Max Collins - The War of the Worlds Murder

Recommended routes of escape were shared with listeners.

When the phone rang, the Dorn sisters-kneeling before their living-room radio as if taking communion-yelped in surprise and fear.

Miss Jane rose, patted her sister’s shoulder, and went to answer it, in the nearby hallway.

Her friend Mrs. Roberta Henderson, a third-grade teacher, was calling to ask about the upcoming bake sale. Could Jane and Eleanor provide their usual delicious cherry pies?

“Haven’t you heard?” Miss Jane asked, frantically, amazed that her friend could be caught up in such mundane matters at a time like this.

“Heard?”

Miss Jane’s words tumbled out on top of each other, uncharacteristically, as she told of the news reports of the Martian invasion.

“You can’t be serious, Jane-that’s the radio.”

“Of course it’s the radio!”

“No…no, I mean, it’s just a play.”

“A…play? Why, that’s nonsense! It’s, it’s…news!”

“No-just a play. A clever play. Jane, you need to settle down. Is Eleanor handy?”

“She’s in the living room. Praying. Roberta, surely you understand that the forces of God are overpowering us, and we are at last being given our deserved punishment for all our evil ways.”

“Hmm-huh. Listen to me, Jane. Call the newspaper office. Promise me you will.”

“Well…all right.”

“Do it now.”

Miss Jane said good-bye, hung up, and asked the operator to connect her with the local paper.

“We’re getting a lot of calls,” a male voice said. “It’s just a radio show. Kind of a…practical joke.”

“Well, it’s not very funny!”

“I agree with you, lady. Have a happy Hallowe’en!”

“No thank you! It’s a pagan celebration!”

“Ain’t it though. Good night.”

Miss Jane went into the living room and, as Miss Eleanor looked up at her like a child, shared what she’d learned.

Soon they were sitting in their rockers, the radio switched off.

Miss Eleanor cleared her throat and said, “I’m glad I asked for forgiveness, even if I didn’t have to.”

Miss Jane shared that sentiment, adding, “It was a good opportunity to atone for our sins. The end will come, and those who have freely indulged will face a horrible reckoning.”

“It is the life after this life which is important,” her sister added.

“I don’t mind death,” Miss Jane said, “but I do want to die forgiven.”

The two women smiled at each other, serenely. They again began to knit. In silence.

But within themselves, they were furious-though they were not sure why. A vague sense enveloped them that they had been duped by the sinful world.

Well, the joke was on the sinners. Though the Martians hadn’t come, one day sheets of God’s vengeful fire would sweep over this wretched land.

And the girls had that, at least, to look forward to.

Gibson was sitting in a chair behind John Houseman, who sat between stopwatch-watcher Paul Stewart and the sound engineer. That polished scarecrow, CBS exec Davidson Taylor, stepped in, his expression grave.

“We’re getting calls,” Taylor told Houseman. “Switchboards are swamped downstairs-people are going crazy out there.”

Houseman, who swivelled toward Taylor, asked, “Crazy in what manner?”

“If it’s true, deaths and suicides and injuries of all sorts, due to panic.”

“How widespread?”

“I don’t know, Jack, but you have to force Orson into making an explanatory station announcement. Right now.”

Houseman, despite his misgivings about Orson’s approach, took a hard line. “Not until the scheduled break.”

“This isn’t a request, Jack-”

“I don’t care what it is. We’re approaching the dramatic apex of the story, and the announcement will be made, as written, just after that. It’s a matter of minutes.”

Taylor shook his head. “Why do I back you people? You’re insane!”

Houseman made a little facial shrug, and turned away.

Amiable Ray Collins was out there, stepping up to a microphone, saying: “I’m speaking from the roof of Broadcasting Building, New York City. The bells you hear are ringing to warn the people to evacuate the city as…the Martians approach. Estimated in the last two hours, three million people have moved out along the roads to the north…”

Gibson leaned forward and whispered to Houseman, “So you stuck up for Orson, after all?”

Houseman offered a small, dry chuckle. “That is my fate, I’m afraid.”

“Jack-I know you did it.”

Houseman looked at Gibson.

The writer said, “I’ve finished my investigation. And I know you’re responsible.”

“Ah. Might I request you keep that information to yourself, just for the present? If Mr. Taylor is correct, we may have a crisis on our hands, first.”

“You can’t be serious…”

“Oh but I am. And don’t forget-I’m the one who signs your expense-account check.” He smiled beatifically and returned his attention to the window through which Ray Collins could be seen.

The actor was saying into the mike, “No more defenses. Our army is wiped out…artillery, air force, everything, wiped out. This may be the…last broadcast. We’ll stay here, to the end…. People are holding service here below us…in the cathedral.”

Ora Nichols blew through a hollow tube, approximating a ghostly boat whistle.

“Now I look down the harbor. All manner of boats, overloaded with fleeing population, pulling out from docks. Streets are all jammed. Noise in crowds like New Year’s Eve in city. Wait a minute, the…the enemy is now in sight above the Palisades. Five-five great machines. First one is…crossing the river, I can see it from here, wading…wading the Hudson like a man wading through a brook…”

Around the country, listeners-the fooled and the merely entertained-heard the “last announcer” speak from the CBS Building rooftop of Martian cylinders falling all over America, outside Buffalo, in Chicago and St. Louis.

Among the radio audience were Professor Barrington and the student reporter, Sheldon Judcroft, who arrived at the quaint, pre-Revolutionary War hamlet of Cranbury, New Jersey (pop. 1, 278), to find half a dozen State Trooper patrol cars parked in front of the post office.

“So it is real,” Sheldon said breathlessly.

The professor pulled over, got out and went over to talk to the troopers. Sheldon stayed behind, to monitor the news on the radio.

The announcer was saying, “Now the first machine reaches the shore, he…stands watching, looking over the city. His steel, cowlish head is even with the skyscrapers…. He waits for the others. They rise like a line of new towers on the city’s west side….”

Sheldon watched the professor talking to a trooper who was shaking his head. Then it was the professor who was shaking his head….

“Now they’re lifting their metal hands. This is the end now. Smoke comes out…black…smoke, drifting over the city. People in the streets see it now. They’re running toward the East River…thousands of them, dropping in like rats.”

The professor returned, got in the car and just sat there, wearing a stunned expression.

“Now the smoke’s spreading faster, it’s reached Times Square. People are trying to run away from it, but it’s no use, they…they’re falling like flies. Now the smoke’s crossing Sixth Avenue…Fifth Avenue…a…a hundred yards away…it’s fifty feet….”

The sound of the collapsing announcer on the roof was followed by ghostly boat whistles, and then…silence.

“My God,” Sheldon said.

“Good, isn’t it?”

Sheldon blinked. Twice. “Good?”

“It’s a radio show, my boy. Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre. Only question, is-how big a fool should you make out of us when you write up the story for the school paper?”