New York City Gripped by Crawling Giants!
WEIRD crawl-and-crush frights clawing up from the earth’s steaming depths! Creatures so astounding there was no word to describe “Them!”
The story you are about to read is true. I was there when it happened. My name is Steve Vertlieb, and I’m a newspaper reporter, specializing in human interest features to the Alamagordo, New Mexico, Epitaph, and occasional wire service extras.
I was covering a news story for which I took notes as I worked on it. The search for Frank Vogel, and his wife and child. These notes are printed now as I put them in my notebook. They are several different stories, all, until now, unpublished, suppressed by the FBI mostly – in the interest of national security, and they fit together to show the whole horrifying episode. These notes are as I wrote them… in these last few nightmarish days…
MYSTERIOUS deaths caused by inhuman objects lead Police Sergeant (JAMES WHITMORE) to gigantic footprints. MUND GWENN) and daughter (JOAN WELDON) are called in.
INVESTIGATING the murders, Joan is panic-stricken as a high-pitched screech heralds the approach of something awesome clawing its way toward her. With machine gun, FBI agent (JAMES ARNESS) rushes to help.
AGAIN the monsters strike. Fear grips the country and martial law is declared. Following weeks of diligent search and questioning, a legion of the creeping frights is tracked to storm drains beneath the ground.
SOLDIERS, equipped with flame throwers, bazookas and cyanide gas bombs, are sped to the scene. Tracing a course through darkened labyrinths, they finally locate …
THEM
The state police car edges its way carefully along the hot, New Mexico highway. It is searching, searching for someone lost and alone. Overhead, the continual roar of a police search plane stirs the stillness of the Mojave desert and awakens long-sleeping inhabitants, birds, snakes, scorpions. Man has invaded Satan’s sanctuary. But why does he dare?
An agent for the Federal Bureau Of Investigation is reported lost with his family while on a holiday camping trip in the desert. Now it’s up to local authorities to find the missing campers. Probably just an empty gas tank – though even that can mean life or death out here.
The plane reports finding an abandoned trailer camp a few miles off of the road and now Sgt. Ben Peterson and his partner, Ed Balckburn turn off in that direction. Hopeful.
Then we saw the Vogel girl. She’s but a child of 7 or 8, and she stands on the scorching road as though frozen solid from some deadly fear. The car rolls up to her and stops. The two officers emerge from their car, wondered what had caused the separation of a lonely, frightened little girl from her parents, especially out in the hellish desert. “You’re all right now. There’s no need to worry,” Peterson assures her “What’s your name, child? Where are your parents?”
His questioning is pointless, for the girl neither hears, nor replies to his prompting.
“She’s in a state of shock, Ben,” says Blackburn. “We’d better get her to a hospital and quickly!”
“Okay, but let the boys upstairs know that we’ve found her.”
Peterson removes the radio receiver from its cradle and begins calling the search plane overhead.
“Look, we’ve found their little girl but she’s awfully bad off. She can’t talk, and she doesn’t even seem to know that we’re here! We’d better head back! Over?” The frustrating rigamaroles of police work!
An anxious voice from above filters, through the radio. “Wait! we think we’ve sighted their trailer camp! It’s about a mile down the road from you.
You’d better take a look, Ben.” “Okay, we’ll investigate,” Peterson replied. “The girl couldn’t have wandered very far in this heat. The camp must be where she’s from.”
The officers place their ward beside me in the back seat of the squad car and proceed in the direction of the campsite. Their ride was a short one. The little girl makes no other movements that to look furtively out the window through the sides of her eyes.
“There it is, there it is, Ed! I see it! It’s just ahead.”
The trailer comes into view as the car rumbles over a ravine, but the Mr. & Mrs. Vogel, the rest of the missing family are not to be seen. Peterson comforted the little girl, Blackburn investigates the site further, disappears from view as he turns off around the side of the trailer. A shout! Peterson runs when he hears his partner’s call. I stay with the child.
Mystery Destruction
“Hey Ben, come here quick! You’ve got to see this! You too, Steve.”I follow in bewilderment. The deceptive serenity that greets passers-by at the frontal end of the campsite changed dramatically: only a few feet away, the camp was in a shambles, completely wrecked – horrifiedly torn apart!
