The Flying Eyes. J. Hunter Holly
In the street, a man tried to gain the safety of a car, an Eye close behind him. A woman in the car struck his grasping hand with the steel spike of a shoe, rolled up the window and locked her door. The man ran on, but the Eye stayed over his head. As he came to a black sedan, a little girl cried and ran from her hiding place, another man behind her. The father caught the child but the Eye had fastened on him now. It swung low, its lashes brushing the child’s head. He pushed the child through the car window, reached in the back and pulled out an umbrella, and climbed to the roof of the sedan. The Eye rose up even with his face and he slashed at it with the umbrella; short, vicious stabs. The Eye recoiled, blinking rapidly. The man slashed again, and as the Eye turned away, its interest shifted to a group of four people creeping along behind its back, and went after them.
“Look down at the corner,” Wes said into Linc’s ear.
Collected in a side street at the intersection was a crowd—a large crowd of fifty or sixty people. And they didn’t seem frightened. Linc walked closer to get a better view until he was only a few stores away from them. They stood together, yet apart, their shoulders limp, their hands at their sides, and their eyes glazed over in a hard stare. He had seen them before, only then they were walking double file, and being run down by impatient cars. They belonged to the Eyes. And they, in turn, would walk into the fields and the woods until they came to that black thing down among the trees.
The six Eyes were still sailing up and down the street, passing from light to light, glowing red or blue or green from the neon. Here and there, he saw a person brought up short, go limp, and follow the glide of an Eye, to join the group at the corner.
“Have you seen enough?” he asked Wes.
“Too much.” Wes’ voice was hoarse. “Look out!”
Linc ducked just in time to miss being caught by the rushing lashes of one of the Eyes. As he regained his feet, the Eye stopped and swiveled to come back for him. Wes’ hand was strong on his arm, pulling him out into the street, and he broke away from the watery stare of the six-foot thing, dodging between the cars. They gained the other side. The Eye didn’t follow.
He ran around the corner, into the dimness of the side street. Wes’ feet sounded beside him, and he didn’t stop running until he reached his car. Underneath his revulsion and terror were the facts he had gathered, and in them somewhere had to be something to provide him with an answer.
* * * *
They reported to Iverson, then went down the corridor to a smaller office where they could have some privacy out of Collins’ line of fire. Linc gulped the coffee Wes heated and said nothing, trying to get his thoughts under control.
There was one thing on his mind that he could be rid of, and now. He said, “Wes, this afternoon at the game, and then at the house—all that arguing I did—I want to apologize.”
“There’s no need for that, and you know it. You have a crooked idea of friendship if you think that every little difference of opinion needs forgiveness.”
“Nevertheless, I felt like a fool when you overlooked it and came along with me. Nobody else offered to come.
You keep jolting me, you know? What I said this afternoon about friends and the obligations they create, I guess if I’m honest with myself, those are the easy ways I’ve used to soothe my own rejections. You’re the first man who has ever put up with me long enough to see if there is anything inside me to be friendly with.”
Wes was grinning. “I managed to get by your ugly face, if that’s what you mean.”
“Okay,” Linc surrendered, “I won’t say any more.”
“I think Kelly’s beginning to soften you up a bit.”
“Could be,” Linc agreed. “I hope she’s all right there alone.”
“She’s got Ichabod, and from the sound of him when we left, he’s not likely to cower from those things. Like that man downtown, he’d probably face an Eye and bark his heart out at it.”
That man downtown. Linc remembered him as he fought the Eye with the umbrella. Raw courage. That man was probably an average guy, a father with a little girl; and the little girl was probably an average brat most of the time; but at that particular moment she had become priceless, and he had been valiant in his fight to save her. And he had saved her. The Eye had moved off. True, it had gone after bigger game, but the thrusts had made it retreat.
“The simplest solution.” And it was so simple that he had overlooked it!
“I see that trouble-shooting expression on your face,” Wes commented. “Have you got an idea?”
He nodded. “Even simple enough to satisfy Collins. Let’s get Iverson down here and I’ll lay it out.”
Iverson came alone. Collins had gone home, confident that nothing would be settled tonight. Iverson’s face was gaunt with weariness. “I’ve just had a call from the mayor,” he said. “Martial law has been declared. The governor’s here and the National Guard is coming.”
“We can use the soldiers, but why the martial law? People need protection from the Eyes, not from each other,” Wes said.
“Things have changed since you left downtown. The people have run amuck. They’re breaking into stores. Can you imagine it? With those Eyes hanging over them, they’re looting. There isn’t a store left intact on Grand Street. I’ll never understand human beings, if I live to be six hundred.”
“It’s all born of the same thing,” Wes said. “Sanity is gone, so they follow any impulse. There will be mobs, too. Any leader in a storm.”
Iverson said, “You called me down here, Linc. What do you have in mind?”
“The obvious, Doc. We must attack. Fight. Destroy the Eyes before they take more people out to that place in the woods.”
“But how? If it could be done, someone would have started it by now.”
“You haven’t seen those Eyes up close. You don’t understand what they do to a man. You don’t have any inclination to fight—you either want to vomit or run. I’ll bet no one has attempted to fight them except one little man with an umbrella. We were close to them—and I found out one thing for sure. They are not machines. I don’t know what they are, but they’re not machinery. They are eyes. And they’re like human eyes. Therefore, they should be as vulnerable as human eyes.”
“Right,” Wes said. “Nothing’s more vulnerable than an eye. It has no armor—nothing but a blink to protect it.” He was suddenly out of the lethargy and eager over Linc’s idea.
Linc hurried on to convince Iverson. ‘“They’re big—anyone could hit them, with a bullet, a shotgun, an arrow, anything. I don’t know how they live so I can’t say such a wound would kill them, but blinded, they’d be harmless and we could dispose of them.”
Iverson’s head jerked up, his weariness gone. “Yes. Yes.” He smiled slightly as he visualized the battle in his mind.
“The only problem is,” Linc said, “we have to find people who are willing to go up against them. It will take courage—more than most men have except when it’s forced on them. Then who?”
Iverson was quick with the answer. “We’ll wait for the National Guard. They’ll act under orders.”
“I don’t think we can wait. When will they get here?”
“Tomorrow or the next day. The roads into town have to be cleared. If they can’t clear them, they’ll have to come through the fields. The highways are just masses of wrecked cars.”
“Then we can’t wait. Every hour that we delay means more people given up to that black thing in the woods. I couldn’t sit here with a workable plan knowing they were being led away.”
Iverson bobbed his head. “You’re right—as usual.”
“Then where