I've been afraid a lot of times in my life. But I didn't know the real meaning of fear until... until I had kissed Becky. A moment's sleep, and the girl I loved was an inhuman enemy bent on my destruction. That moment's sleep was death to Becky's soul, just as it had been for Jack and Teddy and Dan Kauffman and all the rest. Their bodies were now hosts harboring an alien form of life; a cosmic form, which to survive must take over every human man! So I ran! I ran! I ran as little Jimmy Grimaldi had run the other day. My only hope was to get away from Santa Mira, to get to the highway, to warn the others of what was happening!