The girl came, numbly. Neither spoke. There was, somehow, nothing to say. Fallon took down a heavy metal curtain rod, holding it like a club.
The front doors had broken in. People trampled through in the blind strength of terror. Fallon shrugged.
"No way to get past them," he said. "Stay close to me. And for God's sake, don't fall down."
The girl's wet blonde head nodded. She took hold of the waistband of his trunks, and her hand was like ice against his spine.
Out through broken doors into a narrow street, and then the crowd spread out a little, surging up a hillside. Police sirens were beginning to wail up in the town.
Down below, the beaches were cleared of people. And still the things came in from the sea. Fallon could see over the Santa Monica Pier now, and the broad sweep of sand back of the yacht harbor was black with surging bodies.
Most of the yachts were sunk. The bell-buoy had stopped ringing.
The sunlight was suddenly dim. Fallon looked up. His grey-green eyes widened, and his teeth showed white in a snarl of fear.
Thundering in on queer heavy wings, their bodies hiding the sun, were beasts that stopped his heart in cold terror.
They had changed, of course. The bat-like wings had been broadened and strengthened. They must, like the other sea-born monsters, have developed lungs.