The Night of the Triffids Read Online Free Page B

raced for it, seeing from the corner of my eye a monstrous shadow moving jerkily through the gloom.
        My voice rang out into silence as I burst into the building.
        'Hello! Anyone home?'
        Silence - as oppressive as the darkness.
        Now it seemed that I was alone in the village. With the lamp casting shadows that leaped crazily up the walls, I searched the post office until I found the room that served as the radio cabin. Here I sat myself before the small set and switched it on. Seconds later valves glowed yellow through the ventilation slots.
        Something tapped at the open window above my head.
        Using the radio set's Braille instruction booklet as a makeshift shield to guard my face, I jumped up at the window, shoved it shut, then locked it. Now at last I could make that call for help.
        I pressed the transmit button. 'Hello, this is an emergency transmission on frequency nine. Emergency HQ, Newport, do you read me, over?'
        Static hissed.
        For a moment I was convinced I'd receive no reply. Already I was too late - the island had been overrun.
        I tried again, tension making my voice sound higher: 'Emergency HQ. Newport, hello, do you read me, over?'
        'Caller on frequency nine. We read you; please stay off the air.' Weariness permeated the radio operator's tones. It sounded as if he'd had a long night.
        'But I need to report an emergency. Over.'
        'The darkness? Oh, yes, thank you, caller, we know all about that.' The man had clearly written me off as a dim-wit. 'Now, I'm waiting for a number of fire reports. I have to keep this frequency clear. So, caller, please go off air. Over.'
        'Good grief! You can't be serious,' I shouted, forgetting on-air etiquette.
        'Sir, I appreciate you must be anxious about the darkness. The official line is to stay put. It's probably an unusually dense cloud layer that has obscured the sun. So, kindly switch off-'
        'No… listen to me! I have something else to report. Over.'
        'Go ahead, caller,' came the voice, reluctantly.
        'My name is David Masen, calling from Bytewater. I wish to report a triffid incursion.'
        There was a pause. Static crackled on the ether.
        At last HQ responded in a voice that came close to stunned disbelief. 'Say again, Mr Masen. It sounded as if you used the word "triffid". Over.'
        Something lashed against the window.
        'You heard correctly. And until someone can tell me anything different, I'd say we've just been invaded.'
        

CHAPTER THREE
        
EYE OF THE STORM
        
        MORE than twenty years ago my father, Bill Masen, sat down at his desk and during one long, snowbound winter wrote a deeply personal account of what happened to him during the aftermath of the Great Blinding and the coming of the triffids. By now, it must be a familiar-looking book to all colonists, not only on the Isle of Wight but on the Scillies and the Channel Islands as well. That mimeographed quarto publication bound within its bright orange covers is instantly recognizable.
        Along with Elspeth Cary's History of a Colony and Matt and Gwynne Lloyd's documentary films that continue to chronicle the day-to-day lives of the colonists, it is an invaluable record of how we came to find ourselves on our island fortresses when the whole world fell under the dreadful sway of the triffid. This was the botanical freak once trumpeted as 'the miracle plant that walks' that in a few short years became Man's nemesis - his destroyer.
        Naturally, I read my father's account when I was a boy. How strange to rediscover my father as Bill Masen the complex individual in his own right rather than simply the cheerful, mostly optimistic - if sometimes preoccupied - 'Dad' I'd known since birth.
        I never thought I'd write anything to compare with his book. Until now my writings had been restricted to pre-flight notes