Invasion of The Body Snatchers

A stair tread creaked, there was the sound of a soft footstep, and I swung in the darkness, crouching low, my flashlight raised as a weapon. Quietly Jack said, 'It's me,' and I flicked on the light and saw his face, tired and still sleepy. When he'd stopped beside me, I turned the light off, and for some moments we stood looking out at Santa Mira. The sleeping house under our feet, the street outside, the entire town were still and deathly silent; low ebb time for the human body and spirit.

After a few minutes Jack murmured, 'Been downstairs lately?'

'Yeah,' I said, then answered his unspoken question. 'Don't worry; they've each had a hundred cc's of air, intravenously.'

'Dead?'

I shrugged. 'If you can say that about something that's never been alive, really. In any case, they're reverting.'

'Back to the gray stuff?'

I nodded, and in the starlight from the window, I saw Jack shiver. 'Well,' he said then, trying to keep his voice casual, 'it was no delusion. The blanks are real. They duplicate living persons. Mannie was wrong.'

'Yeah.'

'Miles, what happens to the original when the blanks duplicate a man? Are there two of them walking around?'

'Obviously not,' I said, 'or we'd have seen them. I don't know what happens, Jack.'

'And why should your patients all check in with you, trying to convince you nothing was wrong? They were lying, Miles.'

I just shrugged; I was tired and irritable and I'd have snapped at Jack if I'd tried to answer.

'Well,' he said then, sighing wearily as he spoke, 'whatever is happening, we have to assume that it's still confined to Santa Mira and the immediate area, because if it isn't – ' He shrugged, and didn't finish. Then he went on: 'So every house and building, every enclosed space in the entire town, has got to be searched. Right away, Miles,' he said quietly. 'And every last man, woman, and child has got to be examined; just how and for what, I don't know. But that's got to be figured out, and then done – fast. Cigarette?'

I took one from the pack Jack was extending, and he held alight for me. 'The local or state police can't do it,' he said. 'They haven't the authority, and try to imagine explaining this to them, anyway. Miles, this a national emergency.' He turned to me. 'It actually is, as real as any we've ever faced. It may be more than that; a threat new to the entire history of the human race.' The end of his cigarette glowed momentarily, then Jack went on, his voice quiet, matter of fact, and very earnest. 'So somebody, Miles – the Army, Navy, the FBI, I don't know who or what – but somebody has to move into this town as fast as we can get them here. And they'll have to declare martial law, a state of siege, or something – anything! And then do whatever has to be done.' His voice dropped. 'Root this thing out, smash it, crush it, kill it.'

We stood there a moment or so longer, while I thought of what might be lying all around us, under the roofs out there, hidden in secret places; and it wouldn't bear much thinking about. 'There's some coffee downstairs,' I said, and we turned toward the stairs.

In the kitchen I poured us each some coffee, then Jack sat down at the table, while I leaned back against the stove. 'All right, Jack,' I said then. 'But how? What do we do? Telephone Eisenhower, or something? Just ring up the White House, and when he answers the phone tell him that out here in Santa Mira, which went Republican in the last election, we've found some bodies, except they aren't really bodies but something else, we don't know what, and please send the Marines right away?'

Jack shrugged impatiently. 'I don't know! But we've got to do something; we have to find a way to reach people who can act! Quit clowning; figure something.'

I nodded. 'All right; chain of command.'

'What?'

Eyes narrowing, I stared at Jack, suddenly excited, because this was the answer. 'Listen; who do you know in Washington? Someone who knows you, knows you're not crazy, and that when you tell this story you mean it, and it's true. Somebody who can start the ball rolling, and keep this moving up a notch at a time till it reaches someone who can do something!'

After a moment or so, Jack shook his head. 'Nobody; I don't know a soul in Washington. Do you?'

'No' – I slumped back against the stove. 'Not even a Democrat. Write to your congressman.' Then I remembered, and shrugged. 'I do know one guy, at that; the only person in Washington I know in any kind of official capacity at all. Ben Eichler – he was an upperclassman when I started school. He's in the regular Army now, works in the Pentagon. But he's only a lieutenant-colonel; I don't know anyone else.'

'He'll do,' Jack said quickly. 'The Army could handle this, and he's in it. Right in the Pentagon, and with a pretty good rank; at least he could speak to a general without being court-martialed.'

'All right' – I nodded. 'No harm trying him, at least; I'll phone him.' I lifted my cup to my mouth, and took a sip of coffee.

Jack watched, scowling, the impatience rising up in him till it burst out. 'Now! Damn it, Miles, now! What are you waiting for!' Then he said, 'I'm sorry, but… Miles, we've got to move!'

'Okay.' I set my cup down on the stove, then walked to the living-room, Jack right behind me; then I picked up the phone and dialled Operator. 'Operator,' I said, when she answered, and now I spoke very slowly and carefully, 'I want to phone Washington, D.C., person-to-person, Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin Eichler. I don't know his number, but it's in the book.' I turned to Jack. 'There's an extension in my bedroom,' I said. 'Go listen in.'

In the phone at my ear, I heard the little beep-beep sound, then my operator said to somebody, 'MX to Washington, D.C.' There was a pause, then another girl's voice spoke a series of numbers and code letters. For a time, then, I stood in the living-room listening to the tiny clicks in the phone at my ear, the faint hummings, electric silences, the occasional far-away voices of operators in distant cities, or the fragmentary, infinitely far-removed ghosts of other conversations. Then Information in Washington was asked for, and she found Colonel Eichler's phone number. Our local operator politely urged me to write it down for future reference, and I said I would. A moment later the ringing began in the little black disc at my ear.

The third ring was interrupted, and Ben's voice sounded, clear and tiny, in my ear. 'Hello?'

'Ben?' I realized that I'd raised my voice, the way people do in long-distance phone calls. 'This is Miles Bennell, in California.'

'Hi, Miles!' The voice was suddenly pleased and cheerful. 'How are you?'

'Fine, Ben, swell. Did I wake you up?'

'Why, hell, no, Miles; it's five-thirty a.m. here. Now, why would I be sleeping?'

I smiled a little. 'Well, I'm sorry, Ben, but it's time you were up. We taxpayers aren't paying your fancy salary to have you lie around in bed all day. Listen, Ben' – I spoke seriously – 'have you got some time? A good half- hour, maybe, to sit and listen to what I have to tell you? It's terribly important, Ben, and I want to explain it fully; I want to talk as though this were a local call. Can you give me some time, and listen carefully?'

'Sure; wait a second.' There was a pause of several moments, then the clear, far-away voice said, 'Just getting my cigarettes. Go ahead, Miles, I'm all set.'

I said, 'Ben, you know me; you know me very well. I'll start by telling you I'm not drunk, you know I'm not insane, and you know I don't play foolish practical jokes on my friends in the middle of the night, or any other time. I've got something to tell you that's very hard to believe, but it's true, and I want you to realize that, while you listen. Okay?'

'Yeah, Miles.' The voice was sober, waiting.

'About a week ago,' I began slowly, 'on a Thursday… ' and then talking quietly and leisurely, I tried to tell him the entire story, beginning with Becky's first visit to my office, and winding up some twenty minutes later with the events of tonight right up to the present moment.

It isn't easy explaining a long, complicated story over the telephone, though, not seeing the other man's face. And we had bad luck with the connection. At first I heard Ben, and he heard me, as clearly as though we were next door to each other. But when I began telling him what had been happening here, the connection faded, Ben had to keep asking me to repeat, and I almost had to shout to make him understand me. You can't talk well, you