Read Online Invasion by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online Page A

Nothing else. Anything else."
        "It might have a ray gun," Toby said enthusiastically.
        "Even that's possible," I said. "As I said before, we'll just have to wait and see."
        "This is really exciting," Toby said, not disturbed in the least by our helplessness.
        "Maybe we won't see anything more of it," I said.
        "Maybe it will just go away."
        But none of us believed that.
        We talked about the situation for quite some time, examining all the possibilities, trying to prepare ourselves for any contingency, until there wasn't anything more to say that we hadn't already said a half a dozen times. Weary of the subject, we went on to more mundane affairs, as I washed the coffee and cocoa mugs while Connie began to prepare supper. It seemed odd, yet it was rather comforting, that we were able to deal with every-day affairs in the face of our most extraordinary circumstances. Only Toby was unable to get back to more practical matters; all he wanted to do was stand at the window, watch the forest, and wait for the
        "monster" to appear.
        We allowed him to do as he wished, perhaps because we knew that there was no chance of our getting him interested in anything else, especially not in his lessons. Or perhaps both Connie and I felt that it wasn't really such a bad idea to have a sentry on duty.
        As I was drying and shelving the mugs, Connie said, "What are we going to do about old Kate?"
        "I forgot all about her!" I said. "After I found Betty dead and Blueberry missing, I didn't take time to feed and water her."
        "That's the least of her problems," Connie said. "Even well fed and watered, she's not going to be safe out there tonight."
        I thought about that for a moment and then said, "I'll bring her in on the sun porch for the night."
        "That'll be messy."
        "Yes, but at least we can watch over her and see she doesn't come to any harm."
        "There's no heat on the sun porch."
        "I'll move a space heater in from the barn. Then I'll be able to switch off the heat in the barn and let the temperature drop below freezing out there. That'll keep the dead horse from decomposing and becoming a health hazard."
        I bundled up in coat, scarf, gloves, and boots once more and went out into the howling storm which was, by now, every bit as fierce as the storm we had suffered the previous day. Wind-whipped snow stung my face, and I squinted like an octogenarian trying to read a newspaper without his bifocals. Slipping, stumbling, wind-milling my arms, I managed to stay on my feet for the length of the path which I had opened this morning but which had already drifted most of the way shut.
        In the new snow around the barn door, I found fresh examples of the strange eight-holed prints.
        I began to sweat in spite of the bitterly cold air.
        My hands shaking uncontrollably, I slid back the bolt and threw open the door and staggered into the barn. I knew what I would find. But I could not simply turn away and run back to the house without being absolutely certain that
        I was correct.
        The barn was full of warm odors: hay, straw, manure, horse linament, the tang of well-used leather saddles, the dusty aroma of the grain in the feed bins-and most of all, ammonia, dammit, sweet ammonia, so thick that it gagged me.
        Kate was gone.
        Her stall door stood open.
        I ran down the stable row to Betty's stall and opened the half-door. The dead horse was where it had been, staring with glassy eyes: the yellow-eyed animal was apparently only interested in fresh meat.
        Now what?
        Before the scouring wind and the heavily falling snow could erase the evidence, I went outside to study the tracks again. This time, on closer inspection, I saw that Kate had left the barn under her own power: her hoof prints led down toward the forest. But of course! If the alien-yes,