THE VENGEANCE OF TOFFEE
By Charles F. Myers
The world was on the brink of atomic war and
nothing, it seemed, could prevent it. But
Toffee had a plan—and a little magic to boot!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Imagination Stories of Science and Fantasy
February 1951
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The bombs ticked—in remote places—behind locked and guarded doors. The bombs ticked, and the terrible sound was distinct in the farthest corners of the world—wherever a man picked up a newspaper, turned on a radio—or paused to listen to the beating of his own heart. A Bomb ... H Bomb ... X Bomb—the bombs ticked louder and louder with the growing hours—and each man dwelt alone now with the dark spectre of his own trembling fear.
"Yesterday we perfected a new kind of totalitarian death...." (It was difficult to remember the pleasant, relaxed voice which had once given the announcer his popularity, for now it seemed that his breath passed over taut nerves rather than vocal cords. But no one noticed; it was only what he said that mattered now, not how he said it. Fear fed on fear with an avid, indiscriminate appetite—and flourished from the diet.)
"Today we can only be certain that the foreign powers will have caught up with us within the next few hours.
"Can you remember the Atomic Age, ladies and gentlemen? How long ago that was! And yet how swiftly we have progressed from that to the Age of Human Terror.
"The X Bomb—the incomprehensible unit of power and destruction which dwarfs the human soul and reduces it to a negligible fraction of quivering fright—just one small fraction contributing to the monstrous organism of terror which has lately become our modern civilization. How wretched we are to be living in a civilization in which the word 'city' has been rendered obsolete by the word 'target.' The New York Target ... the Chicago Target ... the Salt Lake and San Francisco Targets. How wretched we are.