Page:Weird Tales volume 38 number 03 CAN.djvu/99

 creature before him. His flayings caught the whistle cord and the banshee hoot of the train joined in mournful discord to Larue's own scream. His pleas were incoherent now. He must kill this man before him or he would die!

The ramp vibrated hollowly beneath the coach. The laborer shot a fearful glance ahead up the ladder of light that groped along the ties in the distance. The rails were still there as far as he could see, but out in the middle of the West River Bridge, out over the swirling dark water dozens of feet below, there were no tracks and the train would suddenly be out of its element, helpless, forsaken. The image of this morning lighted up in Larue's mind. Looking back out of a window as the el rumbled the other way across the West River... looking back and seeing the crews coming together with their trools attacking the rails and destroying them section by section. That was ahead, he knew. The incline grew steeper and the echoes from the ramp fell away to become deeper, longer. They were on the bridge!

Larue started to back out of the motorman's compartment. He looked ahead, and there, oh God, there he could at last see the shining reflection of the rails was broken, somewhere out there ahead near center-bridge. With ghastly suddenness he felt a hand of iron close on his wrist and turned away from the sight ahead. Nevers had turned his head and was looking at him. A glinting skull-like visage leering with evilness. The face was like an old carving.

"Pete, for God's sake !" Larue screamed. "We've got to jump. It's our only chance."

But the look from the other man told him what Nevers meant to do, and Larue's only thought desperately was to get free, to hurl himself out the front to one side. The space lie still had to go, the seconds he had to fight with, both were shortening.

Larue hurled his body backwards, clawing at the arm that imprisoned his own. He then realized suddenly what he was up against. This was a monster—no creature of God, of flesh and blood. On either side was the blackness of empty air. Somewhere far down there was the water. Ahead, much too near now, was the beginning of the destroyed sections. Rails pulled aside, twisted and bent, missing. Larue charged forward then, straight at the creature who opposed him, his hard body rammed against the other. Every muscle developed from years at the foundry came into play. The thing before him gave ground slightly to counter this new assault, then Jack's free hand came down in a wicked slash over the hand that held him. He reversed his direction and lurched backward toward the opening in the front of the train. His monster opponent, surprised, came with him for a few groaning, precious feet. Larue gained the front of the car vestibule and levered his shoulder around me coping. The guard chain across the front broke. The thing named Nevers groaned. There was a sudden scream of twisting metal, a distinct snapping sound, and Larue was free. The least horror of the moment was that Nevers' hand unaccountably had come with him as though wrenched from its very socket. He was staggering, flying out onto the side to fall clear in a somersaulting, bouncing heap along the right of way on the bridge. The train rumbled on past.

Jack raised himself up. He was still clutching in his hand the weighty something. The train was silhouetted for a splendid moment against the lights of the city a? it charged relentlessly onto No Man's Land where tracks had been razed. With reeling senses the foundry worker watched the spectacle. The train suddenly bucked. The first car went up in the air as though it had gone over a gigantic bump. Then it slid sideways at incredible speed, dragging the other two along. All this seemed soundless to Larue. The el glided sideways then and tumbled off the bridge. Only then did he become aware of the sounds. The awful shrieking and grinding of iron upon iron, the crash of impart, the rending noise of rubbing, protesting metal, the bump and whining, and then from below a long-drawn out splash... and silence!