As she watched Flint’s back through the swirling snow, the ground disappearing around him in a pattern of shifting white flakes, she saw shapes there, moving, twisting like little dancing dots of light. The snowflakes turned into white, hairy legs, the drifts became fat, juicy abdomens, the quick flashes of ground huge, dark fangs. And for a second, just a second, she was sure the spiders of Mirkwood had turned white like chameleons to hide in the depths of the snow, waiting to sink their fangs into her stomach and lap the blood as it poured from her like a crimson fountain.

She had fought the urge to scream. And then they were gone, and the snow was just snow. A minute later, the station house had loomed up out of the blowing flakes.

Now she was inside, drinking this shitty coffee and wondering why she couldn’t stop shaking. No, that wasn’t quite true. She knew why she couldn’t stop shaking. Everyone has some kind of irrational fear, whether it be closets or dark rooms or dentist’s offices or whatever, the kind of fear that visits them when they’re alone and lonely. I think I found mine.

Still, they had been so real.

Flint was over at Babcock’s desk, and she studied him from across the room. He was a handsome man in his early forties, but he looked exhausted, and she wondered how deeply he was involved with all that had been happening. I wonder what his private nightmare is, she thought. And I wonder if he’s found it yet.

As she watched him, he turned, gave her a look that seemed to say, these people are driving me nuts, and shrugged. She smiled and froze as she saw something move on his left shoulder. Just a glimpse of something, feeling its way along. Then it was gone.

She shook her head as if to clear it. Flint had come over to her, looking puzzled at her reaction. “What’s wrong?”

She brushed a hand across his shoulder. Nothing there. Of course not, she thought. I’m tired, worn out. That’s all.

She remembered cutting herself that morning with the bagel knife, and washing the wound in what was probably river water from the sink. My God, she realized, I opened right up and took it in.

Somehow, even up to this very moment, she had been hoping they were wrong, and that things were all being blown out of proportion. But the scope of the thing was unbelievable. If it had gotten to her miles away from the plant…

She looked down at her finger. It was an angry red, and still bleeding slightly. “I think we’d better do some- thing,” she whispered, and Flint looked at her strangely.

“We’re doing all we can,” he said.