Invaders From Mars Read online

  LAST NIGHT,

  DAVID SAW A SPACESHIP

  CRASH IN THE WOODS!

  But no one seems to believe him. The next day, his father investigates the site—and returns, acting very strangely. Next it’s his mother, then his teacher, then a classmate—all programmed, zombie-like, with strange scratches on their necks. David’s last chance is to get to the Marine base and alert them—before a vital secret mission is sabotaged, before the Martians take over the planet Earth!

  THE CANNON GROUP, INC.

  PRESENTS A GOLAN—GLOBUS

  PRODUCTION OF A TOBE HOOPER FILM

  INVADERS FROM MARS

  STARRING

  KAREN BLACK • HUNTER CARSON

  TIMOTHY BOTTOMS • LARAINE NEWMAN

  JAMES KAREN • BUD CORT

  AND LOUISE FLETCHER

  ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS

  EDWARD L. ALPERSON, JR.

  AND WADE H. WILLIAMS III

  PRODUCTION DESIGNER IVOR LESLIE DILLEY

  SPECIAL VISUAL EFFECTS BY JOHN DYKSTRA

  INVADERS CREATURES DESIGNED

  AND CREATED BY STAN WINSTON

  DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DANIEL PEARL

  SCREENPLAY BY DAN O’BANNON & DON JAKOBY

  BASED ON A SCREENPLAY BY RICHARD BLAKE

  PRODUCED BY MENHEM GOLAN AND YORAM GLOBUS

  DIRECTED BY TOBE HOOPER

  INVADERS FROM MARS

  “Mom, please . . . don’t go over the hill. Pleeeeze!”

  “Why not, David? What’s wrong?”

  He clutched her hand pleadingly. “Mom, something terrible happened to Dad up there. I don’t know what, but something. He got a scratch on his neck and now . . . now he’s not Dad anymore! And it got the chief and Officer Kenney, I know it did, just now, out there!” His throat began to feel thick and tears stung his eyes. His sweaty palms were sticky against his mom’s cool skin as he held her hand in both of his. “Mom, please don’t go over the hill, please!”

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  Text and cover artwork © 1986 CANNON FILMS, INC. and CANNON INTERNATIONAL B. V.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020

  ISBN: 0-671-62697-3

  First Pocket Books printing June, 1986

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  For:

  Tim, Brandee, and Shawn

  With love from:

  Uncle Ray

  Thank you . . .

  Scot Holton for countless helpful telephone conversations; Lee Blaine and Mike Mulconnery for patient cooperation; Richard Curtis and Dennis Etchison for some experienced advice; Susan Davis, Mary Papas, and Gina Walworth (who sings beautifully) for all the java.

  C H A P T E R

  One

  David Gardiner reached up and grabbed a shirt at random with hardly a glance into his closet, tugged it down from its hanger, and slipped his arms through the short sleeves. As he clumsily buttoned it, he hurried across his bedroom to the fat white and black telescope his dad had given him for his birthday. It was mounted on its stand at David’s window, like a soldier at his post, where it seemed to keep watch as David went about his business.

  Putting an eye to the scope, David scanned the bright and dewy morning. Birds flitted through blurred branches and fuzzy clouds wandered leisurely across the distant blue. He pulled away a moment to tuck his shirt into his pants, then he peered through the lens again, placed a hand on the side of the scope, moving it down and to the left, creating a swirl of color as it passed rapidly over the trees and brush on Copper Hill. He stopped on the trail and followed it up the hill until it disappeared over the top, then traced it back down again, searching. He scanned the trail a second time, then turned from the telescope to the alarm clock ticking softly on his night stand next to his dumpy little Mr. Potato Head. It was 7:30.

  “She’s late,” David muttered, wondering if she was sick or something.

  He went to his dresser, opened a drawer, and removed a fresh pair of socks, then perched on the edge of his unmade bed. Two copies of Fangoria magazine, jarred by the sudden movement, slowly slid from the bed onto the floor. The faces of several horror-movie zombies stared up at David from the magazine covers as he put on his socks.