But the damnable thing about the whole wreck, the thing that threatens to keep all of us awake nights, maddenly, for weeks to come, is the apparently inescapable conclusion that the walls of the trailer have been pulled out, rather than caved in!
Clothing was carelessly strewn about the ground and furniture had been smashed into firewood. No other sign of the parents. Child desertion? No, that’s not it.
Blackburn retrieves a small article from the ground. He examines it. Looks in the trailer for more of the same.
“Hey, Ben, look at this.”
Peterson joins him sits in the remains of what once was a chair.
“What you got, Ed?” he asks suspiciously.
“It’s a cube of sugar.”
“Well, what’s so unusual about a sugar cube?”
“I don’t know, Ben,” he said. “Nothing, I guess, except that the ground’s covered with them. Everywhere the damage is, I find dozens of these sugar cubes.” The inside of the trailer is covered with them. Would any family normally have so many sugar cubes?”
“Listen, let’s get back to town, Ed. That child needs medical attention, and from the look of this place I’d say that it’s a safe bet her parents aren’t going to turn up… at least not alive, anyway.” The F.B.I. has a stake in this now. Vogel was one of their top men. They shall be notified. That was the reasoning which brought our government onto this case.
The officers start their car and roll off back in the direction of town and civilization.
At the deserted camp the wind grows restless. As restless as we. The child sleeps, stiffly sitting up in the back seat. She looks wide awake . . . Poor child…
Local Merchant Mysteriously Murdered
“Pop” Smyth’s local general store is on the way back to town. Ben Peterson figures the little girl’s folks must have stopped there for supplies on their way out to the desert. If they had stopped, the chances are pretty good that “Pop” remembers them.
Getting twilight as the squad car pulls up in front of the small store. The lights are off inside. Pop never closes this early. Ben and Ed and I open the door and walk inside. The light switch on the wall wasn’t working, so Ed pulls out his flashlight, inventories the store.
In the eerie dimness the circle of light spots a weird tableau. Tables are overturned and merchandise savagely torn apart. The place looks like a hurricane had hit it. Blackburn noticed little white particles of dust scattered about the room/ Lifts a handful of the dust to his mouth. “It’s not dust,” he declares quickly. It’s sugar! Ben finds the trap door to the cellar partially open. Opens it further, shines his flashlight in. There is Pop. His body crumpled and lifeless, half on the steps and half off. He clutches a rifle in his arms, but even if he were still alive, that heavy metal rifle wouldn’t do him much good. Turned and twisted into a shapeless heap of garbage. It seemed as if some giant vice had gotten at him.
Ed heard a sound. Investigates outside. Ben is still in the cellar with Pop and myself. A sort of high-pitched whistling sound coming from outside. Instinctively, Ed unholstered his revolver as he creeps outside to the back of the store. We wait.
BULLETIN! Policeman Disappears
Whatever it was that he saw, Ed Blackburn will never tell. He was firing wildly at something that terrified him. The gunfire had no effect and Ed has disappeared, carried away by – WHAT?
He screamed, and then he was gone.
Ben found Ed Blackburn’s cap lying in the blood-stained dirt. He heard the sound too. It was intensely loud. Whatever had made it was heading back into the desert. After a while it had gone entirely … The Vogel child was safe in the car unmoving. Eyes open!
Wednesday, Pop Smythe died no ordinary death. It has been determined by the police lab that the elderly man had enough Formic Acid in his body to kill ten men. Thus ends this first aspect of the story for the time being.
Formic acid has proven a clue to bring Vogel’s child to awareness.
Doctors at the New Mexico Hospital had tried all afternoon to draw the child out of her shell but she was withdrawn too far, too deeply. It was hoped she would open up long enough to give them some idea of her parents’ fate. But it was no use. The girl’s mind was clamped shut. Whatever it was had frightened her was too terrible to remember. Hope was almost abandoned when a quick-thinking nurse walked in carrying the vial of Formic Acid. It was only a chance, of course, but as every• thing else had failed there wasn’t anything to lose by trying this. She removed the lid slowly and held the bottle under the little girl’s nose. The effect was instantaneous. There was a slight movement in her eyes as she started to regain her awareness. All at once the Vogel child was screaming. She grew hysterical and couldn’t be restrained. She was yelling it over and over agian, just one word again and again.
