The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney

Author:Jack Finney
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, SciFi-Masterwork, Classics, Thriller
ISBN: 9780684852584
Publisher: Gollancz
Published: 1954-01-01T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter twelve

I don't know how many people still live in the towns they were born in, these days. But I did, and it's inexpressibly sad to see that place die; far worse than the death of a friend, because you have other friends to turn to. We did a great deal, and a lot of things happened, in the hour and fifty-five minutes that followed; and in every minute of it my sense of loss deepened and my sense of shock grew at what we saw, and I knew that something very dear to me was irretrievably lost. Moving along an outlying street, now, I had my first actual feeling of the terrible change in Santa Mira, and I remembered something a friend had told me about the war, the fighting in Italy. They would come, sometimes, into a town supposedly free of Germans, the population supposedly friendly. But they'd enter with rifles at the ready, just the same, glancing around, up, and back, with every cautious step. And they saw every window, door, alleyway, and face, he'd told me, as something to fear. Now, home again in the town I was born in — I'd delivered papers on this very street — I knew how he'd felt entering those Italian villages; I was afraid of what I might see and find here.

Jack said, "I'd like to run up to our place for a few minutes, Miles; Teddy and I need some clothes."

I didn't want to go with them; I was sick with the thoughts and feelings moving through me, and I knew I had to see this town, to look at it up close, hoping to be able to tell myself that it was still the way it always had been. I had no Saturday office hours to worry about, so I said, "Let us out, then, Jack, and we'll walk. I feel like it, if Becky doesn't mind, and we'll meet you at my place."

So Jack let us out on Etta Street, south of Main; maybe a ten-minute walk from my house. Etta is a quiet residential street, like most of the others in Santa Mira, and as the sound of Jack's car died, Becky and I walked along toward Main, and there wasn't a soul in sight, and hardly a sound but our shoes on the walk; it should have seemed peaceful.

"Miles, what's wrong with you?" Becky said irritably, and I stared at her. She smiled a little, then, but there was still a little edge of irritation in her voice. "Don't you know I'm awfully close to being in love with you; can't you tell?" She didn't wait for an answer; she just looked at me as though I were simple-minded, and added, "And you'd be with me, if you'd just relax and let go." She put a hand on my arm. "Miles, what's the matter?"

"Well," I said, "I hadn't wanted to tell you this, but there's a curse on my family; we Bennells are doomed to walk alone.

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