THE BOTTICELLI HORROR by Lloyd Biggie, Jr.
Even from a thousand feet the town of Gwinn Center, Kansas, looked frightened.
The streets were deserted. Hie clumsy ground vehicles that crept along the twisting black ribbon of roadway miles beyond the town were headed south, running away. Stretched across the rich green of the cultivated fields was a wavering line of dots. As John Allen slanted his plane downward the dots enlarged and became men who edged forward doggedly, holding weapons at the ready.
The town was not completely abandoned. As Allen circled to pick out a landing place he saw a man dart from one of the commercial buildings, run at top speed along the center of a street, and with a final, furtive glance over his shoulder, disappear into a house. None of this surprised Allen. The message that had been plunked on his desk at Terran Customs an hour and a half before was explanation enough. The lurking atmosphere of terror, the fleeing townspeople, the grim line of armed men—Allen had expected all of that.
It was the tents that puzzled him.
. . .
