It's Alive! Read Online Free PDF Page A

Folks just hate seeing all them cute snails lying on their lawn dead.”
    Frank sighed. He walked over and leaned against the door, looking into the corridor. “Isn’t anybody in a happier profession?”
    “Siding,” said the tall man. “Aluminum, plastic brick.”
    “I am,” said Bloomgarden. “Mortician. My job is bringing a ray of happiness to people who are trying to cope.” He smiled professionally, nodding at the others. “What’s yours?”
    “Public relations.”
    “Oh? You mean politics?”
    “No, no,” Frank continued, looking down the corridor, “businesses, all kinds of businesses. Toys, for example. Kids’ toys.”
    “That’s really interesting,” Bloomgarden said. “Why, just think, right here in this room, we represent the care of people from cradle to—”
    “Here’s a magazine,” Frank cut in, handing Bloomgarden a copy of Natural History. “Why don’t you just read for a while.”

In the delivery room, Dr. Francis worked between the elevated stirrups that held Lenore’s legs. Lenore groaned occasionally, in semi-consciousness. “You’re doing fine,” Francis said. “Just keep breathing evenly. The head’s on its way.”
    A nurse patted Lenore’s brow with a towel.
    “Soon, Dr. Francis?” Lenore mumbled. “Is it soon?”
    “Yes, yes. Just keep pushing, and breathing steadily. Help me, now, if you can. Certainly is a big baby, Mrs. Davis. Do you remember how big Chris was?”
    “Seven something. Oooh, it hurts! I’m sorry.”
    “Seven?” Dr. Francis glanced around at the nurses and interns assisting him. “This one will be at least ten, maybe eleven, or more.”
    He stepped away from Lenore and leaned close to the intern. “Enormous,” he whispered. “Very strange.”
    Suddenly Lenore convulsed in a drawn-out moan. “It wants to be born , doctor, can’t you see? It wants to be born now!”
    Dr. Francis and the intern quickly stepped back to their work. “Head’s coming now, Mrs. Davis, right now. There, I just cut you a little. That wasn’t bad, was it?”
    Her head rocked back and forth.
    “Now, the head, a little more. I’m putting the forceps on the baby’s head now. Help me a little, one more push . . .”
    The intern’s eyes widened, and he stumbled back against the wall, staring . . .

    Frank leaned against the fathers’-room door, staring idly down the corridor, at the far end of which he could see the double swinging doors leading to the delivery room.
    A scream came from behind those doors. Then another, many. The delivery-room doors swung violently open, and a doctor staggered out. His green uniform and gauze mask were spattered with blood, and he clutched at his throat with his rubber gloves. He lurched several steps, gargling in his own blood, and fell, still clutching his throat.
    To the screams from the delivery room were added those of the nurses at their station as they gaped, horrified.
    Frank tore down the corridor and dropped to his knees beside the doctor. He carefully pulled down the mask, and saw that it was Dr. Francis. “What, doctor? What?” He sprang to his feet and spun wildly around, looking for help.
    More piercing screams came from the delivery room, then crashes of metal and glass.
    Frank was by now surrounded by nurses, standing or on their knees, quaking, crying hysterically. He pushed savagely through them, fighting his way to the delivery-room doors, unable to hear Dr. Francis choke on his last words, “It’s . . . alive . . .”
    “He’s dying!” a nurse sobbed behind him. “The doctor’s dying!”
    Frank burst through the doors and down the short hallway to the delivery room itself.
    And then he stopped, swayed, and groped for support against the door, staring in at a scene of carnage. He slid inside and along the wall of the room, shaking his head slowly in stunned disbelief.
    Interns and nurses were sprawled grotesquely around the floor in pools of blood. Equipment tables were upended, surgical gear scattered