SOURCE: "Witch War" (Startling Stories, July 1951) by Richard Matheson

DESCRIPTION: "...Girls. Seven of them. Pretty. Not one over sixteen. Curls. Pigtails. Bangs. Pouting little lips--smiling, frowning, shaping emotion on emotion. Sparkling young eyes--glittering, twinkling, narrowing, cold or warm. Seven healthy young bodies restive on wooden chairs. Smooth adolescent limbs. Girls--pretty girls--seven of them." ("Witch War" by Richard Matheson)

NOTES: The seven girls of the P. G. Center are witches (more like psychics really) who imagine their enemies dying in horrible ways, causing them to really die. Some of the ways they kill the distant soldiers include fire, wild animals, crushing them with boulders. The military men provide the girls with information, but don't really like this kind of warfare, thinking of them as monsters.

HISTORY: Matheson does some really clever things with this short story. He pairs innocence with evil, making the soldiers with guns un-scary and the silly little teenagers quite creepy. I wonder if he was inspired by reports of the Soviets using psychics or Fritz Leiber's Conjure Wife (1943), where all females are witches.