Invasion of the Body Snatchers (12 page)

"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 dialed
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 can't even think properly, when you have to repeat every other phrase, and I signalled the operator and asked for a better connection. After a little delay, the connection was cleared up, but I'd hardly resumed when a sort of buzzing sound started in the receiver in my ear, and then I had to try to talk over that. Twice the connection was broken off completely, the dial tone suddenly humming in my ear, and finally I was mad and shouting at the operator. It wasn't a satisfactory conversation at all, and when I'd finished, I wondered how it all must have sounded to Ben, the width of a continent away.

He answered when I'd finished. "I see," he said slowly, then paused for a moment or so, thinking. "Well, Miles," he said then, "what do you want me to do?"

"I don't know, Ben" - the connection was pretty good at the moment - "but you can see that something has to be done; you can see that. Ben, get the story moving. Right away. Move it on up, in Washington, till it reaches someone who can do something."

He laughed, a forced laugh from the stomach. "Miles, remember me? I'm a lieutenant-colonel in the Pentagon building; I salute the janitors. Why me, Miles? Don't you know anyone here who could really…"

"
No
, damn it! I'd be talking to them if I did! Ben, it has to be somebody who
knows
me, and knows I'm not crazy. And I don't know anyone else; it has to be you. Ben, you've
got
to-"

"All right, all right" - his voice was placating. "I'll do what I can, do all I can. If it's what you really want, I'll give this whole story to my colonel within an hour; I'll go see him and wake him up; he lives here in Georgetown. I'll tell him just what you've told me, as well as I've followed it. And I'll add my own report that I know you well, that you're a sane, sober, intelligent citizen, and that I am personally certain you're speaking the truth, or believe that you are. But that's all I can do, Miles, absolutely all, even if it means the end of the world before noon."

Ben paused for a moment, and I could hear the electrical silence of the wires between us. Then he added quietly, "And Miles, it won't do one bit of good. Because what do you expect him to do with that story? He's not imaginative, to put it mildly. And even if he were, the colonel's no man to stick his neck out; you know what I mean? He wants his star before he retires; maybe a couple of them. And he's very conscious, asleep or awake, of what goes into his service record. He's worked up a reputation ever since West Point for good, hard, practical common sense. Not brilliant, but sound, that's his speciality; you know the type." Ben sighed. "Miles, I can just see him going to his general with a story like this. He wouldn't trust me to fill his ink-well from then on!"

Now it was my turn to say, "I see."

"Miles, I'll do it! If you want me to. But even if the impossible happened, even if the colonel took this to the brigadier, who took it to the major-general, who carried it on up to three- or four-star level, what the hell are
they
going to do with this? By that time it'll be a weird fourth- or fifth-hand story started by some fool of a lieutenant-colonel they've never heard of or seen. And
he
got the story in a phone call from some crackpot friend, a civilian, out in California somewhere. Do you see? Can you actually imagine this reaching a level where something could be done; and then having it actually done? My God, you know the Army!"

My voice was tired and defeated as I said, "Yeah." I sighed, and said, "Yeah, I see, Ben. And you're right."

"I'll do it, and to hell with my service record - that's not important - if you can see even a chance that it'll help at all. Because I believe you. I don't say it's impossible that you're being hoaxed in some way for some weird reason, but at least
something's
happening out there that ought to be looked into. And if you think I should-"

"No." I said, and now my voice was firm and definite. "No, Ben, forget it. I'd have known better myself, if I'd thought about it; because you're completely right; it would be useless. There just isn't any point in wrecking your service record when it wouldn't do one bit of good."

We talked for a minute or so longer, and Ben tried to think of something helpful and suggested getting in touch with the papers. But I pointed out that they'd treat the story like one more flying-saucer item; probably be very cute and humorous about it. He suggested the FBI then. I said I'd think about it, promised to keep in touch with him, and all that, then we said good-bye and hung up. A moment or so later, Jack came down the stairs.

"Well?" he said, and I just shrugged; there wasn't anything to say. After a moment Jack said, "Want to try the FBI?"

I didn't know or much care at that point, and I just nodded at the telephone. "There's the phone; go ahead if you want to." And Jack opened the San Francisco phone book.

A few moments later, he dialled the number, and I watched him - KL 2-2155. Jack held the phone at an angle to his ear so I could hear, and I heard the ringing sound begin. It was interrupted, a man's voice said, "Hel-" and the line went dead; a moment later the dial tone began.

Jack dialled again, very carefully. He finished, and before the ringing could begin, the operator cut in. "What number are you calling, please?" Jack told her, and she said, "Just a moment, please." Then the ringing began; and it continued - ring, then a pause, ring, then a pause, for half a dozen times. "Your party does not answer," the operator said presently, in that mechanical telephone-company voice they use. For just a moment Jack held the phone before him, staring at it; then he raised it to his mouth. "Okay" he said softly. "Never mind."

