Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg Read Free Book Online Page A

heads.
    “Here they come again,” the farmer said.
    Neary whirled back to stare down the road.
    “Jesus!” he whispered to himself. “Jesus Chr—”
    The very breath seemed to have been sucked out of his lungs. The vacuum was filled by a bass rumble, as though the air was being disturbed by lightning. Closing soundlessly on them at high speed was what looked like a sudden sunrise at two A.M. , flying past him from east to west. Without thinking, Roy covered his face with one arm and grabbed for the woman and the boy with the other. Jillian felt her face and neck burn, then prickle. The three clung tightly together as something like an Indian-summer sunset, flashing and blinking autumn colors, swept past them, slowing above the road ahead. A billboard featuring McDonald’s golden arches was studied by six fingers of light before the massive Christmas ornament moved on, a white spotlight picking out the dotted line on the road beneath it.
    A third vehicle—resembling a jack-o’-lantern to Neary because there almost seemed to be a phantom face leering out of each of the bright lights, out of each of the thousands of little stained-glass colored sections—closed over, then passed them and, following the road, made a right turn, signaled by three sequential directional lights flashing red like a T-bird.
    Neary and Jillian were gasping with fright, but little Barry was jumping up and down, shouting, “Ice cream! Ice cream!” and laughing.
    The old farmer, still sitting in his chair in the back of the pickup, said casually, “Yep, they can fly rings around the moon, but we’re years ahead of ’em on the highway.”
    That was too much for Roy and Jillian. Their eyes locked, but they could think of nothing to say.
    Neary swallowed, trying to get some words, some sounds, something out of his mouth. Something more was coming down the road. With a desperate shove, he threw himself, Jillian, and Barry off to the side of the road.
    Just in time. Two police cruisers howled past at well over one hundred miles per hour.
    Neary headed back to his truck.
    “Stick around,” the farmer said to him. “You should’ve seen it an hour ago.”
    “This is nuts,” said Neary, just as another Indiana cruiser roared by.
    “I may be drunk but I know I’m here,” the old man shouted over the roar.
    Barry was laughing again.
    Neary got into the truck and started backing it out of the tangle of snow fence and high weeds. He spun his wheels in frustration, then calmed down and got the truck out of there.
    “Where are we?” Neary asked Jillian.
    “Harper Valley.”
    The truck took off.
    “They just play,” Barry said, snuggling up against his mother.
    “What, Barry?”
    “They play nice.”

9  

    A ccelerator jammed on the floor, Neary hunched close to the windshield, following the curves of the on-ramp and the glow ahead and above.
    As he shot onto the highway, he heard the police calling to one another, although he did not yet have them in sight.
    “I’m gaining on them, Bob!”
    Roy’s head was almost touching the glass. He moved back a moment and glanced down at the speedometer. Ninety-five, ninety-seven, ninety-nine.
    “. . . that’s the Ohio tolls up there!”
    Up ahead the flashing red and yellow lights of the last of the cruisers came into Neary’s view. He had to slow slightly to hold on to the road as they swept around long bends. The formation of brilliant lights was still far ahead, sweeping smoothly around the bends as if gravity was some ancient law.
    In the distance, the line of tollbooths looked deserted to Neary. The normal bluish fluorescent light apparently blacked out here by the power failure, too. At this hour of the night, there was little traffic between Indiana and Ohio.
    At the tollbooths, one of the attendants was dozing on his stool. The three flaming orbs soared smoothly up and over the line of booths. All hell broke loose. Red battery-operated alarm lights flashed on and off. Sirens tore the