Joseph Samachson 23 min read

A faint scratching at the door, the sound Alice Kidd has been dreading, and a chill goes through her at the thought of the creature panting eagerly on the other side.

Joseph Samachson's 1951 story builds tense colonization and first-contact suspense from a family besieged by alien animals. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping story of frontier terror, where the barred door is all that stands between a family and the things outside.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

23 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).