He looked up at me, and spoke quietly, his voice rigidly calm. "They won't let the call get through, Miles. There's someone there, we heard him answer, but they won't ring that number again for us. Miles, they've got the telephone office now, and God knows what else."

I nodded. "Looks like it," I said, and then the panic ripped loose in our minds.

eleven

We thought we were thinking, but actually we moved in a wild, spontaneous, mindless impulse. We had the girls on their feet, blinking in the light, questioning us bewilderedly, but at the looks on our faces when we didn't reply, the panic leaped from us to them like a contagion. Then all of us rushed through that house, gathering up clothes; Jack had a butcher knife thrust into his belt, I took every cent of money I had in the place, and we found Theodora down in the kitchen, half dressed, packing canned goods into a small carton; I don't know what she thought she was doing.

We actually bumped into one another in hallways, on the stairs, and rushing out of rooms; it must have looked like an old-time silent-film comedy, only there was no laughter in it. We were running - out of that house, and out of that town, as fast as we could move. We were suddenly overwhelmed, not knowing what else to do, how to fight back, or against what. Something impossibly terrible, yet utterly real, was menacing us in a way beyond our comprehension or abilities; and we fled.

Theodora still in bedroom slippers, we were slamming into Jack's car on the dark, silent street just out of the pool of swaying light from the overhead street lamp, our foolish armfuls of clothes tossed into the back seat. The starter ground, the motor caught, then Jack squealled rubber, pulling away from the curb, and we weren't thinking at all, just running, running, running, till we were on US. 101, and Santa Mira eleven miles behind us.

Then, moving along over the almost deserted highway, I began to feel a return of some sort of ordered thinking, or at least the illusion of it. Successful rapid flight, the piling up of distance, becomes in itself a calming thing, an antidote for fear, and I turned to Becky in the back seat beside me, smiling, my mouth opening to speak. Then I saw she was asleep, her face pale and drained in the light from a passing car, and the fright roared up in me again, worse than ever, bursting in my brain in a silent explosion of pure panic.

I was shaking Jack's shoulder, shouting at him to stop, then we were bouncing off the dark road onto the narrow dirt-and-gravel shoulder. Jack's hand brake rasped, then, leaning far across Theodora, he brought his fist down on the glove-compartment button, it flew open, he fumbled inside it, then scrambled out of the car, his face wild and questioning. I was leaning past him, yanking his keys from the dashboard, then we were running toward the back of the car. But Jack ran on, down the narrow dirt shoulder, and I had my mouth open to yell at him, when he dropped to one knee, and I knew what he was doing.

Jack once had the back of his car smashed in while he was changing a tyre, and now it's second nature with him, when he stops off the road, to set out a flare. It sputtered in his hand, now, then flared into smoky pinkred flame, and as Jack raised it high to jam the spike into the ground, I shoved a key into the lock of his trunk, twisting it frantically.

Then Jack had the keys, yanking them from the lock. He found the right one, inserted it, turned, then heaved up the lid of the trunk. And there they lay, in the advancing, retreating waves of flickering red light: two enormous pods already burst open in one or two places, and I reached in with both hands, and tumbled them out onto the dirt. They were as weightless as children's balloons, harsh and dry on my palms and fingers. At the feel of them on my skin, I lost my mind completely, and then I was trampling them, smashing and crushing them under my plunging feet and legs, not even knowing that I was uttering a sort of hoarse, meaningless cry - "Unhh! Unhh! Unhh!" - of fright, animal disgust, and rage. The wind had the flare, twisting the flame till it sputtered and choked, and on the high cutaway embankment beside me, I saw a giant shadow - mine - squirming and dancing in a wild, flickering, insane caper, the whole nightmare scene bathed in a mad light the colour of froth from a wound, and I think I came close to losing my mind.

Jack was yanking hard on my arm, dragging me away, and we turned to the trunk again. Jack pulled out the red-painted, spare can of gasoline he carried. He got the top off, and there at the side of the road, in the pink washes of smoky light, he drenched those two great weightless masses, and they dissolved into a mushy pulp of nothingness. Then I had the flare, wrenching it from the ground, and, running back, I hurled it into the soupy mass lying there in the dirt and gravel.

Pulling away fast, the car bumping onto the road again, I looked back, and the flames suddenly shot high, five or six feet; orange flames in a pink wash of light, the thick, greasy smoke twisting and rolling away in the heat waves. Watching, as Jack shifted into second, and then into high, I saw the flames drop quickly and subside into a score of inch-high, blue-and-red flickering tongues, the smoke blood-pink once again. Suddenly they went out, or were lost to view over a small rise of ground, I never knew which.