Invasion

from the cold, and now they burned and itched.
        She said, "Are you all right?"
        "Just cold."
        "The bite?"
        "It's not much."
        "Your lips-"
        "That's not much either."
        Staring down at Toby, putting one slender hand against his face, she said, "Is he just unconscious?"
        "Get out of the coat and dry your hair," I told her again. "You'll catch your death."
        "Is he just unconscious?"
        "I don't know."
        "He'll be all right, won't he?"
        "I don't know."
        She glared at me, her pretty jaw suddenly set as firm as if it had been cast in concrete. She was wild-eyed, her delicate nostrils flared. She raised her hands: they were curled into small fists. "But you must know!"
        "Connie-"
        "When they took control of him did they shatter his mind in the process?"
        I finished drying his hair, tried not to look at her, tried not to think about what she had said, which was what I had been saying to myself for the last couple of minutes.
        She was determined to get an answer out of me. "Is he just a vegetable now? Is that at all possible? Is that what they've done to him?"
        As my hands warmed up they began to itch and go numb on me. The towel slipped out of my hands.
        "Is it?" she demanded.
        Toby said,
        "Mom? Dad?"
        She grabbed the edge of the table.
        I helped him sit up.
        Blinking like a man stepping out of a cellar into sunlight, Toby looked at me, looked at her, coughed gently, shook his head, smiled tentatively, and said, "What… what the heck happened? I feel so… awful cold. Can I have some hot chocolate?"
        Connie embraced him and started to cry.
        Feeling hot tears swelling up at the corners of my own eyes, I went across the room to the cupboards to find mugs, spoons, and the big tin of cocoa mix.

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    FRIDAY
        
    The Neighbors

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    10.
        
        We had to get help. We had to let someone in the outside world know what was happening at Timber-lake Farm.
        Until now I had thought that we would be most well off if we remained as calm as we possibly could and stayed right where we were and waited out the storm. In time the telephone service would be restored, and we could call the sheriff in Barley to ask for help. But now I saw that, with the second snowstorm coming so fast on the heels of the first one, the phone might be out of order for three, four, or five days, even longer. By the time the lines were finally repaired, we would all have gone the way of Blueberry and Kate… When the telephone next rang there would not be anyone alive to answer it.
        The ideal solution was evident if impractical: we would all get dressed in our warmest clothes, put on our snowshoes, and walk out of here when dawn came a few hours from now. Just walk off, bold as you please. Just stroll out through the open fields, over the hills, on through another stretch of woods but not the same woods in which the aliens had landed, straightaway to the Johnsons' farm where we could call the sheriff on their telephone (which was an altogether different line from ours) and get help… It was a pleasant fantasy-but it was a long way from reality.
        The Johnsons, our nearest neighbors, lived slightly more than two miles from
        Timberlake Farm. Although Toby was very self-sufficient, he was still a child with a child's limited physical stamina. In this brutal weather he could never hike two miles on snowshoes, probably not even one mile. And neither Connie nor
        I would come through alive if we had to take turns carrying him; the burden would sap us and leave us floundering weakly in deep drifts. As with everything else in this life, the ideal was unattainable and even laughable; therefore, I would have to seek help on my own and leave the two of them behind-leave them alone in the farmhouse.
        Once we had made that decision-Connie and I sitting in easy chairs in the living room, Toby sleeping on the sofa in front of us-we had to choose between two courses of action. I could try to get help in Barley. Or I could hike to the Johnson farm and plead my case there.
        First of all: Barley. I could walk due east, along our private lane, until I reached the county road that lay a bit less than two miles from here. The first time that a snowplow came along, I could flag it down and ride in to Barley. It