  There were magazines and comic books scattered all over the room, sticking out from under the bed, on the windowsill by the telescope, stacked on the desk around his computer, propped against the transparent glass cookie jar that held his penny collection. Behind the computer, against the wall, was a rectangular display case that held David’s rock and crystal collection, which included a genuine fossil of a leaf. On a card table between the wall and the end of the desk, a light bulb shined over a terrarium, warming Jasper, the lethargic alligator lizard that lived inside.

  The room was cluttered with Godzillas of all sizes, toy spaceships, ray guns, a communicator just like Captain Kirk’s, a three-headed rubber snake, a Pinnochio bank, a complete set of Star Wars action figures, a cereal bowl full of fake eyeballs . . .

  “How do you do it?” Mom often said. “This room was clean two days ago! One of these days, I’ll come in here and I won’t be able to find you. This stuff is just gonna take over and you’ll never be seen again.”

  But David liked it that way. He enjoyed having all of his things around him, out in the open, visible. He got nervous when they were put away in drawers, in the closet, under the bed. They were too valuable to be hidden—too valuable to him, anyway.

  He could hear his mom and dad talking in the kitchen downstairs, their voices muffled by the piercing sounds of the food processor and the orange-juice squeezer. The smell of something cooking drifted into the bedroom through the closed door. It was a dark, burnt smell.

  Dad’s probably cooking breakfast again, David thought as he tied his shoes.

  “Fire!” Mom shrieked, her voice rising easily above the racket of the kitchen appliances.

  There was a clatter as Dad bellowed, “Shit!”

  “Jesus, George—the pan!”

  Dad’s definitely making breakfast.

  David tied his shoes, then bent down and scooped up the fallen magazines, tossing them back onto the bed. As he returned to the telescope, they slid onto the floor again.

  Someone turned off the squeezer in the kitchen. Then the food processor was silenced and David could hear his mom’s voice, softer now as she spoke to his dad, indecipherable, but with an edge to it.

  Then he heard: “David! Get away from that telescope and get down here!”

  “Yeah, Mom!” he called over his shoulder as he leaned toward the telescope. He passed over the hill a few times, going all the way to the road that curved in front of the house and led into town. Then he swung the scope back to the trail.

  He passed over a spot of blue and turned back to gaze on it. There she was, popping in and out of view behind trees as she jogged along the fence. She became more visible as the greenery thinned out. She was wearing a blue jogging suit that hung loosely on her and was spotted with perspiration. Her forehead glistened with sweat and her eyebrows were bunched together, her face tense, strained. She was moving along at a good pace, her blond hair bouncing on her shoulders, her arms pumping at her sides as she ran.

  She was the new school nurse. David didn’t know her name yet, but she seemed nice. So much nicer than the last nurse, Mrs. Nivens. She’d been old and hunched, always cranky, as if she needed a nap. This one was younger, pretty, and she always smiled at David when they pas
sed in the hall—even if he didn’t smile first! Unlike Mrs. Nivens, who’d always smelled like moldy bread, the new nurse had a warm cinnamony smell about her, sort of like Thanksgiving. It was such a nice smell that whenever he passed her, David slowed down a little to catch it, to enjoy it while it lingered behind her.

  She’d only been at the school about two weeks. Apparently she lived nearby because she jogged around the trail on Copper Hill every morning. David hadn’t spoken with her yet, and almost wished he’d bang his head on the monkey bars or sprain his ankle playing kickball so he could get the chance. Not that he had anything in particular to say to her; she just seemed so much nicer than most of the grownups at W. C. Menzies Elementary School.

  “Sounds like you got a crush on her,” Doug had told him.

  “I do not.”

  “Sounds like that to me!”

  Doug was David’s best friend, but every once in a while he was a real dork.

  The nurse began to disappear behind branches and bushes, her long, tan legs carrying her swiftly and gracefully over the hill. Then she was gone.

