The Project Gutenberg EBook of Deadly City, by Paul W. Fairman

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Title: Deadly City

Author: Paul W. Fairman

Illustrator: Ed Emsh

Release Date: June 5, 2010 [EBook #32705]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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DEADLY CITY

By Ivar Jorgenson

Illustrated by Ed Emsh

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science
Fiction March 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: _You're all alone in a deserted city. You walk down an empty
street, yearning for the sight of one living face--one moving figure.
Then you see a man on a corner and you know your terror has only
begun._]

He awoke slowly, like a man plodding knee-deep through the thick stuff
of nightmares. There was no definite line between the dream-state and
wakefulness. Only a dawning knowledge that he was finally conscious and
would have to do something about it.

He opened his eyes, but this made no difference. The blackness remained.
The pain in his head brightened and he reached up and found the big lump
they'd evidently put on his head for good measure--a margin of safety.

They must have been prudent people, because the bang on the head had
hardly been necessary. The spiked drink which they had given him would
have felled an ox. He remembered going down into the darkness after
drinking it, and of knowing what it was. He remembered the helpless
feeling.

It did not worry him now. He was a philosophical person, and the fact he
was still alive cancelled out the drink and its result. He thought, with
savor, of the chestnut-haired girl who had watched him take the drink.
She had worn a very low bodice, and that was where his eyes had been at
the last moment--on the beautiful, tanned breasts--until they'd wavered
and puddled into a blur and then into nothing.

The chestnut-haired girl had been nice, but now she was go