Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney Read Free Book Online Page A

everything. I lighted a cigarette knowing how bad it would taste, and it did, and I wanted to throw it away, and kept right on smoking it down to a stub. Finally, when I'd put it out, turned off the light, and was nearly asleep again, I heard the steps tumbling up the porch stairs, then the quick, liquid peal of the doorbell, always so unexpectedly louder at night, followed instantly by a frantic, rapid tapping on the glass of the front door.
    It was the Belicecs: Theodora wild-eyed, her face dough-white, incapable of speech; Jack with furious, dead-calm eyes. We said only the bare words necessary to get Theodora, half carrying her, up the stairs, and onto a guest-room bed, a blanket over her, and some sodium amytal in a vein.
    Then Jack sat on the edge of the bed and watched her for a long time, twenty minutes maybe, holding her hand flat between his two palms, staring at her face. I sat in my pyjamas on the other side of the room, in a big easy chair, smoking, till Jack finally looked up at me. Then I nodded my head, and deliberately spoke in a normally loud tone: "She'll sleep for several hours at least, Jack; maybe even till eight or nine in the morning. Then she'll wake up hungry, and she'll be all right."
    Jack nodded, accepting that, sat staring at Theodora for several moments longer, then stood up, turning toward the door, and I followed after him.
    My living-room is big, carpeted in plain grey from wall to wall; the woodwork is painted white, and the room is still furnished in the 1920 blue-painted wicker furniture my parents bought for it. It's a large, pleasant room that still retains, I think, some of the simpler, more peaceful feeling of a generation ago. We sat there, Jack and I, across the room from each other, with drinks in our hands, and after a few sips of his, staring dowry at the floor, Jack began to talk. "Theodora woke me, shaking me by the front of my shirt - I slept with my clothes on - and slapping me so hard my teeth jarred. I heard her" - Jack looked up at me, frowning; he usually chooses his words rather carefully - "not calling me, exactly, but just saying my name in a subdued, desperate kind of moan, 'Jack… Jack… Jack…' "
    He shook his head at the memory, bit his lower lip a couple times, then took a deep swallow of his drink. "I came to, and she was hysterical. Didn't say anything. Just stared at me for a second, wild and sort of frantic, then she whirled away, darting across the room to the phone, grabbed it, dialled you, stood waiting for a second, then couldn't stand still, slammed the phone down, and began crying out at me - very softly, as though someone might hear - to get her out of there."
    Again Jack shook his head, his cheek quirking in annoyance at himself. "Not thinking, I took her wrist and started leading her down the basement stairs to the garage and the car, and she began to fight me, yanking her arm to get loose, shoving at my shoulder, her face just wild. Miles, I think she'd have raked down my face with her nails if I hadn't let go. We went out the front door then, and down the outside steps. Even at that, she wouldn't come near the garage or basement; she stood well out on the road, away from the house, while I got the car out."
    Jack took a swig of his drink and stared at a living-room window, shiny black against the night. "I'm not sure what she saw, Miles," - he glanced over at me - "though I can guess, and so can you. But I couldn't take time to go see for myself; I knew I had to get her out of there. And she didn't tell me anything on the way down here. She just sat there, all huddled up and shivering, pressed tight against me - I kept an arm around her - saying, 'Jack, oh, Jack, Jack, Jack.' " For several moments he stared at me sombrely. "We proved something, all right, Miles," he said then with quiet bitterness. "The experiment worked, I guess. Now what?"
    I didn't know, or try to pretend I did. I just shook my head. "I like to get a look at that thing," I