Edmond Hamilton 
City at World’s End 

One moment Kenniston was strolling down the quiet street, lost in pleasant reverie. The next moment the sky split open!It split wide open, and above them was a burn and a blaze of light — so swift, so violent, that the air itself seemed to have burst into flame. Then there was silence — awful, suffocating silence. Kenniston felt the chill of premonition — a shapeless terror that grew into a thing too evil to be borne alone.