"Jack Finney - Invasion of the Body Snatchers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Finney Jack)

JACK FINNEY




INVASION OF THE
BODY SNATCHERS
Copyright, 1955, by Jack Finney.

This edition published in 1999 by
Prion Books Limited, Imperial Works,
Perren Street, London NW5 3ED

ISBN 1-85375-340-8
 For my mother and dad,
Mr and Mrs Frank D Berry




one


I warn you that what you're starting to read is full of loose ends and unanswered questions. It will not
be neatly tied up at the end, everything resolved and satisfactorily explained. Not by me it won't, anyway.
Because I can't say I really know exactly what happened, or why, or just how it began, how it ended, or
if it has ended; and I've been right in the thick of it. Now if you don't like that kind of story, I'm sorry, and
you'd better not read it. All I can do is tell what I know.
For me it began around six o'clock, a Thursday evening, August 13, 1953, when I let my last patient тАУ
a sprained thumb тАУ out of the side door of my office, with the feeling the day wasn't over for me. And I
wished I weren't a doctor, because with me that kind of hunch is often right. I've gone on a vacation
certain I'd be back in a day or so; as I was, for a measles epidemic. I've gone to bed staggeringtired,
knowing I'd be up in a couple hours driving out to a country call; as I did, have done often, and will
again.
Now, at my desk, I added a note to my patient's case record, then I took the medicinal brandy, went
to the washroom, and mixed a drink, something I almost never did. But I did that night, and standing at
the window behind my desk, staring down at Main Street, I sipped it. I'd had an emergency
appendectomy and no lunch that afternoon, and felt irritable. I still wasn't used to being at loose ends,
and I wished I had some fun to look forward to that evening, for a change.
So when I heard the light rapping on the outer locked door of my reception room, I just wanted to
stand there motionless till whoever it was went away. In any other business you could do that, but not in
mine. My nurse had gone тАУ she'd probably raced the last patient to the stairway, winning handily тАУ and
now, for a moment or so, one foot on the radiator under the window, I just sipped my drink, looking
down at the street and pretending, as the gentle rapping began again, that I wasn't going to answer it. It
wasn't dark yet, and wouldn't be for sometime, but it wasn't full daylight any more, either. A few neon
lights had come on, and Main Street below was empty тАУ at six, around here, nearly everyone is eating тАУ
and I felt lonely and depressed.
Then the rapping sounded again, and I set my drink down, walked out, unlocked the door, and
opened it. I guess I blinked a couple of times, my mouth open foolishly, because Becky Driscoll was
standing there.