Invasion of the Body Snatchers Read Online Free PDF Page B

under the stairway; it's walled in with plywood to make a little storage space. It's half full of old junk: clothes in cardboard boxes, burned-out electrical appliances, an old vacuum cleaner, an iron, some lamps, stuff like that. We hardly ever open it. And there are some old books in there, too. I found him in there; I was hunting for a reference I needed, and thought it might be in one of those books. He was lying there, on top of the cartons, just the way you see him now; scared me stiff. I backed out like a cat in a doghouse; got a hell of a bump on the head" - he touched his scalp. "Then I went back and pulled him out. I thought he might still be alive, I couldn't tell. Miles, how soon does rigor mortis set in?"
    "Oh - eight to ten hours."
    "Feel him," said Jack. In a way he was enjoying himself, as a man will who's made a big promise and is living up to it.
    I picked up an arm from the table, by the wrist; it was loose and flexible. It didn't even feel clammy, or particularly cold.
    "No rigor mortis," Jack said. "Right?"
    "That's right," I said, "but rigor mortis isn't invariable. There are certain conditions-" I stopped talking; I didn't know what to make of this.
    "If you want," said Jack, "you can turn him over, but you won't find any wounds in the back, and there are none in the hair. Not a sign of what killed him."
    I hesitated, but legally I couldn't touch this body, and I picked up the rubber sheet, and tossed it over the body again, half covering it. "All right," I said. "Where to, now? Upstairs?"
    "Yeah." Jack nodded at the doorway, and stood with his hand on the light chain till we'd all filed out.
    Up in the living-room, Theodora politely asked us to sit down, went around turning on lamps and placing ash trays, then went into the kitchen and came back in a moment without her apron. She sat down in a big easy chair, Becky and I were on the davenport, and Jack was sitting by the window in a wooden rocking chair, looking down on the town. Almost the whole front wall of his living-room is a single sheet of plate glass, and you could see the lights of the entire town scattered through the hills; it's a nice room.
    "Want a drink or anything?" Jack said then.
    Becky shook her head, and I said, "No thanks; you folks go ahead, though."
    Jack said no, glancing at his wife, and she shook her head. Then he said, "We called you, Miles, because you're a doctor, but also because you're a guy who can face facts. Even when the facts aren't what they ought to be. You're not a man to knock yourself out trying to talk black into white, just because it's more comfortable. Things are what they are with you, as we have reason to know."
    I shrugged, and didn't say anything.
    "You got anything more to say about this body downstairs?" Jack asked.
    I sat there for a moment or so, fiddling with a button on my coat, then made up my mind to say it. "Yeah," I said, "I have. This doesn't make sense, it makes no sense at all, but I'd give a lot to perform an autopsy on that body, because you know what I think I'd find?" I glanced around the room - at Jack, Theodora, then Becky - and no one answered; they just sat there waiting. "I think I'd find no cause of death at all. I think I'd find every organ in as perfect condition as the body is externally. Everything in perfect working order, ready to go."
    I let them think about that for a moment, then gave them some more; I felt utterly foolish saying it, and utterly certain I was right. "That isn't all. I think that when I opened the stomach, there'd be nothing inside. Not a crumb, not a particle of food, digested or undigested; nothing. Empty as a newborn baby's. And if I opened the bowel, the same thing: no waste, not a bit. Nothing at all. Why?" I glanced around at them again. "Because I don't believe that that body downstairs ever died. There is no cause of death, because it never died. And it never died because it's never been alive." I shrugged, and sat back on the davenport. "There you