“THEM…..THEM…..THEM!”
Authorities Investigate Crime Sight – New Clue Found
Thursday morning. The abandoned campsite covered with swarming investigators. Every inch of ground in the immediate area gone over and photographed. Sgt. Ben Peterson and I noticed the sound. It seems to blend in with the desert wind. So subtle and yet there, part of the desert and yet completely alien to the surroundings. All hear it soon.
“What the Hell is it,’ Police captain asks.
“It’s nothing, nothing. The wind sometimes gets pretty freakish in these parts. That’s all it is.” Says Mayor (talking through his hat) Don’t print!
It’s almost like the sound of a thousand whistlers singing at once. The effect is awesome. It seems to come from all about. It grows louder. We are now surrounded by it. Then, as suddenly as it had started, the sound fades away back into the desert. In a moment… gone!
“Hey, will you look at this?” someone said, “Is this a footprint, or what?”
A huge indentation in the sand. Peterson stares intently at the shape. Never seen anything like it, he says. Neither has anyone else. A plaster cast of the print is made to be sent to Washington. Whatever it was, they should have a record of it and be able to send back an identification.
FBI Assigned to Killings
Thursday evening the F.B.I. has sent Robert Graham, a special agent from the Washington office to handle its interests in the case. Graham and Peterson will be working together for the first time. Ben doesn’t mind the company. I tag along. It’s been lonely on the job since Ed’s been killed.” – Peterson off the record.
Their first assignment; meet the plane of a specialist that the home office had sent down to assist in the investigation. They had just reached the airfield as the plane was set down. A young woman’s inescapably attractive legs begin descending the ladder. Peterson and Graham and Vertlieb exchange knowing glances. Graham reaches out his hands and helps the lady to the ground. Why don’t I join the FBI? – Off the Record though.
“Please help my father down,” she demands. “He’s having trouble.”
Graham walks up the ladder a bit, aides the old man down to a safe landing
Old man? The sparkling Santa Claus white hair and a mischievous grin that shines when he introduced himself betraying a youthful, inquisitive, logical mind. Hardly an FBI agent!
“You’re Graham, I take it. We were told that you would meet us. I’m Dr. Harold Medford, and this is my daughter, Patricia.”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but this is going to be a dangerous job. You and your daughter will only get in the way. Frankly, I don’t know why they sent you.” – Ben says this. Is his territory threatened? Does he see this as an insult to his skill? – A job for an editorial writer this.
Patricia Medford glares at us as she speaks.
“Listen! my father is one of the country’s leading Entomologists, and he’s better equipped to deal with what’s been happening out here than you are.”
“Entomologist??? Now What is an entomologist?” Ben demands, irked.
“It’s simply the study of insects, Sergeant,” the elder Medford explains. If this weren’t such a tragic case these quibbles would make a light feature story!
What do insects have to do with these unexplained deaths? Dr. Medford grows impatient at our puzzlement.
“Please, please, gentlemen … may I be taken out to the site of the first death. I want to see where the print was taken.”
“I think that can be arranged, Doctor,” offered Graham. “Do you have any idea what bug could have made a print like that?”
The doctor looked deep in thought and then looked at the three.
“I’d rather not say just yet, but if what I think has happened has happened it will be very serious indeed.” We leave first thing in the morn.
Monster Ants Discovered
Friday 7 am. The jeep stops at the trailer site and a team of investigators got out. Dr. Medford can’t walk very far; his daughter acts as his “leg-girl.” Pat Medford wanders away from the others, strikes out on her own…
It must have sensed our return for the strange, whistling sound returned. Pat was standing by a hill when she heard the sound for the first time. It was so intense now that she felt it must be quite near. She turned to start back and then she saw it Huge! A huge animal, larger than anything she had ever seen before. Its body seemed to be separated into three sections. “It had six legs, long tentacles reaching from between the eyes on the head, and huge pinchers that extended from the mouth and were evidently used by the creature to impale a victim and then inject fast-acting poison into the central nervous system.” – Pat Medford.
