Invasion

by Dean R. Koontz

"Lock the door," I told her.

  "Don't worry about that."

  I carried Toby into the kitchen and put him on the table while she bolted the sun porch door as well as the door that connected the porch to the kitchen.

  "Did they come after us?" I asked, wondering if they were now pressing against the sun porch's glass walls.

  "I didn't see them. I don't think they did."

  The house was warm, but we suddenly felt colder than we had when we'd been out in the storm. It was the contrast, I suppose. We began to shake, twitch, and shiver.

  "We have to get Toby out of those pajamas," Connie said, hurrying out of the room. "I'll get a fresh pair for him-and some towels."

  Toby appeared to be asleep. I touched his wrist and counted his pulse. The beat was steady, neither too fast nor too slow.

  A moment later Connie returned with clean pajamas and a huge stack of towels. I dried my hair while she attended to Toby. As she wrestled him out of his soaked, frozen pajamas, she said, "He's bleeding."

  "It's okay," I said, my voice quivering with a chill.

  "There's blood around his mouth," she insisted.

  "It's my blood, not his."

  When she had him free of his pajamas and wrapped in two big bath towels, she wiped his face and saw that what I said was true. "Your blood?"

  "They took control of his mind," I said, recalling the nightmare battle in the snow. "And they made him bite me when he was trying to get loose and go to them."

  "My God!"

  "They almost had him."

  She swayed.

  I went to her and took the towel out of her hand. "Get your coat off. Dry your hair. You'll catch pneumonia standing around like that." I began to dry Toby's hair. I was staying on my feet only by dogged determination. I tasted my own blood: my lips had split from the cold, and now they burned and itched.

  She said, "Are you all right?"

  "Just cold."

  "The bite?"

  "It's not much."

  "Your lips-"

  "That's not much either."

  Staring down at Toby, putting one slender hand against his face, she said, "Is he just unconscious?"

  "Get out of the coat and dry your hair," I told her again. "You'll catch your death."

  "Is he just unconscious?"

  "I don't know."

  "He'll be all right, won't he?"

  "I don't know."

  She glared at me, her pretty jaw suddenly set as firm as if it had been cast in concrete. She was wild-eyed, her delicate nostrils flared. She raised her hands: they were curled into small fists. "But you must know!"

  "Connie-"

  "When they took control of him did they shatter his mind in the process?"

  I finished drying his hair, tried not to look at her, tried not to think about what she had said, which was what I had been saying to myself for the last couple of minutes.

  She was determined to get an answer out of me. "Is he just a vegetable now? Is that at all possible? Is that what they've done to him?"

  As my hands warmed up they began to itch and go numb on me. The towel slipped out of my hands.

  "Is it?" she demanded.

  Toby said,

  "Mom? Dad?"

  She grabbed the edge of the table.

  I helped him sit up.

  Blinking like a man stepping out of a cellar into sunlight, Toby looked at me, looked at her, coughed gently, shook his head, smiled tentatively, and said, "What what the heck happened? I feel so awful cold. Can I have some hot chocolate?"

  Connie embraced him and started to cry.

  Feeling hot tears swelling up at the corners of my own eyes, I went across the room to the cupboards to find mugs, spoons, and the big tin of cocoa mix.

  FRIDAY

  The Neighbors

  10

  We had to get help. We had to let someone in the outside world know what was happening at Timber-lake Farm.

  Until now I had thought that we would be most well off if we remained as calm as we possibly could and stayed right where we were and waited out the storm. In time the telephone service would be restored, and we could call the sheriff in Barley to ask for help. But now I saw that, with the second snowstorm coming so fast on the heels of the first one, the phone might be out of order for three, four, or five days, even longer. By the time the lines were finally repaired, we would all have gone the way of Blueberry and Kate When the telephone next rang there would not be anyone alive to answer it.

  The ideal solution was evident if impractical: we would all get dressed in our warmest clothes, put on our snowshoes, and walk out of here when dawn came a few hours from now. Just walk off, bold as you please. Just stroll out through the open fields, over the hills, on through another stretch of woods but not the same woods in which the aliens had landed, straightaway to the Johnsons' farm where we could call the sheriff on their telephone (which was an altogether different line from ours) and get help It was a pleasant fantasy-but it was a long way from reality.

  The Johnsons, our nearest neighbors, lived slightly more than two miles from

  Timberlake Farm. Although Toby was very self-sufficient, he was still a child with a child's limited physical stamina. In this brutal weather he could never hike two miles on snowshoes, probably not even one mile. And neither Connie nor

  I would come through alive if we had to take turns carrying him; the burden would sap us and leave us floundering weakly in deep drifts. As with everything else in this life, the ideal was unattainable and even laughable; therefore, I would have to seek help on my own and leave the two of them behind-leave them alone in the farmhouse.

  Once we had made that decision-Connie and I sitting in easy chairs in the living room, Toby sleeping on the sofa in front of us-we had to choose between two courses of action. I could try to get help in Barley. Or I could hike to the Johnson farm and plead my case there.

