Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, No. 65 — page 132: what you’re looking at

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

THE CREEP He couldn’t say the same about Gibb. A rivulet of blood had started to trickle from the chauffeur’s mouth, but it had stopped before reaching his chin. The blood was drying, and the face was cold to Sam’s hand. He leaned his weight against the beam, gently at first, then added the thrust of his legs to his weight. It might have been imagination, but he thought he felt the beam shift slightly. He withdrew his weight slowly and carefully. “On your feet, Max,” he said. “Help yourself to a drink, if you can find a bottle unbroken. We’re going to get this beam off Gibb’s body. Ill see if Harry’s in a fit state to help.”’ As he passed the girl he noticed that she had her make-up repaired. It didn’t improve her appearance much. With the red of her lipstick slashed across the white of her face she looked like a corpse that had passed through the offices of a cheap mortician. “Seen Harry?’’ asked Sam. She pointed across the 131 counter. “He was talking to me there when——” “Tl find him.” Sam rounded the counter and saw Harry immediately. The barman was almost exactly at the spot which the girl had indicated. He was sitting with his back to the bar, half immersed in a mound of shattered bottles and glass shelving. He was neither dead nor unconscious. At the same time, he wasn’t unhurt. Shards of glass sprouted from his white bar- jacket, each sliver like an arrowhead that had pierced a round red target. But his mind had suffered more than his short, paunchy body. His eyes were un- focused, the pupils dilated. And, almost invisible in a face which was a ghastly mottle of white and grey, his worm-coloured lips were mouthing streams of whis- pered guttural nonsense. Bending down, Sam picked out occasional words. The only ones which made any sense at all were: “Should have warned me... should have warned me,” repeated over and over between the comiclooks.com