Chapter Nine: In The Storm
Los Angeles is about twelve miles from Pasadena. The scent of death was in the air and the trees on the side of the road were burning. The heavy firing,which had broken out whilst we were driving down Los Robles Avenue away from our apartment block, had ceased as abruptly as it had begun, leaving the evening warily peaceful and still. We reached the end of the town centre and noticed that almost every shop on the high street had been looted. Penny was curiously silent throughout the drive, and seemed oppressed by forebodings of evil. I talked to her reassuringly, pointing out that the invaders were tied to their pit in the common due to their sheer heaviness here on Earth due to the gravitational energy differing from their own, but she answered only in monosyllables. Had it not been for my promise to the others that we would rendezvous near the river, then I think I would have found the three of us a quick way out of California and away from these invaders.
For my own part, I had been feverishly terrified all day, although I was trying not to show it so as not to alarm Penny. Something very like the war-fever which occasionally runs through a civilised community, I felt a strong need to protect my friend, and in my heart I was feeling so very, very sorry that I had scared her with my weakness and my inability to run from the heat ray on Horsall Common when the invaders attacked. I was even afraid that the fusillade that we had heard might mean the extermination of our military.
A moderate incline runs towards the foot of Woodbury Road, and down this hill we clattered. Once the lightning had begun, it went on in as rapid a succession of flashes as I have ever seen in all my life. The thunder had a strange crackling accompaniment, and sounded more like the working of a gigantic electrical machine than the usual sound of a thunderstorm. The flickering light was both blinding and confusing.
At first, I regarded little but the road before us, but then my attention was abruptly arrested by something which was moving rapidly down the opposite lane of Woodbury Road. At first, I mistook it for the wet roof of a bus, but one flash following another showed it to be in a swift rolling movement. In a great flash this problematic object came out clean and clear and bright...
This thing that I saw: how to describe it? It was a monstrous looking tripod structure, higher than any of the houses around it, striding over the trees which lined the road, smashing everything aside as it moved: a walking engine of shimmering metal. Striding now across the central reservation, articulate ropes of steel dangling from it like the tentacles on the invaders themselves, the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder. Another flash as it came into view vividly then disappeared in the dead of the night. Another flash, and it seemed to reappear, almost instantly it seemed, 100 feet nearer.
Then, suddenly, the trees along the side of the road, right next to where we were driving, were parted; they were driven off head on. In a second, another tripod appeared, rushing headlong towards us – and we were driving headlong towards them! At the sight of the second tripod, Penny's nerve went altogether; not looking at the mighty metal machine ahead of us, I dived into the back seat where Penny was sitting and scooped her into my arms. She was sobbing uncontrollably and, since Leonard was driving, somebody needed to be there for her. Leonard turned the car sharply; I was flung sideways but Penny grabbed hold of me to stop me hurting myself. She buckled me into the rear seatbelt next to her and grabbed hold of my hand. "Something tells me we're going to need these", she said, tapping her seatbelt with her free hand.
The brazen hood of the machine moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion of a head looking about. Behind the main body was a large mass of white metal which resembled a huge lobster net, and puffs of green smoke squirted out from the joints of the limbs as the metal monster swept by us; in an instant it was gone... greeted by a sigh of relief from all three of us: we had had a lucky escape.
As the tripod passed by, it sounded with a deafening howl that drowned out even the thunder. "ULLAH ULLAH", it screamed, and in a minute it was joined by its companion. In the distance, we saw another of the cylinders which we know to be the invaders craft: another ship had landed on Earth.
