Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 54 — page 102: what you’re looking at

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

NONENTITY stabbed at his fingers with sudden pain. Gingerly he felt the wires, touched the severed ends together, and blinked in the sudden light. “What happened?” Lorna was crouched in a corner, her face distorted with fear and terror, her skin dappled with tiny red patches. “Someone cut the wires.” Carefully Henley twisted them together and frowned down at the join. He touched his face and stared down at his stained fingers. “‘Jeff!’’ The big man didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer; the knife thrust into his neck gave the reason and explained the red mist filling the compartment. “Lorna! Are you all right ?”’ rk fe “Mrs. Caulder!” Henley kicked himself towards the woman. “Mrs, Caulder! Are you sick?” She wasn’t sick. She would never be sick again, and as she drifted a limp and inert bundle, her glazed eyes stared at the light with pathetic hopelessness, their expression matching the distorted angle of her head. “Dead!’’ Henley gently felt at the thin neck. “Broken, and someone killed Jeff.’ He stared accusingly at the girl. 101 “Tt wasn’t me, Henley. I swear that it wasn’t me.” She cringed at the murderous hate in his eyes. “I stayed where I was when the lights went out. Henley! Don’t look at me like that!” “TI can understand the old man,” he said, thickly. “‘He was no loss to anyone. I can even understand Jeff, he would have been dangerous, but to kill the woman! To murder a decent, inoffensive woman whose only concern was for the boy. Damn you, Lorna, you’ve gone too far!” “T didn’t do it,”’ she pleaded. “TI didn’t do it.” “You cut the wires,” he accused. “You saw your chance to safeguard that precious life of yours and you took it. Three dead and three to go. How long can we last now, Lorna? How long can we last now—damn you!”’ Hate mastered him then. Hate and rage, and a sick distorted feeling of repulsion and murderous frenzy. She was strong but he was stronger, and even without weight he still had the greater mass. Her throat was slippery with blood by the time he gripped her, his hands were red with it, the entire interior was awash with sticky wetness, but it made no difference and he comiclooks.com