William P. Salton 8 min read

Like monsters rather than men, two figures in bulky suits pick their way through the vast ruin of a dead city, the air testing clear, everything seeming all right, and both men certain it can't be.

William P. Salton's 1953 story builds tense military and post-apocalyptic dread from an expedition into a ruined city. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story where two men explore a devastated world that reads as safe, and know in their bones that it isn't.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

William Ashman