Dexter Foote, a young newspaper reporter sent to cover a falling star in the rural town of Sugardale, takes a side road and is met by a comic nightmare: two bizarre metallic creatures methodically devour his new convertible, crunching through chrome, engine, tires, and finally the burning wreck as he flees in disbelief. What first seems like a grotesque roadside disaster quickly hints at something far stranger than a simple meteor strike. By the time Dexter reaches Sugardale, the town is already under a quiet emergency because the strange "tanks" have been eating automobiles. At a shabby local inn, he meets Sheriff Jeremiah Smith, a weary small-town lawman who has alerted the army and state police and told residents to stay indoors. Frustrated by the sheriff's fatalism, Dexter pursues the story to the wooded crash site, where the crater and disturbed ground suggest that something more than a meteorite landed there. As the two men return past the remains of the convertible, the dark humor deepens and the unsettling possibility emerges that Earth's machines are a delicacy to visitors from beyond the stars. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.