Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Martians -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; War stories; World War, 1939-1945 -- Fiction
"Just one more," Gunnar prayed as he threw the useless weapon into the
nearest yellow face and drew his knife for a final charge.
* * * * *
He expected to be met by a burst of fire as he stepped out, but the
bullets did not come. Instead a Jap tripped and kicked at something
near his feet, then tumbled violently backward with his hands coming up
as though to protect his face. The Jap started to scream but stopped
abruptly as blood spurted from a throat suddenly raw and mangled. A
snarling growl echoed through the cave.
[Illustration: _A snarling growl echoed through the cave._]
Another Nip went down, struggling with something invisible.
Panic gripped the Jap patrol. Two surviving soldiers broke and ran,
but the lieutenant in charge snatched up a gun. Bullets whined off the
rocks as he fired wildly, without a target.
All at once Frankie lay in the middle of the floor, his spine shattered
by a chance bullet but his fangs still bared in a snarl of defiance.
The Jap kicked at the dog, then jumped aside and stared unbelievingly
as his outlines blurred momentarily. He kicked again with deliberate
brutality, and the dog gave one convulsive shudder and lay still.
Without conscious volition Gunnar raised his arm. Twenty feet away
bones crunched under the brass handle-studs of the trench knife. Gunnar
felt the impact up his arm, and then the snick as the double-edged
blade plunged between two ribs.
Then he and Martha were alone with several dead Japanese and the body
of a dog.
Gunnar felt a pulling sensation in his shoulder. The bloody knife
surged toward him through the air. He looked down.
And he wasn't there at all!
"M--Martha!" he called unsteadily.
"Yes, Gunnar," her voice answered from nearby.
"Where are you?"
"Here."
"Where?"
He glanced wildly around. Her pistol was floating in the air beside
him, and then by the light of a flash the Japs had dropped he could
just discern the tenuous, transparent outlines of her figure. He stared.
She must have seen him too, for instantly she was completely invisible
again.
"What the hell--?" he asked.
"I--I don't know." Her voice was shaky now. Her coveralls lifted
themselves from the floor and fastened themselves.
"Get them off," he begged after one look. "I can see you that way, sort
of."
Bullets had ripped through the garments and the rents disclosed large
patches of _nothingness_ inside. The result was both indecent and
terrifying. Hurriedly she slipped them off.
"I can't see myself and I don't feel cold at all," she mused. "Are we
dead?"
Gunnar had a practical mind.
"I don't think so," he decided. "I don't know what's happened to us,
but if we can't see ourselves or each other they sure as hell can't see
us either. And we're going to damn well take advantage of it. Their
radar station, first."
They floundered out into a snowstorm, keeping together by the sound of
their voices and an occasional touch of hands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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