Here are a few links to the novelisation of the classic sci-fi movie Species, which as you know as a couple of scenes relevant to our board. Enjoy.
The first one, which is the train cconductor is a little different from the movie. Here in the earlier pages, the conductor is described as much younger and prettier then the woman in the movie.
The next scene is where later in the movie, Sil steals the clothes and car of an innocent women. Interestingly, the author as gone into more detail here; describing the woman's clothes, the knockout and stripping. Again the victim is younger in the novel then in the movie.
Stormtrooper, thanks for the find, I take the liberty of pasting and copying the excerpts , at some point in the link pops up a sort of paywall
the first part with the train conductor
othing moved in the sleeping compartment except for the image on the small television, some rerun of a 1968 episode of
The Prisoner
starring Patrick McGoohan with the volume going full blast. Not loud enough to make the passengers in the compartments on either side complain, it did catch the attention of Angela Cardoza, the conductor, as she passed through the car. She knocked, not too loudly since she didn’t want to startle the girl. Kids nowadays could fall asleep with the television or stereo blaring right in their ears, but banging on the door in the middle of the night would scare the heck out of anyone.
“Hello?” she called. “You awake in there, honey? A little late for TV, you know.” When no one answered, she automatically tried the door. It swung open without resistance; so much for her earlier instruction to keep it locked. “Hel—oh, for crying out loud. What a mess!”
The only light inside the compartment was the shifting blue white from a little television on one of the seats, the portable kind made for kids and people whom Angela thought were too lazy to read anymore. She picked it up and found its volume wheel, turning it down to a manageable level. If the girl was here, that ought to get her attention. Annoyed, Angela used her feet to shuffle a space through the crumpled food wrappings and empty containers so she could get to the bathroom. Squashed milk cartons and other trash littered every surface of the seats and floor, and if the strange kid had taken off and was hiding in another compartment, guess who’d have to clean everything up?
Already accepting that the girl was gone, Angela nonetheless tilted her head around the wall and through the bathroom door, then pushed all the way in just to see if the girl was lurking in the shower cubicle. The lavatory was half the size of the other room and she almost bumped her head on something hanging over the toilet, plastered in place at the juncture of the wall and ceiling.
Angela pulled back in shock. As she did, her shadow passed across the surface of the object, making it seem as though something inside was doing a restless dance. “What the hell is this?” Angela whispered aloud.
Whatever it was, there was nothing small about it; it stretched from one wall to the other, completely obscuring the upper back ceiling of the john. From where she stood, Angela could see bubbles of reddish fluid flowing under its glassy surface, fanning outward in a pattern like broken capillaries. She gawked at it, too awestruck to be frightened. Something indistinguishable shifted beneath its glistening shell and came close to the surface, breaking Angela from her immobility. She stepped closer, trying to get a better look—was she crazy or had she just seen a recognizable face in there?
A hand exploded from its side and seized her face, long alien fingers moving faster and stronger than Angela could have imagined. Her feet left the floor and before she could scream, her head and neck were yanked into the ragged hole. Her body whipped ineffectually in midair as she fought for freedom, then was wrenched sideways from the neck down. She trembled slightly, then was still. After a moment the unseen hold on her released its grip, and Angela Cardoza dropped to the floor. A three-inch laceration in her forehead bled freely, making wide scarlet streaks in the greenish ooze layering her slack face.
Above her cooling body, the chrysalis began to break apart, cracks spidering in all directions along its glossy surface. Within the cavity where Conductor A. Cardoza had found death, there was motion, an unhurried shuffling, then pressure. Like an exquisite butterfly emerging from its cocoon, a new Sil pushed her way free. Headfirst, then arms, reaching up and around to the top of the chrysalis and swinging herself carefully out and down to stand next to Angela’s corpse, reborn a fully grown and beautiful woman.
She sniffed the air and her eyes, steely blue beneath a lovely halo of blond hair, sharpened as she studied her surroundings and the body at her feet. With slow deliberation, Sil bent and began undressing the dead conductor.
11
this is the last excerpt
y the time the search helicopter passed overhead, Sil was already set for transportation.
She made her move in the parking lot of a twenty-four-hour Liquor Mart at the corner of Sunset and Fairfax, across from the Directors Guild of America Building she’d admired before. The Liquor Mart was ringed with lush vegetation and fairly crowded, a lot nicer than the ratty places by her motel in Hollywood. Sil was in a hurry but not foolish, and she waited until a woman in her late twenties who looked Sil’s own size parked a car on the end and went inside. When she came out about ten minutes later with a small paper bag of groceries, Sil was ready.
No one else was around their cars when Sil sprang. The woman had the driver’s door open and was leaning inside to swing the paper bag and her pocketbook over onto the passenger side, and Sil took advantage of her victim’s off-balance stance to shove her bodily across the front seat. Checking the lot quickly to make sure no one had seen, Sil reached inside the car and sank the fingers of one hand into the driver’s thick, shoulder-length hair. Sliding her other hand under the struggling woman’s thighs, Sil lifted her clear of the driver’s seat and middle console and swung her over to the passenger side of the car like a stuffed toy.
“Give me your clothes,” Sil commanded without letting go of her handful of brown hair.
“Who are you?” the woman wailed. “What do you want?”
“I just told you,” Sil repeated impatiently. “Your
clothes.
Hurry up—and be
quiet.”
“No!” The woman tried to pull free and when that didn’t work, she took a swing at Sil and began clawing at the hand buried in her hair. Easily dodging the weak punch, Sil was acutely aware that she was stark naked, streaked with dirt and wet leaves, and sitting behind the wheel of another person’s vehicle. Any moment could bring disaster, and she decided that babying the owner of this small taupe-colored Mazda 323 was a risk she could no longer afford. Instead of struggling further, Sil bounced the woman’s forehead hard on the dashboard. When her prisoner went limp, Sil hurriedly pulled the woman’s sweater off her and put it on, then jostled her unconscious victim onto the floorboard.
This car, Sil discovered, was different from Robbie’s orange Puma. With one less pedal and a gearshift that remained stationary unless you wanted to go in the opposite direction, it was a simpler machine to learn and required little effort to drive. She preferred being naked and feeling the night air against her thighs and back, but it wasn’t possible; loath to do it, she nonetheless pulled around to the back of the building and took the woman’s blue jeans, socks and pair of purple-and-white Nikes that weren’t quite big enough. Still senseless, the driver never felt a thing as Sil tied her hands and feet with a length of rope she found in the back, then thrust her under the overhanging shelf of the hatchback. Finally, Sil dumped the contents from the grocery bag, crushed it into a tight ball, and shoved it in the woman’s mouth.
Guiding the Mazda carefully back to the front lot of the market, Sil reparked the car in a different spot facing Sunset Boulevard, angled slightly in the direction of John Carey’s house. She reasoned that the people who were looking for her, including the doctor from the complex, would opt for Sunset to get to the expressway rather than the more crowded Hollywood Boulevard. Although the woman who owned the car came to after a while, her muffled thumps from the rear of the Mazda were easy for Sil to ignore as she sat, waiting, her gaze fixed solidly on the street.
While she waited Sil thought about the brown-haired man who had braved the darkness without hesitation to come after her. In her mind’s eye, she remembered the way his sculpted profile had looked, silhouetted against a backdrop of leaves and night sky. Broad-shouldered, audacious and confident, fearless even though he had no idea what his opponent could or couldn’t do.
A child by him would be strong and cunning, a supreme hunter. The thought of mating with him made her blood race. After all, nothing was impossible, right? What had that woman at the ID told her before Sil had eliminated her?
