Strange Highways

that it had destroyed on other worlds, but nowhere had it perceived the force of love as strongly as in these human beings. Now it realized for the first time that the will of an intelligent creature wasn't the only important power in the employ of universal order; love also fulfilled that function. And in a species that had both a strong will and an unusually well-developed ability to love, Seed had found the most formidable enemy of chaos.
     Not formidable enough, of course. Seed was unstoppable, and within twenty-four hours all of Pineridge would be absorbed.
     Seed opened the classroom door. The four of it went inside.

    12

LAURA CASWELL WAS SURPRISED TO SEE HER HUSBAND ENTER THE ROOM with Richie Halliwell's mother, that old scoundrel Teel Pleever, and Jamie. She couldn't imagine what any of them, other than Jamie, was doing there. Then she realized that Jack was walking, actually walking , not shuffling, not dragging himself along stiff legged but walking easily like any man.
     Before the wonder of Jack's recovery could sink in, before Laura could ask him what was happening, even as her students were turning in their seats, terror struck. Jamie Watley held his hands toward a classmate, Tommy Albertson, and hideous, black, wormlike tendrils erupted from his fingertips. They lashed around Tommy, and as the snared boy cried out, a repulsive snakelike thing burst from Jamie's breastbone and pierced Tommy's chest, linking them obscenely.
     The children screamed and pushed up from their desks to flee, but with astonishing speed they were attacked and silenced. Hateful, glossy worms and thicker snakes spewed forth from Mrs. Halliwell, Pleever, and Jack. Three more of Laura's nineteen students were seized. Suddenly Tommy Albertson and the other contaminated children joined in the attack; worms and snakes erupted from them toward new victims only seconds after they themselves had first been pierced.
     Miss Garner, the teacher in the next room, stepped through the door to see what the shouting was about. She was taken before she could cry out.
     In a single minute all but four thoroughly terrorized children had been taken firmly under the control of some nightmare organism. The four survivors - including Jane Halliwell's son, Richie - gathered around Laura; two were stunned into silence and two were crying. She pushed the kids behind her, into a corner by the chalkboard, and stood between them and the monstrosity that wanted them.
     Fifteen possessed children, Pleever, Mrs. Halliwell, Miss Garner, and Jack gathered before her, staring with predatory intensity. For a moment all were still and silent. In their eyes she saw not merely reflections of their own tortured souls but the inhuman hunger of the thing that had taken control of them.
     Laura was scared and sick at heart to think of that glistening black thing curled inside her Jack, but she was not hobbled by either confusion or disbelief, because she had seen her share of the movies that, for decades, had been preparing the world for precisely this nightmare. Invaders from Mars. Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The War of the Worlds. She knew immediately that something from beyond the stars had at last found the earth.
     The question was: Could it be stopped - and how?
     She realized that she was holding her chalkboard pointer as if it were a mighty sword and as if the nineteen alien-infected people in front of her would be kept at bay by that useless weapon. Silly. Nevertheless, she did not cast the pointer aside but thrust it forward challengingly.
     She was dismayed to see her hand shaking. She hoped that the four children crouching behind her were not aware that she was in the grip of terror.
     From the possessed group that confronted her, three moved slowly forward: Jane Halliwell, Jamie Watley, and Jack.
     "Stay back," she warned.
     They took another step toward her.
     A bead of perspiration trickled down Laura's right temple.
     Mrs. Halliwell, Jack, and Jamie advanced another step.
     Suddenly they didn't seem to be as well controlled as the others, because they began to twitch and jerk with muscle spasms. Jack said, "Noooo," in a horrible, low, agonized voice. And Jane Halliwell said, "Please, please," and shook her head as if to deny the orders that she had been given. Jamie was trembling violently and holding his hands to