  “David!” Mom called again. “You’ll be late!”

  “Okay, okay!”

  David moved the telescope across the top of the hill, trying to catch her again, but she was gone.

  A flash of yellow! David froze, squinting to see it again. But it wasn’t on the hillside. It was on the road, moving toward the house.

  His bus.

  “Whoa!” he squeaked, jerking his head away from the telescope. David spun around and bounded toward his bed, rolled across the mattress and landed upright on the other side, stumbling toward his desk, toward his penny jar. Perched atop the little mountain of nearly eight hundred pennies was a small felt bag. In it, David kept his rarest, most valuable pennies, and he carried it to school with him every day, just to be on the safe side. David hurriedly reached for the little pouch, wrapped his fingers around it, swiping it away from the top of the other pennies, and knocking the jar over in his rush. The coins rolled and slid across the desktop and spilled over the edge like water over a fall, scattering loudly over the floor, rolling under the bed and night stand, spinning like little tops.

  David was so startled by the clamor that he spun around, lifting one arm and hitting his elbow against the display case. The case teetered back and forth a moment, rattling rocks and crystals on their shelves, then it fell forward and clattered onto the desk.

  The rocks and pennies clinked together. David, his eyes still wide from the start he’d gotten, watched as two pennies spun and twirled around a small cylindrical crystal, slower and slower, until they finally collapsed on top of the crystal, as if exhausted.

  “What are you doing up there?” Mom called. “David?”

  He surveyed the mess around him and sighed. It would have to wait until after school. “Coming!” He grabbed his backpack hanging on the back of a chair, and left the room.

  Out in the hall, he could hear his parents’ voices more clearly.

  “They’re gonna cut my arm off again!” Dad said.

  “Fine, George, as long as they don’t cut off your—”

  “Ellen, I’m serious.”

  David’s feet clumped down the stairs.

  “I thought your design was okay,” Mom said. David could hear her distinctive footsteps in the kitchen—light and quick.

  “Okay? It’s flawless! But now they want to cut the payload by 108 kilos. So the first thing they’ll do, of course, is slice the bio-lab arm off the probe.”

  David stepped through the kitchen doorway and turned to his dad, who was at the stove making pancakes. “But, Dad,” David said, the bus nearly forgotten now in light of what he’d heard, “the space probe won’t work without the arm you designed!”

  Dad smiled at him. “Morning, Champ. Yeah, I know it won’t.”

  “So what are you worried about?” Mom asked as she gathered up her books on the kitchen table. She flashed her confidence smile, the one she always gave David when he was worried about an upcoming spelling test or was afraid he was going to botch his lines in a school play. It was warm and bright and seemed to say: Everything’s gonna be fine!

  Dad’s worries seemed to fade a bit, if not disappear completely, and he returned the smile. “Who’s worried?”

  David sprinted over to the refrigerator and took out a can of Dr Pepper, then grabbed a couple of Twinkies from the box on the corner of the counter and stuffed them into his pack.

  “Bye!” he chirped, heading out of the kitchen.

  “Whoa, Silver!” Mom called. “Wait just a minute.”

  “But my bus is here, Mom!”

  “No, it’s not.” She moved around behind him and put her hands on his shoulders, steering him over to the table. “Sit down and eat.”

  As he pulled out a chair, David glanced at the blackened pan lying like a corpse in the sink. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d failed to escape one of Dad’s breakfasts, and it probably wouldn’t be the last time he’d try. Dad could design space probes and shuttles probably better than anybody in the world, David supposed, but he couldn’t make a pancake to save his life.

  Mom reached into David’s pack and pulled out the soda and Twinkies, saying, “Your father has made you a lovely breakfast, David. We don’t want it to go to waste.” She returned the goodies he’d grabbed.

  David looked at his dad, tall and lean with shiny dark hair and tiny soft wrinkles that deepened when he smiled. Pouring batter into a clean pan, Dad said, “Got pancakes, Champ. Your favorite.”

