Argosy, September 1955 — page 142: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

140 JOHN WYNDHAM ‘The call that came to us this time was distressed and anxious, and, though it did not have the violent, compulsive panic of the other, it was bad enough to be highly uncomfortable. The child had no control. She simply set up a thought-pattern which blotted out everything else with a great, amorphous splodge. I tried to get through to the others to tell them I’d attend to it, but I couldn’t make contact even with Rosalind. It is difficult to describe: something like being unable to make oneself heard against a loud noise, but also rather like trying to see through a thick fog. What made it still more troublesome was that it gave no picture or hint of what was happening. This trying to describe one sense in terms of others is so difficult—but one could say it was like a wordless yell of protest. It wasn’t directed: I doubt even if she knew she was doing it... I ran from the forge where I was working, and got the gun— the one that always hung ready charged and primed on the wall. ‘Then I saddled up the bigger pony, and was away in a few minutes. The one thing that was as definite about the call as its quality was its direction. Once I was out on the green lane, I gave the pony a touch of my heels, and we were off towards the West Woods at a canter. If only Petra had let up on that distress-pattern of hers for just a few minutes, the consequences would have been quite different. Indeed, the whole affair might have had no consequences at all. But she did not. She kept it up like a screen, and one could do nothing but make for the source as quickly as possible. I took the branch of the track that cut through the wood to the north-east. It was kept clear because it was fairly well used to save a considerable circuit. Soon, however, I knew that the trouble was away to the right: that meant turning onto a small path where the going among the trees was less easy, but I had only to cover a couple of hundred yards of it before I reached the scene. Petra herself, I did not see at first. What took all my attention was her pony. It was lying in a small glade, with its throat torn open. Working at it, ripping flesh from its haunch with such single-minded intent that it had not heard my approach, was as deviational a creature as I had seen until then. is Pee < ¥ 5. re “Mae ¥ sates, It was a reddish-brown, dappled with both geil and darker brown spots. Its huge pads were covered in mops of fur which was matted with blood on the forepaws, showing long, curved claws. ‘The tail, too, had fur hanging from it in a way that made it look like a huge plume. The face on the large head was retroussé, but with two large incisors projecting. It used these, as well as its claws, to tear at the pony. I had time to see that much and was still in the act of unslinging the gun when an arrow took it in the neck. ‘The creature leapt writhing into the air, landed on all fours, and stood searching for the source of attack. My movement in trying to aim the gun comiclbooks.conn