It's Alive!

A BUNDLE OF DREAD!

Lenore and Frank Davis and their young son were a devoted loving family, looking forward eagerly to the new baby.

Then one night the baby arrived—a grotesque mutation—a tiny rampaging aberration that, in the moment of its birth slaughtered all the doctors and nurses in the delivery room and disappeared into the dark.

Death followed death in a wave of bloody terror. Somewhere in the streets of the city a baby was trying to find its mother . . .

IT’S FRIGHTENING . . . IT’S DEADLY . . .

IT’S ALIVE!

A FATHER’S TORMENT . . .

He looked at the outline of bushes. Privacy. A hiding place. Crazy. Last place in the world that thing would be, if it had a brain, was here. And if it was just sneaking around aimlessly, chances were one in a million that it’d end up here.

It could be anywhere.

Everywhere.

It. The thing. The Infant. The animal. The killer. Whatever it was, he wished they would stop calling it “his baby.” They wanted to blame him. Stick him with it. It came from Lenore, for chrissake, and maybe his sperm didn’t have anything to do with it. Maybe some tumor. Some weird growth.

Warner Bros.
A Warner Communications Company
presents

A Larco Production

IT’S ALIVE!

A Larry Cohen Film

Starring

JOHN RYAN ● SHARON FARRELL
ANDREW DUGGAN ● GUY STOCKWELL
JAMES DIXON ● MICHAEL ANSARA

Music by
Bernard Herrmann

TECHNICOLOR
®

Written, Produced and Directed by
Larry Cohen

Copyright © 1977 by Random House, Inc.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Ballantine Books of Canada, Ltd., Toronto, Canada.

ISBN 0-345-25879-7-150

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition: April 1977

F
rank Davis straightened his tie and brushed off his herringbone suit and smoothed his short, sandy hair. Then he stepped from the elevator into the carpeted hallway. He nodded to the receptionist at his left, then to an assistant secretary on his right, and strode briskly into his office suite.

Once past his own secretary, in the anteroom to his office, and inside and protected from view, he slumped down into his swivel chair, rubbed his eyes, and stared at his uncluttered desk top for a few moments. Then he cleared his throat, picked up the phone, and pushed the intercom button.

“Mary, ask Buck if he can see me right now, okay? I’ve got some new ideas on the Marcus account that I’d like to run past him.”

“I know he’s got an appointment at ten, Mr. Davis.”

She would have been advised of that sometime late last night. Old Buck. “Tell him I need five minutes. And coffee, black.”

“Sugar?”

“No.” Every day she asked, every day he said no.

“Surely.”

He sighed, pulled open a file drawer, and took out the manila folder marked “Marcus Toys.”

His secretary rapped lightly at the door and came in, carrying a large brown mug on which was a red heart enclosing, in black letters, “Frank.” She put it carefully on the desk, then stepped back primly to the door. “Mr. Clayton can see you now,” she said.

She leaned back against the door, smiling, her hands behind her, her chest out.

Frank brushed by her, chuckling to himself at her pose. With the detachment of a man about to become a father for the second time, he admired her looks and enjoyed how coyly she deployed her body. Like so many of the young broads out there, she wanted to keep her job, that’s all. Keep her job just long enough to find somebody to marry; then retire from all this flirtation and have babies of her own. Buck would not be the one. That’s why she still posed for the field.

He walked into Buck Clayton’s office without knocking, dropped the folder on the broad leather-topped desk, and sank into the soft, black-leather chair. “Whew.”

Clayton turned slowly from the expanse of window overlooking Beverly Hills. “Already whew? At 9:30?” He smiled broadly as he seated himself on the edge of his desk and folded his strong arms.

Buck Clayton, the president, was a bachelor with the husky build of a football player—broader and shorter than Frank’s slim 6'2"—and was dressed in a style Frank thought of as “careful casual.” He wore a flowered shirt open a couple of buttons at the top, a wide white belt with a huge brass horseshoe buckle, tight white flared slacks, black Guccis. “You look tired, old man.”

Frank felt like an old man, especially today, but always in the company of Clayton. Both were thirty-five, but Clayton managed somehow to make Frank feel old. Because Clayton was a bachelor and Frank a family man. And Frank always had to wear a suit and tie. Public relations was for suits and ties. Except for the president.

“I am, Buck. Lenore was up most of the night. She’s really uncomfortable. She’s almost due, you know.”

“Yeah.”

“I thought the second one would be easier.”

“Yeah. Any problems with Marcus?”

“No, no, not at all. I just had a couple new ideas, looking ahead to the Christmas season, and I thought I’d better check them with you. For example, in October I thought we could plant a couple of stories about new toy safety, and set up interviews with old man Marcus himself to explain to what lengths they had gone in research and—”

Buck shook his head. “No problem, no problem. Frank, anything you want to do is fine by me. You’re never wrong. You know how I feel about your judgment. Just go ahead.”

“I just thought you’d—”

“Nobody in this firm is more responsible than you, Frank, or has better ideas. You’re my ace. On
your
accounts, you’re the boss.”

“Okay. Thanks. I was also going to bring up the Sturbridge Electronics account.”

“Same deal. Whatever you think. Unless there’s a problem.”

“No problem.”

“Terriffic. Nothing’s wrong with Lenore, I hope.”

“No, no, I guess not. The doctor says everything’s fine. Just sleepless nights.”

“Your son’s okay?”

“Sure. Chris is fine.”

“Good, good.” Clayton stood up, slapped Frank on the shoulder, and went back behind his desk. “Glad everything’s shipshape, Frank baby. I’ve got a couple guys coming in, so I better get back to work.”

“Sure, right.” Frank started for the door. “I’ll keep you posted.”

“No need. You’re the perfect man for toys, right? I’ll watch for the articles.”

“I meant about Lenore, when the baby comes.”

“Oh yeah, right.”

Frank went back to his office and took out a yellow pad and began jotting down notes for the stories he would propose to the press.
New West
magazine might even go for something. They would be having a special section on toys. Or if they weren’t, he would suggest it.

Yes, he was tired. Poor Lenore. Chris had been easy, but that was eleven years ago. They probably shouldn’t have waited so long this time. If you could call it waiting. A truth they had never spoken about—wouldn’t even think about now—was that they hadn’t wanted their first child so soon, and definitely didn’t want a second on the heels of the first. So right after Chris was born came birth-control pills. For too many years. Lenore hadn’t felt well when she took them, her face got splotchy. So she stopped, on doctor’s advice. But they wanted two children anyway, eventually, and after a few years went by it seemed that they’d better hurry—the age difference would already be a lot. But nothing happened. Then she took fertility pills for a few months, until some magazine articles about that scared them both, and she stopped those pills too.

And six months after she stopped, she got pregnant. What wonders awaited the pill-takers! All those years and all those pills, and the result was you had one child too early, and one too—no, it wasn’t too late.

And this time Lenore was a lot more uncomfortable. The whole term had been rough, but especially the last couple of months. Lenore had been scared by so many stories that she would not now take any more pills, not for anything, not even to relax and sleep. But the doctor was not worried. Everything seemed to be fine. Some people have discomforts, he said. No two children develop the same way, no mother can expect the same feelings every time. Everything was okay.