"Doc Savage Adventure 1934-12 The Annihilist" - читать интересную книгу автора (Doc Savage Collection)

They thought it was some new disease. They were wrong. Just how hideously wrong, no one had yet realized. The secret of the whole thing started coming out after what happened at the Association of Physical Health.

In the Association of Physical Health, there was a frosted glass inner-office door which bore the legend:

Dr. J. Sultman, President


Behind the door, a man yelled hoarsely, "I won't do it! No!"

There were scuffling sounds and a thump as if a chair had been upset. Rattling of the doorknob indicated some one was trying to get out.

In the big outer office, stenographers stopped typing. The flashy blonde on the phone switchboard ceased chewing gum and opened her lips.

The small man sitting in one of the leather chairs reserved for customers lowered his newspaper against his chest and looked over it, then shifted the paper so that his hands were concealed between it and his chest. The small man had long, oily hair and bleak blue eyes. His clothing was extremely conservative.

"let me out of here, you damned fiend!" roared the voice back of the door.

Then the frosted glass panel broke with a jangling explosion. The man on the other side was beating it out with his fists, and when he had a large opening, he threw a light-brown topcoat over the jagged edges and vaulted through. He did not bother to recover his coat, but plunged toward the elevators, breathing heavily) horror on his face.

The man did not look like one accustomed to violent physical action. He was portly, with ruddy cheeks, and his head was almost bald. He had long-fingered, capable hands, which were also unusually smooth-skinned.

The small man with the newspaper stood erect hastily, let the paper fall, and showed an automatic pistol which it had hidden.

"Wait, brother!" he said.

The portly man looked at the gun, veered sharply to the left and slammed himself down in the shelter of a long leather divan.

"Help!" he roared at the top of his voice. "Police! Help!"

The small man's mouth twisted, giving his face a cast of extreme evil. He aimed at the divan and began shooting, the gun convulsing and jumping with each ear-shattering report.

Stenographers screamed; nurses began running; and the blonde telephone girl swallowed her gum and tried to crawl under her switchboard.

When the small man's automatic was empty, he snapped a fresh cartridge clip into the magazine with the skill of an expert gunman. Then he ran around behind the divan.

The portly man was a limp heap, leaking crimson in several places, for the bullets had driven through the leather and upholstery of the divan.

The small man shot once more, deliberately, and his victim's head jarred as a small blue hole appeared a little above the eyes. Then the killer ran for the stairway beside the elevators.

He reached the first stair landing. There he stopped, began to writhe about and shriek.


BETWEEN yells, the killer guashed his own lips so that scarlet ran down over his chin and stained his necktie and shirt front. He doubled over as best he could, stamping his feet, slowly, then threw back his head.

When his head was back, the strange thing happening to his eyes first became apparent. It looked as if something behind the orbs was slowly forcing them out of their sockets.

The small man fell down on the landing and his gargling noises weakened until, before many seconds had passed, he was silent. He ceased to breathe, but his body still retained its grotesquely stiff posture.

His eyes were all but hanging out of their sockets.