Pat screamed as the animal lumbered up and over the hill. Graham appeared suddenly and started firing at the animal. “Run, Pat”
The two sped from the hill; Graham continued firing bullets; emptying nearly two rounds of ammunition. The beast fell to the ground. Dead. Harold Medford left the jeep, and joined his daughter, and Bob Graham, and myself. ‘”What is it?” Graham.
“That,” said the doctor cooly, “is an ANT!”
“But, so huge?” – Graham.
“This was approximately the site of those Atomic bomb testing blasts, wasn’t it? Yes, of course it was. You know, children, we’ve entered a frightening age, this nuclear age of ours, and there’s no telling what will come out of it. We’re experimenting with energies that man has no experience with and our lessons will come hard, I’m afraid. I believe that these mutated ants – “Them,” if you will – were created by the testing of Atomic bombs in this desert. We must claim the awesome responsibility for bringing them into our world.” Thus spoke Professor Harold Medford.
2 hrs. later … It has been decided that the team fly over the site again in a helicopter to search for a hill in the shape of a huge cone. This would, inevitably, be the tunnel leading to the nest. General O’Brien and Major Kibbee are now in on this one. Kibbee flys along with Ben Peterson and myself. Alamogordo Air Force Base is cut into the game.
It looks like an ice cream cone sticking out in the desert. Dr. Medford’s face is grim. His worst fears are coming true.
“That’s it, gentlemen, that’s your nest.”
The helicopters are landed at the foot of the cone. The plan is a simple one: to shoot cyanide gas pellets into the nest with bazookas and hope that the gas would carry throughout the ant colony. As we approach the cone, huge antennas were emerging from the rim of the hill. The team grab their machine guns and began firing at the approaching behemoth. Medford screams instructions.
“Aim for the antennas. Aim for the antennas.”
First one antenna blown off, and then the other. The creature is dead.
From inside the cone they heard that Hellish whistling. Dr. Med ford has a curious expression on his face, a mixture of fear and fascination. Well, this must be a big day for him.
“Gentlemen, We may be witnessing a biblical prophesy come true – “And a terrible famine will encompass the land. . . and the beasts shall inherit the earth.” – a religious nut? Peacenik Ban-theBomber? No! This is said by a rational government agent.
“Stand back Doc” ordered the man with the bazooka. He fires deadly pellets into the cone. We wait. Inside, all hell breaks loose and the screaming of tortured ants rings through the desert.
It quiets down in there after a while. They should be dead but there’s only one way of finding out for sure. Someone must go down into the cone to see. Bob Graham, Ben Peterson and Pat Medford put on their fatigues, and covered their faces with gas masks, then descended into the pit. I follow in similar gear, close (not too close) behind.
It is an incredible sight! Hundreds, possibly thousands of giant monster ants lying dead at our feet! The stench is awful. . . even through the masks! Pat Medford tries to keep herself under rigid self-control for fear of fainting. Not an easy job. Even Ben Peterson looks queasy…
Suddenly, an entire cave wall was coming down on us and with it, a giant ant, desperately seeking an escape through them. Ben’s gun blazed madly away at the animal until it fell with a shriek at our feet. Too close for comfort!
“It must have escaped the gas on the other side of that wall,” Pat volunteers this theory.
At last we stand at the foot of the main nest. Pat reaches for her camera and takes pictures of the macabre scene. Spread out before us is a hideous crypt of wall-to-wall death. Creatures spawned by the atomic age condemned to death by a guilt-ridden, terrified mankind.
It is over, or has Man merely been witness to the beginnings of a shift in the order of things.. the rule of the insects?
Up on the surface, Dr. Medford studies the photographs taken by the team in the nest.
“Are you certain that these creatures were all you found in the main nest?” he asks gravely concerned.
“Yes, dad,” Pat says. “Why, what’s wrong?”
“I’m afraid that there’ a great deal that’s wrong, Pat. The queen is gone, probably with a mate. With the enormous size of her wings she could be halfway across the world in a matter of hours. If she mates and is allowed to reproduce, she can bring thousands of her offspring into the world in a single delivery! In that case, the human race is in very real danger of immediate extinction.”
