A Large Homeotherm

Robert took his dinner into the study while Ruby finished her dinner alone in front of the little television in the kitchen. She rose from the table and scraped her plate into the garbage can, absentmindedly listening to the local news on the television.

As usual, Robert hadn’t taken the garbage out and it was overflowing. Ruby shook her head. She thought about bringing the whole stinking can down to Robert’s study and plopping it right at his feet.

“He wouldn’t even notice,” she thought to herself and instead dragged the bulging bag down the steps and to the garage. As she opened the door, she was surprised to see the family car parked inside. Robert never parked it in the garage; it was too crowded with his shelves full of research.

He was a scientist and his work required him to respond to his experiments as situations arose. So she wasn’t surprised when he had rushed out of the house late last evening. She didn’t even ask where he was going and she had fallen asleep before he came home.

As Ruby sidled her way around the old station wagon, she noticed that the seats were pushed down and inside, stretching from the rear window all the way to the front headrests, was a shiny metallic tube.

Ruby’s jaw dropped and she let the garbage fall to the floor.

Her hands began to shake and she screamed.

A few seconds later, Robert Prehoda poked his head into the garage. “Oh no... honey, let me explain...” was all he could get out before she nearly knocked him down as she ran shrieking into the house.

“Get it out!”

Inside the cylinder was the body of James Bedford, dead since January 12, 1967; the first man to successfully be cryonically frozen.