
The city that once glittered with neon now lies under a cold, moonlit silence, its streets littered with overturned cars and shattered storefronts. Lewis Stillman moves like a shadow through the wreckage, a hand‑cuffed automatic at the ready, hunting for anything edible in the few stores that have escaped the alien raiders’ appetite. Every footstep is a gamble; the guttural cries of the invaders echo down the alleys, reminding him that danger is never far behind. When a pack of the creatures slips past a rusted sedan, his breath catches, but luck and caution keep him hidden—for now.
In the dim interior of a small delicatessen, Stillman gathers tins of food, the only comfort in a world turned into a night‑time jungle. The flickering lamp casts long shadows on cracked walls, while memories of a lost love named Joan flicker through his mind, giving him a reason to keep fighting. Each night is a tightrope walk between hunger, fear, and the relentless hunt, and the thin line of survival may vanish with the next footstep.
Language
en
Duration
~22 minutes (21K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2009-07-04
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects

1928–2021
Best known for co-creating Logan’s Run, this prolific American writer brought a punchy, imaginative style to science fiction, horror, crime, and dark fantasy. His career stretched across novels, short stories, screenwriting, and criticism, making him a familiar name to generations of genre readers.
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