Invasion of the Body Snatchers Read Online Free PDF

me angrier. "Come on, Jack" - I looked at him again. "I don't see anything but a dead man. Let's cut out the mystery; what's it all about?"
    Again he shook his head, frowning pleadingly, "Miles, take it easy. Please. I don't want to tell you my impression of what's wrong; I don't want to influence you. If it's there to see, I want you to find it yourself, first. And if it isn't, if I'm imagining things, I want to know that, too. Bear with me, Miles," he said gently. "Take a good look at that thing."
    I studied the corpse, walking slowly around the 'table, stopping to look down at it from various angles, Jack, Becky, and Theodora stepping aside out of my way as I moved. "All right," I said presently, and reluctantly, apologizing to Jack with the tone of my voice. "There is something funny about it. You're not imagining things. Or if you are, so am I." For maybe half a minute longer I stood staring down at what lay on the table. "Well, for one thing," I said finally, "you don't often see a body like this, dead or alive. In a way, it reminds me of a few tubercular patients I've seen - those who've been in sanitariums nearly all their lives." I looked around at them all. "You can't live an ordinary life without picking up a few scars, a few nicks here and there. But these sanitarium patients never had a chance to get any; their bodies were unused. And that's how this one looks" - I nodded at the pale, motionless body under the light. "It's not tubercular, though. It's a well-built, healthy body; those are good muscles. But it never played football or hockey, never fell on a cement stair, never broke a bone. It looks …unused.That what you mean?"
    Jack nodded. "Yeah. What else?"
    "Becky, you all right?" I glanced across the table at her.
    "Yes." She nodded, biting at her lower lip.
    "The face," I said, answering Jack. I stood looking down at that face, waxy-white, absolutely still and motionless, the china-clear eyes staring. "It's not - immature, exactly." I wasn't sure how to say this. "Those are good bones; it's an adult face. But it looks" - I hunted for the word, and couldn't find it - "vague. It looks-"
    Jack interrupted, his voice tense and eager; he was actually smiling a little. "Did you ever see them make medals?"
    "Medals?"
    "Yeah, fine medals. Medallions."
    "No."
    "Well, for a really fine job, in hard metal," Jack said, settling into his explanation, "they make two impressions." I didn't know what he was talking about or why. "First, they take a die and make impression number one, giving the blank metal its first rough shape. Then they stamp it with die number two, and it's the second die that gives it the details: the fine lines and delicate modeling you see in a really good medallion. They have to do it that way because that second die, the one with the details, couldn't force its way into smooth metal. You have to give it that first rough shape with die number one." He stopped, looking firm me to Becky, to see if we were following him.
    "So?" I said a little impatiently.
    "Well, usually a medallion shows a face. And when you look at it after die number one, the face isn't finished. It's all there, all right, but the details that give it character aren't." He stared at me. "Miles, that's what this face looks like. It's all there; it has lips, a nose, eyes, skin, and bone structure underneath. But there are no lines, no details, no character. It's unformed. Look at it!" His voice rose a notch. "It's like a blank face, waiting for the final finished face to be stamped onto it!"
    He was right. I'd never seen a face like that before in my life. It wasn't flabby; you certainly couldn't say that. But somehow it was formless, characterless. It really wasn't a face; not yet. There was no life to it, it wasn't marked by experience; that's the only way I can explain it. "Who is he?" I said.
    "I don't know." Jack walked to the doorway and nodded out at the basement and the staircase leading upstairs. "There's a little closet