“Well, yes, that is why I called.”

“You say you have a prowler. Is he attempting to enter the house?”

“Not yet.”

“You have seen the prowler?”

“Yes, outside my window, in the woods.”

“Can you describe him?”

“He is an abomination of such abysmal hideousness that the mere recollection of this monstrosity perambulating in the dark outside my domicile fills me with the preternatural chill of the charnel house.”

“That would be about how tall?”

Howard paused to think. Obviously the law enforcement system was not prepared to deal with perversions from the transcosmic gulfs of the nethermost craters of the underworld. Yet he needed assistance.

“The fiend stands two meters,” he said.

“Could you see what he was wearing?”

Again Howard considered the truth and rejected it. “Jeans, I believe. And a leather jacket.”

“Could you tell if he was armed?”

“Armed? I should say so. The beast is armed with monstrous claws and a toothed maw of the most villainous predator.”

“Calm down, sir. I am dispatching a unit to your home. Make sure the doors are locked. Stay calm, I’ll stay on the line until the officers arrive.”

“How long will that be?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“Young woman, in twenty minutes I shall be little more than a shredded memory!” Howard hung up the phone.

It had to be escape, then. He took his greatcoat and car keys from the foyer and stood leaning against the front door. Slowly he slipped the lock and grabbed the door handle.

“On three, then,” he said to himself.

“One.” He turned the door handle.

“Two.” He bent, preparing to run.

“Three!” He didn’t move.

“All right, then. Steel yourself, Howard.” He started the count again.

“One.” Perhaps the beast was not outside.

“Two.” If it was a slave creature, it wasn’t dangerous at all.

“Three!” He did not move.

Howard repeated the process of counting, over and over, each time measuring the fear in his heart against the danger that lurked outside. Finally, disgusted with his own cowardliness, he threw the door open, and bolted into the dark.

17

BILLY

Billy Winston was on the final stretch of the nightly audit at the Rooms-R-Us Motel. His fingers danced across the calculator like a spastic Fred Astaire. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could log onto the computer and become Roxanne. Only thirty-seven of the motel’s one hundred rooms were rented tonight, so he was going to finish early. He couldn’t wait. He needed Roxanne’s ego boost after being ditched by The Breeze the night before.

He hit the total button with a flourish, as if he had just played the final note of a piano concerto, then wrote the figure into the ledger and slammed the book.