At twelve he made his final preparations. He put the room light out first of all. Then in the dark he removed the whole bedding, mattress and all, transferred it to the floor, laying bare the framework and bolted-down coils of the bed. He looped the rope around the bed’s midsection from side to side, weaving it inextricably in and out of the coils. Then he knotted a free length to a degree that defied undoing, splicing the end for a counter-knot.

He coiled it three times around his own middle, again knotting it to a point of Houdini-like bafflement. In between there was a slack of a good eight or ten feet. More than enough, considering the ease with which the bed could be pulled about on its little rubber-tired casters, to give him a radius of action equal to the inside limits of the room. Should pursuit through the doorway become necessary, that was what the knife was for. He laid it on the nightstand, alongside his gun.

Then he replaced the bedding, concealing the rope fastened beneath it. He carefully kicked the loose length, escaping at one side, out of sight under the bed. He climbed in, covered up.

The spiny roughness and constriction of his improvised safety-belt bothered him a good deal at first, but he soon found that by lying still and not changing position too often, he could accustom himself to it, even forget about it.

An hour passed, growing more and more blurred as it neared its end. He didn’t try to stay awake, in fact encouraged sleep, feeling that the rope would automatically give him more than a fighting chance, and that to remain awake and watchful might in some imponderable way ward off the very thing he was trying to come to grips with.

At the very last he was dimly conscious, through already somnolent faculties, of a vague sweetness in the air, lulling him even further. Sandalwood incense. “So they’re still here,” he thought indistinctly. But the thought wasn’t sufficient to rouse him to alertness; he wouldn’t let it. His eyelids started to close of their own weight. He let them stay down.

Only once, after that, did his senses come to the surface. The scratchy roughness of the rope as he turned in his sleep. “Rope,” he thought dimly, and placing what it was, dropped off into oblivion again.

The second awakening came hard. He fought against it stubbornly, but it slowly won out, dragging him against his will. It was two-fold. Not dangerous or threatening, but mentally painful, like anything that pulls you out of deep sleep. Excruciatingly painful. He wanted to be let alone. Every nerve cried out for continued sleep, and these two spearheads-noise and glare—continued prodding at him, tormenting him.