midnight
The fugitives were demented , babbling of black shapes that swept down out of the dark forest upon the little town in the small hours of the morning . `` The next that was heard of them was about a week later , when they struck in an isolated rural district in Poland , killing and feeding on the population of several farms . In the next week more villages were wiped out , in practically every country on the face of the Earth . From the hinterlands came tales of murder done at midnight , of men and women horribly mangled , of livestock slaughtered , of buildings crushed as if by some titanic force . `` At first they worked only at night and then , seeming to become bolder and more numerous , attacked in broad daylight . '' The newspaperman paused . `` Is that what you want ? ''