Phantoms

one day we will encounter a benevolent alien race that’ll teach us how to live in peace,” Isley said. “Maybe they’ll give us the knowledge and technology to solve all our earthly problems and even to reach the stars. Maybe.”
    “But we can’t rule out the alternative,” Arkham said grimly.
     

Chapter 26
    London, England
     
    Eleven o’clock Monday morning in Snowfield was seven o’clock Monday evening in London.
    A miserably wet day had flowed into a miserably wet night. Raindrops drummed on the window in the cubbyhole kitchen of Timothy Flyte’s two-room, attic apartment.
    The professor was standing in front of a cutting board, making a sandwich.
    After partaking of that magnificent champagne breakfast at Burt Sandler’s expense, Timothy hadn’t felt up to lunch. He had foregone afternoon tea, as well.
    He’d met with two students today. He was tutoring one of them in hieroglyphics analysis and the other in Latin. Surfeited with breakfast, he had nearly fallen asleep during both sessions. Embarrassing. But, as little as his pupils were paying him, they could hardly complain too strenuously if, just once, he dozed off in the middle of a lesson.
    As he put a thin slice of boiled ham and a slice of Swiss cheese on mustard-slathered bread, he heard the telephone ringing down in the front hall of the rooming house. He didn’t think it was for him. He received few calls.
    But seconds later, there was a knock at the door. It was the young Indian fellow who rented a room on the first floor. In heavily accented English, he told Timothy the call was for him. And urgent.
    “Urgent? Who is it?” Timothy asked as he followed the young man down the stairs. “Did he give his name?”
    “Sand-leer,” the Indian said.
    Sandler? Burt Sandler?
    Over breakfast, they had agreed on terms for a new edition of The Ancient Enemy , one that was completely rewritten to appeal to the average reader. Following the original publication of the book, almost seventeen years ago, he had received several offers to popularize his theories about historical mass disappearances, but he had resisted the idea; he had felt that the issuance of a popularized version of The Ancient Enemy would be playing into the hands of all those who had so unfairly accused him of sensationalism, humbug, and money grubbing. Now, however, years of want had made him more amenable to the idea. Sandler’s appearance on the scene and his offer of a contract had come at a time when Timothy’s ever-worsening poverty had reached a critical stage; it was truly a miracle. This morning, they had settled on an advance (against royalties) of fifteen thousand dollars. At the current rate of exchange, that amounted to a little more than eight thousand pounds sterling. It wasn’t a fortune, but it was more money than Timothy had seen in a long, long time, and at the moment it seemed like wealth beyond counting.
    As he went down the narrow stairs, toward the front hall, where the telephone stood on a small table beneath a cheap print of a bad painting, Timothy wondered if Sandler was calling to back out of the agreement.
    The professor’s heart began to pound with almost painful force.
    The young Indian gentleman said, “I hope is no trouble, sir.”
    Then he returned to his own room and closed the door.
    Flyte picked up the phone. “Hello?”
    “My God, do you get an evening newspaper?” Sandler asked. His voice was shrill, almost hysterical.
    Timothy wondered if Sandler was drunk. Was this what he considered urgent business?
    Before Timothy could respond, Sandler said, “I think it’s happened! By God, Dr. Flyte I think it’s actually happened! It’s in the newspaper tonight. And on the radio. Not many details yet. But it sure looks as if it’s happened.”
    The professor’s worry about the book contract was now compounded by exasperation. “Could you please be more specific, Mr. Sandler?”
    “The ancient enemy, Dr. Flyte. One of those creatures has struck again. Just yesterday. A town in California. Some are dead. Most are missing. Hundreds. An entire town. Gone.”
    “God help them,” Flyte said.
    “I’ve got a friend in the London office of the Associated Press, and he’s read me the latest wire service reports,” Sandler said. “I know things that aren’t in the papers yet. For one thing, the police out there in California have put out an all-points bulletin for you. Apparently, one of the victims had read your book. When the attack