Smog Over Shoreville 

by Unknown Author

Originally published in The THING Comics #11 in 1953.

On that fateful Thursday morning, Shoreville looked like a very peaceful town. At 10:30 in the morning, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. 

"A very pleasant day, isn't it?" said Hiram Shanler who ran the butcher shop on Main Street, "I think I'll go fishing this weekend. Tell your husband I'll phone him about six this evening." 

Mrs. Martha Lubin lifted her package which contained two steaks and some chop meat. 

"Of course I will tell Bill," she replied. "He was fixing up his reel last night." 

She walked out of the butcher shop and started going east on Main Street. The sun seemed to be growing dim and she looked up into the sky. A large cloud was coming lower and lower. 

"Wonder if we are going to have a storm?" asked Mr. Alfred Wiley as he walked with his friend, Joseph Clarke. 

The cloud came lower and lower and it engulfed everything and every person on Main Street. Then it rose and went higher and higher. You could count forty-seven bodies on the pavement. And there were also thirty-three dead people in the few stores on Main Street. It had taken six minutes for that cloud to descend, remain over the small town, and then rise. But it had snuffed out life from all the people except one Otto G. Zager who was a shoemaker. 

"A terrible thing to see," he told the reporters and the police. "I was fixing a pair of shoes for Mrs. Guffey. Poor Mrs. Guffey. She's dead and won't need them now. I saw a cloud coming down and closed my door. I had an old gas mask so I put it on. Guess it was my war training that made me reach for this mask. It saved my life. The cloud went up and up and vanished. I would say it came from the east."

"Then I came from the Harley Smelting Plant," said Fred Florio, star reporter for the big city newspaper, HERALD-TRIBUNE. "Two years ago they had a violation on that plant for noxious gases that come from their big chimney. If they are responsible, it will mean a criminal action. All those innocent people dead!" 

Jim Harley, head of the Harley Smelting Plant, was a very unhappy man as he sat in the D.A.'s office. 

"What do you want of me?" he protested. "You have the statements of every employee in the plant that the chimney wasn't in operation on Thursday. We had stopped operations for two days in order to take inventory." 

"And I also have statements from hundreds of people in all directions from your plant who swear they saw no cloud or smog on Thursday. All we know is that this cloud did appear in Shoreville and killed all these people. If we find your plant was in operation, there will be a lot of trouble in store for you. You may go home now." 

Jim Harley left the D.A.'s office and went to his car. He lived in the small town of Pottersville, which was about thirty miles from Shoreville. He drove past his plant and there were armed guards around it. Suddenly he looked up at his chimney and from It, he saw a cloud. The guards below yelled. The cloud headed towards Pottersville. He jumped out of his car. 

"Who started anything inside my plant he demanded. "I thought you fellows were here to see that nothing happened." 

He rushed inside and looked at a very quiet place. Not a piece of machinery was in operation. Not a boiler was going. 

"Something is all wrong," he said to one of the guards. "You better call Pottersville on the phone and warn them." 

The guard went over to the phone and tried to dial Pottersville. 

"The line is dead, sir," he replied in a frightened tone of voice "What shall I do?"

"Jump in my car with me. We'll break every speed record to get there and warn the people." 

He was making more than eighty miles an hour when he turned left to go over the Pottersville drawbridge. But the bridge was up in the air—stuck—and the car with its two passengers plunged below into the river. It sank. 

There were one hundred and sixteen people alive in Pottersville when Jim Harley drove there to try to warn them. The cloud came and wiped out every bit of human life. And then it vanished. 

The D. A. was a very puzzled and scared man as he faced Fred Florio. "There was sabotage. That much we will admit to the press. The phone wires to Pottersville were cut in every direction. The bridge mechanism had been tampered with so no traffic could go over it. And some kind of radio interference had been set up so that even a radio message to the one ham operator in town couldn't go through." 

"Now I have some news for you," said the reporter. "And you can do with it what you want. The fellow in charge of the bridge informed me that the last person to drive out of Pottersville was Otto G. Zager, the shoemaker. Maybe it is only a coincidence. But he was the only person left alive when the Thing or the Cloud-hit Shoreville. And he seems to be the only person alive to get out of Pottersville when that town was hit." 

The shoemaker was an old man. He had lived his life quietly and wasn't a bit afraid as he faced an angry D.A. 

"Is it my fault that I am alive?"' demanded the shoemaker. "You seem to think I have some connection with those death clouds. You have had your scientists come down here and report they were baffled." 

"How do you know about the report of those scientists?" snapped back the D.A. with Irritation in his voice. 

"I can also read the newspapers," replied the shoemaker sarcastically. "If you think 1 had anything to do with those clouds, go ahead and arrest me." 

"I would," retorted the D.A. "If I had anything that could stand up in a Grand Jury-room." 

Centerport was about thirty miles east of Shoreville and ten miles south of Pottersville. The people in that town were worried. 

"Either we abandon this town or we carry gas masks," said Mayor Hubert K. Landwell. "We know that Mr. Zager was the only person alive in his town because he had a mask." 

It was about ten at night on Wednesday that the Cloud-or the Thing hit Centerport. A siren was sounded and instantly the people put on their gas masks. Otto G. Zager was driving out of the town about ten minutes before it all happened. He stopped for gas at Lou's Gas Station on Highway 23 A. 

"There's something that looks like a cloud headed towards the town,” shouted Lou to Otto G. Zager. "Wait here until I call up the town and warn them." 

After he called, he later testified that Otto G. Zager had left the gas station. Which way did he go? Lou was unable to answer that question. But all the inhabitants of that town died even with their gas masks. 

"Whatever it was must have gone through the masks," announced Dr. Willard Simons. 

"I beg to disagree," countered Dr. Michael Rogers. "All the Cloud had to do was to cut off the air. The people died from suffocation." 

There was panic in the entire county. Many people packed their possessions and fled from their homes. The National Guard was called out to restore order. Specialists came and they all had pet theories. Two things were certain. One that the people were dead. And second, that Otto G. Zager had been near all three places. 

"He must be our man," insisted the reporter. "You have him in protective custody. He insists you prefer charges or release him." 

"He had the same kind of gas mask as worn by those poor people of Centerport," said the D.A. "And yet he remained alive. He insists he received a phone call telling him to come to the town. He may have had the opportunity to kill all those people, but I can't prove a motive or just how it was done." 

"Then that means you will release him," sighed the reporter. "And knowing human nature, I can predict the result. The people will try to mob him and there will be a tragedy." 

Otto G. Zager walked out of the jail a free man. Then he entered his car and heard people shout. 

"There's the man going free! He is responsible for all those deaths. Let's get him." 

On foot and in cars they went after a scared man. Otto G. Zager headed south on the main highway and then over the county road. At Parlin's Peak, he skidded, hit a boulder, and the car burned. 

"You see," yelled one of the mob, "there is no more Zager and no more cloud." 

Perhaps he was right. Two days later the reporter drove alone to a secluded spot. He parked his car and then entered a cove. He bent down and chanted. 

"Oh, Spirit of Evil, have I done well to serve my master? Thing of Death and Destruction, answer me." 

"You have done well," replied a shapeless cloud, "and I shall return again in another form and give you further orders. None will suspect you. Clever the way you got a scapegoat.” 

The End