The Supermen

George summers was late in closinc up. The Friday-night footfalls of the trading farmers had died away while he wiped the counter in his small lunchroom. It was a soft night with a small mist and his motion was not hurried as he started for the door to snap the latch before his final act of cashing up.

There was a light shudder of brakes and the slam of a car door. He checked his movement toward the front, in anticipation of possible further business.

When the three young men strode in, he regretted his lateness and his waiting. They were of a type for whom he desired to do no favors, a breed that he feared because they were not of his age and he had given up trying to understand whatever he had read about them.

It was only through reading that he knew them for what they were. Center Brayton had never nurtured any such people. Center Braytqn was too old in its fear of God and its stable employment. It had never felt the impact of the bursting of the disciplinary dam.

The three young men had an air of matured evil. They looked past the point of return. There was no boyishness in their manner, no joy in their walk. They were not excited about the misty lateness in which they were abroad. They were not excited about anything.

Two of them walked in step toward the far corner by the register. One, tall and pimpled, flung a coarse-voiced summons at George.

"Cigarettes," he said.

George had a momentary ray of hope and then he saw the third youngster reach over and snap the catch on the night latch and take up an indolent position where he could watch the street. After that, there was no more hope, and his spine tingled a little as he faced the two.

He stood and waited for them to declare themselves. That was all he could do The (concluded on page 78) Supermen (continued from page 59) telephone was too slow to be of use. The blows would be quicker. He never doubted the coming of the blows. He felt very tired.

The old wall clock ticked solidly and the boy at the door shuffled his feet, grating the introdden sand.

George wondered what paralysis had gripped humanity that humanity had not been able to wipe out this creeping menace before it became a threat to the hinterlands around the city cradle from which it had sprung.

George knew how vulnerable the hinterlands were. Center Brayton had never known hoodlums or crime even in the days of Dutch Schultz. It had been too small for even minor gangsters.

It was not too small for this new breed, these cold-faced, old-young spawn of neglected schools of vice. Nothing was too small for them because the rewards of vice were not the reason for their acts. They sought only pain and savagery and once they had discovered the weakness of the small towns, they would be back, again and again, menacing the streets even in their absence.

They were beginning to discover the small towns. An old man with an empty cash register and a ravished store had been found dead at Turner Corners just last week. The scouts were out from the cities and it was going to take a strong shock to hold the evil to its old locale.

George noted the earmarks of the age, the long haircuts and the pseudo-Mexican sideburns, the black jacket on the one and the combat coat on the other. They showed no weapons even when they made their move. Their stance and their sneers seemed weapon enough. Their presence alone was a promise of violence.

"All right, man, this is it," suddenly said the tall invader. "You stand back against the wall and stay nice and still. You got things we want."

George backed up. He backed up tight against the shelves that lined the wall, the shelves packed with the familiar merchandise that had been his life since he had come home to find peace after the guns had gone quiet in Europe in 1945. He had gone a long way and seen much death to keep America from such as this. The thrust from abroad had been stopped but the creed had seeped silently in.

He backed up tight to the shelves and he said nothing, but his soul cried out because he did not like what was coming. He resented the need and he felt that, somewhere, there was much to be blamed.

"Hit the register, Joe," said the tall one.

The companion eased past George with a heedless push that seemed tohave measured the actions to be expected from the merchant and to have found them wanting in hazard or even in bother. He punched the "No Sale" key and the drawer opened wide. He scooped bills and change into his hand and so to his pockets.

"Sixty bucks, maybe," he stated.

The tall one spat on the floor. "Big Deal," he said.

Joe brushed past George again, carelessly, as he had done before. He almost seemed to be inviting challenge and George wondered if, somewhere in the twists of his mind, he needed some kind of justification for his already planned acts, some childish symbol like the knocking of a chip from a shoulder. George would have liked to have explored the thought but there was no longer time. Things seemed to be moving faster. The clock ticked again.

Joe had reached the end of the counter when the tall leader spoke once more.

"Wait a minute, Joe," he said. He turned his voice to George. "Where's the rest of it?"

"That's all there is," said George.

"Nuts."

He turned to the watcher at the door.

"How's the street?" he asked.

"Quiet," said the watcher. "The whole town's asleep. Christ, what a burg."

"Tear the telephone, Joe," said the tall one.

Wires were snapped from the wall. The instrument was hurled across the room. The leader took a piece of lead pipe from his pocket.

"Hit him a couple, Joe," he said, unemotionally. "He's got more dough than that."

Joe put his hand into his pocket and brought out a similar, unimaginative weapon. He slapped it into his other palm. He licked his lips and took a step along the counter toward where George stood, still backed against the shelves, one hand in front of him, the other resting in back, for support.

George sighed. There was so much in living that was so hard to explain. There were so many sides to this thing that he wished he had time to consider them all, to weigh them, to moderate his needs, to offer mercy or opportunity or a guide to other paths. There wasn't time. These things had been tried by wiser men than he. These boys had probably been lectured to and prayed over and paroled and pleaded with.

He only wished that he was sure that they were the same probers who had done the brutal job at Turner Corners.

Joe took another step.

"Why don't you just take what you have and leave?" asked George, hisvoice rising despite his weariness and his reluctant acceptance of their denial.

Again the clock was loud.

"Hurry up, Joe," said the tall one. "Do you need some help with the man?" He laughed and, in the stillness, the laugh rang clear and brutal and cold.

That was when George, hating the need and the waste and the recrimination that he would launch tomorrow on the lacks that had forced this ugly end, brought up the hand that had rested behind him. It was typical of the stupid arrogance of the three hoodlums that they had not noticed this hand. It showed a lack in their education, a flaw in their quick course in crime, because in that hand was their undoing. The hand held a blue-steel Luger, and their overlooking it was. an error that it was now too late to remedy, and yet a natural error because they had never before encountered any semblance of resistance in their pitiful victims.

It was a fitting weapon to confront them because it was a relic of the days when hoodlumism in the black uniforms of the crooked cross had threatened the peace of the entire world. George had picked it up from the dead hand of a disillusioned superman.

For a moment, as Joe paused in mid-stride, as the tall one raised his arm for a savage throw, George thought idly of mere threats or words, but the hopelessness of any appeal save force was so clear to his inner being that he was discarding the thought even as he thumbed off the safety and ducked the flying pipe and squeezed the trigger. The Luger bucked once and he swung it to the other near target and squeezed again. There was a gurgled something from Joe as he clutched at his belly and went down, but there was no sound from the tall one as he, in turn, collapsed.

The watcher at the door was yelling in full volume as he loosed the latch, but the gun spoke once more and he grabbed his shoulder and raised the other arm aloft in surrender.

"Was it you boys at Turner Corners?" asked George, probing for the last remnant of defense, reaching for the denial that would serve to turn him from his task.

The boy nodded. He nodded twice and then his face contorted and he opened his mouth to scream, and George set his lips and shot again and the scream was cut off and the boy spun around and fell, face down, arms spread out like a fallen scarecrow, the fiery dragon on his coat stretched taut and strangely still.

Then the store was quiet except for the tick of the clock and the long drawn sigh for the terrible need.