John Wyndham - The Midwich Cuckoos

'Right. You can lower away now, and we'll make the trial crossing at seven.'

The cage went through the door. The observer let three hundred feet of line unreel. The machine came round, and the pilot informed ground that he was about to make a preliminary run over Midwich. The observer lay on the floor, observing the ferrets, through glasses.

They were doing fine at present, clambering with non-stop sinuousness all round and over one another. He took the glasses off them for a moment, and turned towards the village ahead, then:

'Oy, Skipper,' he said.

'Uh?'

'That thing we're supposed to photograph, by the Abbey.'

'What about it?'

'Well, either it was a mirage, or it's flipped off,' said the observer.

At almost the same moment that the observer made his discovery, the picket at the Stouch-Midwich road was carrying out its routine test. The sergeant in charge threw a lump of sugar across the white line that had been drawn across the road, and watched while the dog, on its long lead, dashed after it. The dog snapped up the sugar, and crunched it.

The sergeant regarded the dog carefully for a moment, and walked close to the line himself. He hesitated there, and then stepped across it. Nothing happened. With increasing confidence, he took a few more paces. Half a dozen rooks cawed as they passed over his head. He watched them flap steadily away over Midwich.

'Hey, you there, Signals,' he called. 'Inform H. Q. Oppley. Affected area reduced, and believed clear. Will confirm after further tests.'

A few minutes earlier, in Kyle Manor, Gordon Zellaby had stirred with difficulty, and given out a sound like a half-groan. Presently he realized that he was lying on the floor; also, that the room which had been brightly lit and warm, perhaps a trifle over-warm, a moment ago, was now dark, and clammily cold.

He shivered. He did not think he had ever felt quite so cold. It went right through so that every fibre ached with it. There was a sound in the darkness of someone else stirring. Ferrelyn's voice said, shakily:

'What's happened...? Daddy...? Angela...? Where are you?'

Zellaby moved an aching and reluctant jaw to say:

'I'm here, nearly f-frozen. Angela, my dear...?'

'Just here, Gordon,' said her voice unsteadily, close behind him.

He put out a hand which encountered something, but his fingers were too numbed to tell him what it was.

There was a sound of movement across the room.

'Gosh, I'm stiff! Oo-oo-ooh! Oh, dear!' complained Ferrelyn's voice. 'Oo-ow-oo! I don't believe these are my legs at all.' She stopped moving for a moment. 'What's that rattling noise?'

'My t– teeth, I th-think,' said Zellaby, with an effort.

There was more movement, followed by a stumbling sound. Then a clatter of curtain-rings, and the room was revealed in a grey light.

Zellaby's eyes went to the grate. He stared at it in disbelief. A moment ago he had put a new log on the fire, now there was nothing there but a few ashes. Angela, sitting up on the carpet a yard away from him, and Ferrelyn by the window, were both staring at the grate, too.

'What on earth -?' began Ferrelyn.

'The ch– champagne?' suggested Zellaby.

'Oh, really, Daddy...!'

Against the protest of every joint Zellaby tried to get up. He found it too painful, and decided to stay where he was for a bit. Ferrelyn crossed unsteadily to the fireplace. She reached a hand towards it, and stood there, shivering.

'I think it's dead,' she said.

She tried to pick up The Times from the chair, but her fingers were too numb to hold it. She looked at it miserably, and then managed to scrumble it between her stiff hands, and stuff it into the grate. Still using both hands she succeeded in lifting some of the smaller bits of wood from the basket and dropping them on the paper.

Frustration with the matches almost made her weep.

'My fingers won't ,' she wailed miserably.

In her efforts she spilt the matches on the hearth. Somehow she managed to light one by rubbing the box on them. It caught another. She pushed them all closer to the paper bulging out of the grate. Presently it caught, too, and the flame blossomed up like a wonderful flower.

Angela got up, and staggered stiffly closer. Zellaby made his approach on all fours. The wood began to crackle. They crouched towards it, greedy for warmth. The numbness in their outstretched fingers began to give way to a tingling. After a while the Zellaby spirit began to show signs of revival.

'Odd,' he remarked through teeth that still showed a tendency to chatter, 'odd that I should have to live to my present age before appreciating the underlying soundness of fire-worship.'

On both the Oppley and Stouch roads there was a great starting up and warming of engines. Presently two streams of ambulances, fire appliances, police cars, jeeps, and military trucks started to converge on Midwich. They met at the Green. The civilian transport pulled up, and its occupants piled out. The military trucks for the most part headed for Hickham Lane, bound for the Abbey. An exception to both categories was a small red car that turned off by itself and went bouncing up the drive of Kyle Manor to stop in grooves of gravel by the front door.

Alan Hughes burst into the Zellaby study, pulled Ferrelyn out of the huddle by the fire, and clutched her firmly.

'Darling!' he exclaimed, still breathing hard. 'Darling! Are you all right?'

'Darling!' responded Ferrelyn, rather as if it were an answer.

After a considerate interval Gordon Zellaby remarked:

'We, also, are all right, we believe, though bewildered. We are also somewhat chilled. Do you think -?'

Alan seemed to become aware of them for the first time.

'The – ' he began, and then broke off as the lights came on. 'Good-oh,' he said. 'Hot drinks in a jiffy.' And departed, towing Ferrelyn after him.

' "Hot drinks in a jiffy," ' murmured Zellaby. 'Such music in a simple phrase!'

And so, when we came down to breakfast, eight miles away, it was to be greeted with the news that Colonel Westcott had gone out a couple of hours before; and that Midwich was as near awake again as was natural to it.

There was still a police picket on the Stouch road, but as residents of Midwich we passed through promptly, to drive on through a scene which looked much as usual, and reach our cottage without further hindrance.

We had wondered more than once what state of affairs we might find there, but there proved to have been no need for alarm. The cottage was intact, and exactly as we had left it. We went in and resettled ourselves just as we had intended to on the previous day, with no inconvenience except that the milk in the refrigerator had gone off, on account of the cut in the electricity supply. Indeed, within half an hour of returning the happenings of the previous day were beginning to seem unreal; and when we went out and talked to our neighbours we found that for those who had actually been involved the feeling of unreality was even more pronounced.

Nor was that surprising, for, as Mr Zellaby pointed out, their knowledge of the affair was limited to an awareness that they had failed to go to bed one night and had awakened, feeling extremely cold, one morning: the rest was a matter of hearsay. One had to believe that they had during the interval missed a day, for it was improbable that the rest of the world could be collectively mistaken; but, speaking for himself, it had not even been an interesting experience, since the prime requisite of interest was, after all, consciousness. He therefore proposed to disregard the whole matter, and do his best to forget that he had been cheated out of one of the days which he found to be passing, in proper sequence, far too quickly.