  David turned to his mom, tried to give her a pleading look, hoping she would say he could go.

  Instead, she smiled and said, “Just sit.”

  The school bus rumbled to a stop out front and honked its horn.

  Mom stepped around the table, opened the window, and stuck her head out, waving. “Never mind, Bob!” she yelled. “George will take him today. Thanks!”

  “Hey, Dave!” Dad called behind him. “Heads up!”

  David turned to see his dad approaching with a plate in one hand and the pan in the other. He set the plate down before David and began waving the pan up and down slightly, smiling with anticipation.

  Oh, no, David thought, pressing his back into the chair, he’s gonna try that again.

  Dad flipped the pancake up over the plate and jerked the pan out of the way. The pancake flipped in the air and slapped into David’s lap.

  Never failed.

  David rolled his eyes and groaned, “Dad . . .”

  “Good shot!” Mom laughed, gathering her books into her arms.

  “No damage done.” Dad gingerly lifted the pancake from David’s lap and dropped it onto the plate.

  “See you guys this afternoon,” Mom said. She kissed David on the head.

  “Where’re you going?” David asked.

  “I have class.”

  “But Mom, Dad’s made a lovely breakfast for you! We don’t want it to go to waste!”

  “That’s right, hon,” Dad said solemnly, pouring out another pancake. “Just sit.”

  Mom looked at them both and sighed, taking a seat across from David. “I’m outnumbered.”

  David laughed with his dad; they’d won.

  “If this course doesn’t drive me crazy,” Mom said, shoving her books aside, “you two will.”

  David hitched the strap of the backpack over his shoulder as he followed Dad out the front door to the pickup truck. Mom was backing her car out of the driveway and David waved to her before getting in the pickup.

  “George!” she called, sticking her head out the window. “Take him straight to school. He’s late already.”

  “I will, hon. Have a good day!” Dad raised his arm and waved, then got in and started the truck. “Hey, Champ,” he said, his voice low, as if Mom might be able to hear, “what do you say we drive by the base. I’ll show you the new radar.”

  “Yeah!” David dropped his pack between his feet and rubbed his hands together, getting t
hat familiar jolt of excitement he always got when he and Dad were alone and doing something fun, something secret, and (more often than not) something Mom had said not to do. Not that David didn’t like his mom—he loved her. She was a great mom. She was always ready with a big hug; she always spent a lot of time making his Halloween costume every year, which was always the best—last year she’d spent weeks making his lizard costume and it looked scarier than anything he could’ve bought at the store—and she made better potato salad than any of his friends’ mothers.

  But Dad knew how to have fun! While Mom sometimes objected to David reading “all those violent comic books,” Dad never missed an issue of Ironman. Every Saturday night, David and his dad stayed up to watch Sci-Fi Theater together on channel twelve, and sometimes they even stayed up for the late show if there was a good monster movie scheduled. It was almost as if Dad wasn’t a dad at all, but another kid, just like David.

  Once David had asked his father why he’d decided to become a NASA engineer.

  “So I could play with bigger toys,” Dad had said, making those little wrinkles deepen.

  Dad always seemed to have a little glimmer in his eyes, like a secret he was keeping just for David. Both Mom and Dad were great parents, but there was something special between David and his dad. Something different.

  “The meteor shower’s tonight,” Dad said.

  “That’s right!” David turned toward him in the seat. “Can we go outside and watch it?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  David chewed his lip a moment, wondering if he should ask the next question. “Can we stay up late?”

  “Well . . . we’ll see. You know how your mom is about our bedtimes on weeknights.”

  “Okay. We’ll see.” That usually meant that chances were kind of slim.

  “Speaking of bedtimes,” Dad said, “how’re you sleeping?”

  “Fine.”

  “No nightmares?”

  “Well . . . once in a while. But not bad,” he added quickly, “really.” He waited for a response from his dad.