rouse anyone he tore off the screen, broke the glass and climbed through the French windows into the living room. He found the superintendent lying in the hall just outside his bedroom, holding his head with both hands. Looking into the bedroom he saw the superin- tendent's wife holding her head, also. He remembered that the pickets and the people he'd seen in the cars had been holding their heads the same way.

Charlie now recalled an article he had read in the

Sunday supplement a few months before. A group of scientists under the auspices of the government had es- tablished a laboratory at the University at Morgantown, where they were experimenting with what the newspapers called "death rays". death rays". The scientists had poohpoohed the term "death ray", but had admitted that the super- sonic waves could cause severe pains in the head, and, theoretically, at least, could result in death. Charlie reasoned that the experiments must have gotten out of control.

In a panic he jumped in the car and drove off to- ward home. Just before he reached home the car sputt- ered and died, out of gas. He leaped out and ran down the street shouting, "Can anybody hear me! Can any- body hear me !"

There was no answer. He saw his old car sitting in the driveway. He leaped in, started the motor and roared down the road through Coal City to Clarksburg, to Morgantown, honking his horn and shouting, "Is any- one alive? Answer me!"

Like a beserk robot he drove, screaming till he was hoarse, and kept on till his voice became a mere croak, to Waynesboro and Uniontown, to Pittsburgh and Washington, Wheeling; then to Steubenville and Colum- bus and Dayton and Cincinnati. Here he calmed down long enough to think of the telephone. He rushed into the phone building, pushed the body of an operator out of the way, and started dialing numbers by long distan- ce dialing.

He

First he dialed his cousin Thelma in Chicago. let the phone ring 25 times--no answer! He tried New York, San Francisco, Mexico City, London, Paris,

58.