, well known in SF circles on the West Coast,
returns with this grim story of the days and the nights of Lewis
Stillman--survivor ..._

small
world

_by WILLIAM F. NOLAN_

He was running, running down the long tunnels, the
shadows hunting him, claws clutching at him, nearer ...

In the waiting windless dark, Lewis Stillman pressed into the
building-front shadows along Wilshire Boulevard. Breathing softly, the
automatic poised and ready in his hand, he advanced with animal stealth
toward Western, gliding over the night-cool concrete, past ravaged
clothing shops, drug and ten-cent stores, their windows shattered, their
doors ajar and swinging. The city of Los Angeles, painted in cold
moonlight, was an immense graveyard; the tall white tombstone buildings
thrust up from the silent pavement, shadow-carved and lonely. Overturned
metal corpses of trucks, busses and automobiles littered the streets.

He paused under the wide marquee of the FOX WILTERN. Above his head,
rows of splintered display bulbs gaped--sharp glass teeth in wooden
jaws. Lewis Stillman felt as though they might drop at any moment to
pierce his body.

Four more blocks to cover. His destination: a small corner delicatessen
four blocks south of Wilshire, on Western. Tonight he intended
bypassing the larger stores like Safeway or Thriftimart, with their
available supplies of exotic foods; a smaller grocery was far more
likely to have what he needed. He was finding it more and more difficult
to locate basic food stuffs. In the big supermarkets only the more
exotic and highly spiced canned and bottled goods remained--and he was
sick