THE NAMELESS SOMETHING
By WILLIAM FITZGERALD
A Bud Gregory Novelet
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Thrilling Wonder Stories, June 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
CHAPTER I
Jalopy With Wings
Bud Gregory was something there isn't any word for. He bet on adirt-track automobile race in the State of Colorado, and won twelvedollars. Simultaneously, a certain European Power made a verypolite apology to the Icelandic Government for the falling of arocket-projectile near Reykjavik. In so doing, it advertised publiclythat it had long-range guided missiles capable of flights of over twothousand miles.
Next day, Bud Gregory bet on a second dirt-track race and won sixdollars more. At very nearly the same instant, Izvestia publisheda bellicose article which practically called for war on the UnitedStates—UNO or no UNO—and a middle European nation offered acalculated, uncalled-for insult to its United States ambassador. Theday after, Bud Gregory sat in the bar of a motor-tourist camp and drankbeer contentedly all day long.
Two days later still, on a mountain highway in the Rockies, the driverof a sixteen-wheel Diesel truck came booming to a sharp curve which hada cliff on one side and a four-hundred-foot drop on the other.
The truck thundered around that curve—and ran slap into a rattletrapcar with a flapping fabric top and an incredible load of childrenand household goods. Ran slap into it, that is, to the extent that acollision was inevitable. The jalopy was on the wrong side of the road.
The truck could not turn out, nor the jalopy turn in, in time. So thetruck-driver froze, and saw the rattletrap vehicle swerve out stillfarther on the wrong side of the road—ride out until only its innerwheels were on the highway and its outer wheels spun merrily overvacancy.
With bulging eyes the truck-driver saw the rattletrap vehicle swerve out over space, until only its inner wheels were on the road.
It should have toppled instantly and horribly, only it didn't. It rodeexactly as if there were an invisible highway surface over emptiness.The Diesel driver saw it swerve placidly back into the road behindhim, and go on. And he braked his monster truck to a stop and had aperfectly good fit of the shakes. He made up his mind to take a weekoff to be spent in rest and quiet. He did.
On that day, it was said in Washington that a grave internationalcrisis threatened, and eminent statesmen went about in spectacularsilence, refusing to speak for publication but privately tipping offtheir favorite newspapermen to monstrous events due to occur.
On yet another day Bud Gregory arrived at yet another place wherefurther dirt-track automobile racing was in progress, and attemptednegotiations with a dejected driver who had not been in the moneyfor weeks. The driver laughed at him, bitterly, and Bud Gregory wasindignant. He bet on the races and lost two dollars.
On the same day, four satellite nations of a certain European Powerrevealed that for several months they had been running atomic piles,and now had a sufficient stock of atomic bombs for their own defense.The rest of the United Nations erupted into frenzied protests—whichcut off short when they realized it was too late to object.
And after three more days, Bud Gregory