Frank Belknap Long 22 min read

Driving home over a rutted dirt road, equipped and grimly ready for 'a cruel duel with another man's offspring,' Will Durkin slashes at the empty air, chasing what he takes for a long-cherished dream.

Frank Belknap Long's 1954 story is a chilling first-contact and horror tale. Atmospheric, unsettling, superbly turned. Read it for a fine story of anthology caliber from a master of the weird, where an ordinary man's dark purpose opens onto something far stranger, in a taut, dread-building tale from a stalwart of both horror and SF.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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