"Nothing could be done. The thing was universal and beyond our human knowledge or control. It was death for young and old, for weak and strong, for rich and poor, without hope or possibility of escape." Must Professor George Challenger and friends, barricaded in a room, see Earth die? As globe passes through a belt of poisonous ether, terror sweeps mankind; cities riot; communications cease
Eight students of telepathy go mad and their instructor is a vegetable. That makes the instructor the perfect person to work out the bugs in his system.
That the gentleman in question was a nut was beyond question. He was an institutionalized psychotic. He was nutty enough to think he could make an atom bomb out of modeling clay!
You're all alone in a deserted city. You walk down an empty street, yearning for the sight of one living face--one moving figure. Then you see a man on a corner and you know your terror has only begun.