But the hand did not move. Before his eyes, as he stood there, it was ... melting ... oozing away into the ground in stinking rivulets of slime.
Numbly, Boone moved along it; and now, incredibly, he could see its termination, just below the rim of the nearest hills.
For it was an arm without a body—an arm that trailed off into nothing, like a figure cast in wax.
Yet there too lay the carrier, crushed and crumpled ... the broken bodies of the men.
This limp, dead arm had done that....
It was more than human mind could take. Boone slumped to the ground and cowered there, shaking.
Nor would the seizure pass. It was as if he suddenly were chilling. Cold crept through his veins in icy tendrils to the very marrow of his bones.
Harder and harder he shook. Yet still no surcease came. His whole body was aching now and it dawned upon him, dimly, that no shock alone could leave him thus yet still alive.
Then, at long last, the chills and cold departed, driven out by a quick, fierce heat. His mouth grew dry. His tongue took on new thickness. Flowers, hills, wreckage—all seemed distorted. He burned as with a flaming fever....
Fever—?