Bombs away
Friday – 11:30 AM
The experience and personnel of the nation’s largest military communication’s centers are now at Dr. Medord’s disposal. Military and civilian operators are placed on around-the-clock standby duty to receive and check out any and all information coming into that office, from anywhere in the world, that might possibly lead to the present whereabouts of Them. We are using Alamagordo AFB as operations center, and…
It has happened! An urgent S.O.S. radioed in from a freighter in the Atlantic ‘tells of a horrible massacre in progress. As near as the operator can figure out, the queen must have flown aboard ship in the early morning hours and hidden in the great hold, left uncovered during the night. There she laid her eggs and flew off again unseen by the crew. Now, the ship’s crew is being devoured alive by hungry ants as their boat bobs helpless in the middle of the ocean…the radio operator’s message was abruptly cut off! General O’Brien orders the dead ship bombed and sunk as quickly as possible…
Flash! Another report in to Central of a man, a private pilot, who claims to have seen a “flying saucer” while taking his own plane for a spin. Graham decides it best for all concerned that the man remain under psychiatric care until the matter of widespread public panic had been averted. Besides, who would have believed a crazy story about a flying saucer with wings anyway? Bad joke. Kill this item. Friday, 9 PM
Things have been quiet for a few hours. Dr. Medford anxious, slept little, wonders when we will find next lead. Surely the calm before the storm… Saturday, 4 AM:
Early the following morning, a strange report reaches us from Chicago. One whole car on a freight train has mysteriously lost its cargo overnight, while parked in the stockyard. The nightwatchman was being accused of stealing the shipment and selling it on the black market. The guard protests that the entire incident was absolutely insane.
“Whoever heard,” he says, “of a black market for SUGAR?” Who indeed! We wait. Saturday, 4:30 AM:
Graham, Peterson, Pat and Dr. Medford and I are on the next plane bound for the windy city… Upon our arrival, we instigate a check on any strange reports turned in to local police during the night centering in the area of the stockyard. . . 8:30 AM – It is learned that a woman phoned in a missing persons report on her husband and small son. They had set out on a camping trip twenty-four hours ago and hadn’t been seen or heard of since. The two of them would often stop off at the stockyards to fly the boy’s model airplane.
“He loved that little plane,” she cries.
That’s just one more case to check into.
Late Saturday afternoon: the drunk ward of the county hospital; see a man who had been picked up the previous evening for drinking and for trespassing on railroad property. He might well have seen something. Find the man something less than sober, and raving. It is nearly impossible to get a straight answer out of him, Whea! We were just on the point of leaving when he blurted out something about “they’re coming out only at night.”
Raced back to his bedside! Asked what it was he was talking about.
“Sure, I’ll tell you,” he laughs. “I’ll tell you if you make me a sergeant of police like him. Make me a sergeant and charge the booze. Make me a sergeant and charge the booze. Make me a sergeant. . …”
The drunk got lost in his song and forgot about his earlier slip entirely. He had retreated into a coma-like shell, just as the little Vogel girl had. Local police officer was stares out of the window in the ward as though suddenly hypnotized by something he had seen. He turns and faces Bob, Ben, and me.
“How could the ants remain hidden in such a totally open area of the city? It would be an impossible task unless…”There’s only one place that they could hide. Come over to the window and look down there!” These words we knew as we heard them would turn the key.
Out of the window is an immense structure standing next to the stock-yards and directly across the street from the hospital. It towers above the street like an Egyptian obelisk. It spreads its many catacombs out in all directions and underlined all of the city, and its great, yawning entrance is right here… here, staring back at them. It is the entrance to the sewers of Chicago…
In a moment we were on the street in front of the sewer system. We hoped to find a trace, a clue, anything, just some positive indication that we were at last on the right track and in the final stages of their journey. The officer stooped down near the left supporting column of the structure and retrieved a toy. He handed it to us and looked sad. It was a boy’s model airplane. Absence speaks louder than words…
WAR!
The Governor has declared the city in a state of martial law. The total curfew will be strictly enforced. Meanwhile, the National Guard mobilizes. By nightfall the storm drains are surrounded on all sides by soldiers. On radio command, jeeps now begin rolling in the countless openings, perhaps to meet somewhere in the center. But this was a frighteningly dangerous task. There are 7,000 miles of drains woven under the Chicago’. An attack could spring upon the men from almost anywhere and at any time.