  First of all: Barley. I could walk due east, along our private lane, until I reached the county road that lay a bit less than two miles from here. The first time that a snowplow came along, I could flag it down and ride in to Barley. It appeared to be a simple plan, nearly fool-proof. But there might be complications. What if there were no snowplows working the county road-no traffic moving whatsoever? After all, it was not a main route. It served a handful of rural families who expected to be snowbound for weeks every winter and who would not ordinarily be bothered if the road remained closed for several days. In a blizzard of these dimensions, the county and state highway maintenance crews might concentrate their efforts in the towns and on the superhighways and primary state routes that were more heavily used. With the wind drifting shut highways they had plowed open hours earlier, they would be kept busy with the major thoroughfares-while I might stand beside the county road for hours, waiting in vain and gradually freezing to death. If no plows came by I would have to return to the farmhouse in defeat or walk yet another two miles to the nearest house that fronted on the county road, without any guarantee that when I got there I would find someone at home and/or a working telephone.

  "If you went in that direction," Connie said thoughtfully, "I don't believe you'd find help in time. I don't think you'd make it through to Barley."

  "Neither do I."

  "Then we rule it out?"

  "Yeah." Both of us had changed into dry clothes and had drunk mugs of steaming cocoa. I closed my eyes, wishing that I could hold on to the warmth of the house and not have to go outside again. "So I'll have to go to the Johnson farm."

  "We always say it's two miles from here. But is that right?"

  "That's what Ed told us."

  "Two miles

  But two miles as you walk-or two miles as the crow flies?"

  That was a disturbing thought. I had never walked the full route any farther than to the top of

  Pastor's Hill from which you could look out across a forest and see the Johnson farm perched on another hill in the distance. I opened my eyes and said, "If it's as the crow
flies, it could be considerably more than two miles on foot.

  Might be three or four miles. Might be too far for me."

  She said nothing.

  She stared at me with those incredibly beautiful eyes, bright gazelle eyes.

  "But that has to be wrong," I said, trying hard to convince myself. "Look, when you tell someone that your nearest neighbor lives two miles away, you mean it's a two-mile walk or a two-mile drive-not a two-mile flight."

  "Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But what if you get there and discover they aren't home?"

  "They're homebodies. They'll be there."

  "But just what if?"

  "I'll break in and use their phone."

  "And if the phone isn't working?"

  "Then we're no better off than we were before I went-but we haven't lost anything by trying."

  "You're right."

  "And I'm positive they will be there."

  "I remember Ed has a gun case. Shotguns and rifles."

  "Of course," I said, starting to feel better. "Every farmer around here goes hunting. So Ed and I can arm ourselves And even if the telephone lines are down at his place, we can come back here for you and Toby."

  She sat up straighter, sat on the edge of her chair. "You know, I'm beginning to think maybe there's a chance."

  "Sure. Sure, there's a chance. A good chance!"

  "When will you leave?"

  "At first light."

  "That's only a few hours away. You'll need to get some sleep before you go," she said. "I'll sit up with Toby."

  "You need to sleep too."

  She grimaced. "We can't both sleep, that's for sure. Besides, I've already slept for an hour, before Toby tried to run out on us."

  "You can't get through tomorrow on one hour of sleep."

  "And you can't hike to the Johnson farm without any sleep at all," she said, getting to her feet.

  Realizing that she was right and I was a fool to argue, I folded up my misguided chivalry and tucked it away in a mental closet where it wouldn't attract me again. I got up and stretched and said, "Okay. Better wake me around five."

  She came to me.

  I put my arms around her.

  She put her lips against my throat.

  Warmth, a heartbeat, hope.

  * * *

  She switched off the lamp, plunging the living room into darkness, and came to the front door where I was waiting in my heavy coat, scarf, gloves, toboggan cap, boots, and snowshoes.

  "When will you get there?" she asked.

  "In this wind, on snowshoes Four hours."

  "With a couple of hours to rest at the other end, maybe you'll get back here by three or four in the afternoon."

  "Sooner, I hope."

  "I hope so too."

  I wanted to be able to see her, to drift for a minute in the bright pools of her eyes.

  "I love you," she said.

  "I love you too," I echoed dumbly, meaning it with all my soul, wishing that there were some clever phrase that would say it better. "I love you."

  Two patches of blacker black in the blackness of the room, we embraced, kissed, clung to each other for several seconds, clung like drowners to a raft.

  "Better get moving," she said at last.

  "Yeah." As I reached for the doorknob, I had a frightening thought. I froze and said, "If they take control of Toby again, you won't be able to restrain him. I was barely able to manage him. What'll hap pen?"

  "It's all right," she said. "I've already thought of that. When I feed him breakfast, I'll powder one of my sleeping tablets in his hot chocolate."

  "That won't hurt him, will it?"

  "They're not that strong. He'll sleep like a baby most of tomorrow. That's all."

  "And you think-so long as he's drugged, they can't make use of him?" I asked.

  "What do you think?"

  "I don't know."

  "It'll work."

  "I guess it will."

  "Well," she said, "whether it'll work or not, it's really the only thing I can do."

