Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 92: what you’re looking at

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

DEATH DEFERRED The lock was stiffand he was weak, but he twisted the wheel with abnormal strength and stumbled into the outer cor- ridor. He didn’t need a flash- light and he didn’t want a Geiger. The outer door was open, left that way by George, and sunlight streamed, bright and clean, into the-last leg of the twisted passage. He strode forward, unaware of the matted filth on head and face, the soiled and tattered cloth- ing on chest and legs, and stood for a moment, breathing the sweet air and basking in the warmth of the late sum- mer sun. Around him stretched utter desolation, a tormented sea of fused brick and shattered concrete, warped and jumbled as though from the tread of some careless giant, and all silent; as silent as the grave. Ot No bird sang. No man or woman broke the stillness with their cheerful tread. No child shouted as it chased a toy or called to a friend, and even the red flies seemed to inhabit only the area which held their food. He looked around him, feeling as a ghost might feel when all other spirits had departed for heaven or hell, as a late-comer would feel on Judgment Day, as a man feels when all his race and kind are dead. Then, because there was nothing else he could do, he began to walk between the ruins, away from the shelter, walking for the sake of bodily movement, glad of the sun and the air, and simply not caring about the radiations which had already doomed him to death. comiclsooks.com