There was no one in the streets, no one in the houses. They passed a grocery store through whose broken glass show windows they could see shelves and shelves of canned goods. The telephone poles were festooned with wires like tangled broken cobwebs. Matt suddenly slammed on the brakes. The car squealed to a stop before a hardware store. "What's wrong?" Lynn cried. "Nothing. It just occurred to me that an ax might be a handy thing to have along." He jumped out of the car and went through the gaping door. The store inside was thick with dust and cobwebs. Leaves had eddied across the floor from a broken show window. He found the axes, selected a medium-sized, double-bitted one, scooped up three more and returned to the car. Just before he climbed back inside, he glanced up and saw the buzzards. There must have been a hundred of them, sweeping in lazy spirals like grotesque black gliders. "Turkey buzzards!" Captain Bascom asked, "What did you say?" "I said, turkey buzzards. They're thick up ahead." "Oh," Bascom said. Then he added thoughtfully, "Maybe we'd better roll the windows up." A half mile further on, a tree had fallen across the road, and the axes proved their worth. As soon as they had chopped the trunk free and dragged it out of the way, they went ahead. Louisville had almost swallowed the little town of Okalona. A mile beyond the fallen tree, a large sign loomed up beside the highway. WELCOME TO LOUISVILLE THE GATEWAY TO THE SOUTH POP. 1,567,000 The vultures, Matt noticed, were thicker than ever. They sat on the eaves of the houses peering down into the street or rose flapping into the air ahead of them. A faint fetid odor tainted the atmosphere, and it grew stronger and stronger as they penetrated deeper into the city. It seeped through the closed windows, strangling them. Lynn said, "I can't stand much more of this." "Neither can I," Captain Bascom agreed. Matt said, "Suppose we turn around and go back. I think we've seen enough for today. If we have to come into the city, we can use the space suits." "Yes," said Captain Bascom, "Let's get back. By all means. I--I.... Please excuse me, gentlemen, I'm making an ass of myself. But I left a wife and two children in Detroit. I...." His voice choked up. Matt saw that tears were trickling down the Captain's gaunt cheeks, and looked away in embarrassment. * * * * * Back at the ship, the director received Captain Bascom's report stoically. They were in Trigg's office aboard the _Argus_--the five men and the girl who had made the dash into Louisville and back. Matt sank into a chair, watching the director's face narrowly as he read the copy of the Shepherdsville Gazette. Matt felt tired, discouraged, listless. The repeated shocks of their discoveries had been insidious. He was appalled suddenly by the catastrophe which seemed to have engulfed the whole world.