Invasion of the Body Snatchers Read Online Free Page A

into my car, and drove on home.
    I'd seen Becky at least every other night all the past week, but not because there was any romance building up between us. It was just better than hanging around the pool hall, playing solitaire, or collecting stamps. She was a pleasant, comfortable way of spending some evenings, nothing more, and that suited me fine. Wednesday night, when I called for her, we decided on the movies. I called telephone-answering, told Maud Crites, who was on that night, that I was heading for the Sequoia, that I was giving up my practice to join an abortion ring, invited her around as my first patient; and she giggled happily. Then we went on out to the car.
    "You look swell," I said to Becky, as we walked toward my car, parked at the curb. She did, too; she had on a grey suit with a sort of spray of flowers worked into the material in silver, and running up onto one shoulder.
    "Thanks." Becky got into the car, then grinned at me, sort of lazily and happily. "I feel good when I'm with you, Miles," she said. "More at ease than with anyone else. I think it's because we've each been divorced."
    I nodded and started the car; I knew what she meant. It was wonderful to be free, but just the same, the break-up of something that wasn't intended to turn out that way leaves you a little shaken, and not too sure of yourself, and I knew I was lucky to have run into Becky. Because we'd each been through the same mill, and it meant I had a girl to go out with on a nice even keel, with none of the unspoken pressures and demands that gradually accumulate between a man and a woman, ordinarily. With anyone else, I knew we'd have been building toward some sort of inevitable climax: marriage, or an affair, or a bust-up. But Becky was just what the doctor ordered, and driving along now through the summer evening, the top down, I felt fine.
    We got the very last parking space in the block, and at the box office I bought two tickets. "Thanks, Doc," the girl in the booth said. "Just check in with Gerry," meaning she'd relay any call that came in for me if I'd tell the manager where we were sitting. We bought popcorn in the lobby, walked in, and sat down.
    We were lucky; we saw half the picture. Sometimes I think I've seen half of more movies than anyone else alive, and my mind is cluttered with vague, never-to-be-answered wonderings about how certain movies turned out, and how others began. Gerry Montrose, the manager, was leaning into our aisle, beckoning to me, and I muttered a blasphemy to Becky - it was a good picture - then we pushed our way out past fifty people, each of them equipped with three knees.
    As we came out into the lobby, Jack Belicec stepped forward from the popcorn stand and came toward us, smiling apologetically. "Sorry, Miles," he said, glancing at Becky to include her in the apology. "Hate to spoil your movie."
    "That's okay What's the trouble, Jack?"
    He didn't answer, but walked forward to hold the outer doors open for us, and I knew he didn't want to talk in the lobby, so we walked on out to the sidewalk, and he followed. But outside as we stopped just past the overhead lights from the marquee, he still wouldn't get to the point. "No one's sick, Miles; it isn't that. Don't know if you could even call it an emergency, exactly. But - I'd certainly like you to come out tonight."
    I like Jack. He's a writer, and a good one, I think; I've read one of his books. But I was a little annoyed; this kind of thing happened so often. All day people will wait around, thinking about calling the doctor, but deciding not to, deciding to wait, hoping it won't be necessary. But then it gets dark, and there's something about night that makes them decide that maybe they'd better have the doctor after all. "Well, Jack," I said, "if it's not an emergency, if it's anything that can wait till morning, then why not do that?" I nodded toward Becky. "It's not just my evening, but - You two know each other, by the way?"
    Becky smiled, and