The signal to go in was given and the vehicles moved rapidly. Each jeep is equipped with a flood lamp to light the way for foot soldiers scouring the tunnels. I have special priority. I ride in Ben Peterson’s jeep.
One mile in: Ben Peterson stops his jeep and listens.
“What’s that? Do you hear it?”
Peterson now out of the jeep, and leans up against a drain pipe that emptied out into this tunnel. He hears it again. So do I. We both will never forget that sound. “Give me a flashlight,” he says. “I’m going through.”
With a helpful assist from the driver, Ben climbs up into the pipe and begins to crawl through. As he reaches the opposite end of the pipe he points the flashlight in the direction we thought we had heard the sound coming from. There is a large opening at the other end. On the far side of the room is a little boy, wedged behind some heavy piping. An ant is going for him, trying to get at him through the pipes. Ben fires his gun at the beast. . . brought him down! Quickly, he edges, his way out of the drain, climbs down into the open chamber. The driver covers Ben with a rifle… I hold pistol. . .scribble notes with one hand…
“Don’t be frightened, son, I’m coming to get you.” Ben is half lost behind sewer-pipe maze.
Ben moves toward the boy and helped him out of the corner. Turning around, he faces another giant ant. He barely has time to start firing this time. This was much too close for comfort. Ben and the boy ran to the drain pipe and prayed that they would get out in time. Ben lifts the boy up and into the pipe.
“Go ahead, so, just keep crawling through! The men at the other end will take care of you.”
Ten minutes later. . Ben put his rifle down and started to climb into the hole, himself. He didn’t see the shaggy, black shape silhouette on the wall behind him. Nor did we…It was too late to reach for his rifle so he continued climbing into the drain. The ant reached out its pinchers and grabbed him off of the wall. We saw the shadow of Ben struggling in mid-air against the walls.. .light was being shown thru a crack in a wall but it wasn’t any help whoever was behind that wall surely couldn’t get to him in time…I held the boy. . . The soldier tried to get a well-aimed shot at the ant, but couldn’t…My old friend was helplessly caught tight in those claws. The ant stabbed him over and over again, and I could sense the deadly poison racing toward his heart. Some soldiers broke through the wall then! Bob Graham fired wildly at the monster. But it was too late. The damage had been done. Graham ran over to his fallen new friend and gently cradled his head in his arms. A jeep rumbled away carrying the boy to safety.
“We came a long way together, Bob,” Peterson whispered. “I’m sorry I won’t be around for the finish with you.”
Ben died there, quietly, on the floor. That awful eerie whistling came again and Graham reeled back to fact it. Them grabbed hold of one of the supporting beams that held the roof up and brought the sky crashing down. Graham was stunned for an instant for there was silence. Then came gunshots echoing — the cave-in had separated him from the rest of us. Them are coming at him from all sides now! He is now backed into a corner and fighting jealously for his survival. We can’t get to him!…
Yes we will! The soldiers crash through the wall with their jeeps just as his ammunition runs dry; pistol clicking
“Aim for their antennas!”
Ten minutes later: Gunfire filled the room and the last ants fell with a deafening crash. Just beyond that room was an enormous pit and in that hole in the ground were three survivors of the hellish spawn. The soldiers lifted flame throwers and aimed them into the pit.
“Wait,” said Bob Graham urgently – “Don’t fire yet. We must be certain that no more have escaped and that this is the last of Them.”
Graham walked slowly toward the edge and studied his enemies. In the center of the two, newly hatched animals was the missing queen ant. So this was indeed the end. The battle was won. We had reached the finish of our journey…
“Burn them,” Graham orders, and walks away from these earthly sewer catacombs, into the fresh, wholesome air. I follow, still writing every chicken scratch I can.
On the surface, Dr. Medord is speaking…his words sum up what we all feel…
“When Man opened the door to the atomic age he released powers that were strange and new to him. We were like Pandora and ner box of legend, wondering if we were strong enough to dominate the forces we unleashed. We must bear an awesome responsibility for what we stumbled into. Now the atom age is with us and our fate as a race is irreversible. We may yet find that, like Pandora, the secrets of nature were too terrible to survive. Only time will tell us the answer to that. I pray that we haven’t done the wrong thing.”
