Hellhounds of the Cosmos
By Clifford Donald Simak
He passed out of the building into a street that was swarming with terrified humanity. Six months of terror, of numerous mysterious deaths, of villages blotted out, had set the world on edge. Now with London in possession of the Horror and Paris and Berlin fighting hopelessly for their lives, the entire population of the world was half insane with fright.
Exhorters on street corners enlarged upon the end of the world, asking that the people prepare for eternity, attributing the Horror to the act of a Supreme Being enraged with the wickedness of the Earth.
Expecting every moment an attack by the Horror, people left their work and gathered in the streets. Traffic, in places, had been blocked for hours, and law and order were practically paralyzed. Commerce and transportation were disrupted as fright-ridden people fled from the larger cities, seeking doubtful hiding places in rural districts from the death that stalked the land.
A loudspeaker in front of a music store blared forth the latest news flashes.
“It has been learned,” came the measured tones of the announcer, “that all communication with Berlin ceased about ten minutes ago. At Paris, all efforts to hold the Horror at bay have been futile. Explosives blow it apart but have the same effect on it as explosion has on gas. It flies apart and then reforms again, not always in the same shape as it was before. A new gas, one of the most deadly ever conceived by man, has failed to have any effect on the things. Electric guns and heat guns have absolutely no effect on them.
“A news flash which has just come in from Rome says that a large number of the Horrors has been sighted north of that city by airmen. It seems they are attacking the capitals of the world first. Word comes from Washington that every known form of defense is being amassed in that city. New York is also preparing….”
Henry Woods fought his way through the crowd which milled in front of the loudspeaker. The hum of excitement was giving away to silence, the silence of a stunned people, the fearful silence of a populace facing a presence it is unable to understand, an embattled world standing with useless weapons before an incomprehensible enemy.
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Clifford Donald Simak
Clifford Donald Simak (August 3, 1904 – April 25, 1988) was an American science fiction writer. He won three Hugo Awards and one Nebula Award. The Science Fiction Writers of America made him its third SFWA Grand Master, and the Horror Writers Association made him one of three inaugural winners of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. He is associated with the pastoral science fiction subgenre.
Biography
Early life, education, and journalism career
Simak was born in Millville, Wisconsin in 1904, son of John Lewis and Margaret (Wiseman) Simak. Simak attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison and then taught in public schools until 1929. He later worked at various newspapers in the Midwest. He began a lifelong association with the Minneapolis Star and Tribune (in Minneapolis, Minnesota) in 1939, which continued until his retirement in 1976. He became Minneapolis Star’s news editor in 1949 and coordinator of Minneapolis Tribune’s Science Reading Series in 1961.
Personal life
He married Agnes Kuchenberg on April 13, 1929, and they had two children, Richard “Dick” Scott (1947–2012) and Shelley Ellen. In a blurb in Time and Again he wrote, “I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-three years and have two children. My favorite recreation is fishing (the lazy way, lying in a boat, and letting them come to me). Hobbies: Chess, stamp collecting, growing roses.” He dedicated the book to his wife Kay, “without whom I’d never have written a line”. He was well-liked by many of his science fiction-writing friends, especially Isaac Asimov.
Death
He died in Minneapolis on April 25, 1988.
Clifford Donald Simak