  After I'd looked at it from every angle, I had to agree with her. "But be extremely careful, Connie. Watch him as closely as you would if he weren't drugged. If they take control of him, they could make him attack you."

  "I'll be careful."

  I listened quietly, until I heard Toby breathing deeply and smoothly: he was still sound asleep on the living room sofa.

  I said, "Keep the pistol with you."

  She said, "I won't let it out of my sight."

  "Don't let it out of your hand."

  "Okay."

  "I'm serious."

  "Okay."

  "And keep the safety off."

  "I will."

  "I shouldn't leave you alone."

  "And I should make you take the gun in case they come after you along the way."

  "They won't."

  "They might."

  I fumbled for her, hugged her. "You're in much worse danger than I am. I shouldn't leave."

  "If we stay here together," she said, "we die here together." Softly:

  "Better get moving before there's too much light out there."

  I kissed her.

  She opened the door for me.

  Then: cold, snow, ice, wind.

  11

  Dawn had come but only technically. The sun had risen behind the dense dark storm clouds, but night had not yet gone to bed. The sun lay on the cloud shrouded horizon, and there was nothing more than a vague glimmer of light in the world.

  Cloaked in darkness, but with sufficient dawn glow to keep me from wandering off in the wrong direction, I struck out from the farmhouse. I headed due west toward Pastor's Hill which rose beyond the open fields comprising that flank of Timberlake Farm.

  I floundered, getting accustomed to my snowshoes, and walked atop a hip-deep, cold dry sea of snow.

  I didn't know if there were any aliens nearby or if they were watching me. I did know, from having listened to the radio, that this was no world-wide invasion, for there had been no news reports of strange yellow-eyed creatures. Thus far the aliens seemed to be concentrated in the woods behind the farmhouse-although they might well be on all sides of us.

  If they were on all sides of us, if I were being watched right this minute, then there wasn't much of a chance of my ever reaching the Johnson farm.

  But that was negative thinking, and it smacked of more than a little paranoia. Paranoia led to despair and a feeling of utter helplessness. That kind of attitude could end in paralysis, a condition that already had been half brought on by the wind and the snow. Determined to think positive, I used the darkness and the wavelike drifts to mask my stealthy progress toward the open fields toward Pastor's Hill.

  If the aliens were out there keeping a vigil, they would never see me.

  Never.

  Not in a million years.

  I had to believe that.

  As I walked straight into the wind, shoulders hunched and head tucked down, I began to realize that what we were enduring would make the perfect subject matter for a book: my second book. The thought so surprised me that for a moment I stopped, stood quite still, oblivious of the wind and snow and of the possibility that some of the yellow-eyed creatures might be lurking in the drifts nearby.

  Another book?

  My first book had been published while I was a patient in a mental institution. It had not been a book so much as a diary, a war diary which I had kept from my first day of basic training until they brought me home from Asia as a mental basket case. Apparently, the diary helped satisfy the nation's need to see firsthand and fully grasp the horror of the last war, for it had placed high on all of the best seller lists across the country. It made a great deal of money for everyone concerned and was well reviewed. The sales were certainly not hurt by the fact that the author was a quasi-catatonic living in the equivalent of a padded cell. Indeed, that had probably helped sales more than all the publisher's advertising. Perhaps I was-in the eyes of my readers-a meta
phor for the United States; perhaps they saw that the country had been driven as crazy as

  I had been by the war. And perhaps they thought they could learn some lessons from my ordeal that would be useful in getting them-in getting the entire country-back on sound footing.

  But there was no salvation in the diary. I'm certain that most of them were disappointed. How could they have looked to me for their salvation when I hadn't been able to save myself?

  I learned two things in the war:

  Death is real and final.

  The world is a madhouse.

  Perhaps that doesn't mean much to you.

  But it broke me.

  These two realizations, combined with my own deep sense of guilt and moral failure, drove me over the edge. And it was the eventual acceptance of these bitter lessons, finding a way to live with these two truths, which made it possible for me to regain a tolerable perspective and a semblance of sanity.

  The key is that I went through that hell, and it was by the flames that my wounds were cauterized. My readers-as well meaning as they might have been- were merely arm chair sufferers. They were anxious to pass through the flames vicariously-and that will never be enough to cauterize their psychic wounds.

  When I was released from the sanitarium-against all predictions, against all expectations-when it was clear I had a good chance of leading a relatively normal life (although the possibility of a relapse was never ruled out), I consented to be interviewed by a few reporters. I was asked this question more than any other: "Will you write another book?" And my reply was always the same: "No." I am not a writer. Oh, I suppose I have some facility with prose, but I'm surely no master of it. Now and again I have an original insight, a thing or two that I want to say. And I'm not excessively clumsy at characterization nor too free with flowery metaphors and overextended similes. I know my English grammar as well as the next college graduate. But I simply am not capable of the day-to-day, day-in-day-out, sustained effort of creation.

  That takes more sensitivity than I have-and a greater madness as well. I say madness, for even the worst godawful hack must believe-even if he denies it to everyone and to himself-that what he does makes a difference, however minuscule, in the course of human events. It really does not. I'm sorry, but that's true.