A noise.

A click, really, much like the whirring air conditioner in the tv room made from time to time. But different. Slightly louder. A little more solid. Something about it alerted Jack. He kept his eyes open…

And as he watched, two pairs of yellow eyes began to glow outside the tv room window.

It had to be a trick of the light. He squinted for a better look, but the eyes remained. They moved around, as if searching for something. One of the pair fixed on Jack for an instant. An icy fingernail scored the outer wall of his heart as he stared into those glowing yellow orbs… like looking into the very soul of evil. He felt himself wither inside Kolabati. He wanted to throw her off, run to the old oak secretary, pull out every gun behind the panel in its base and fire them out the window two at a time.

But he could not move! Fear as he had never known it gripped him in a clammy fist and pinned him to the couch. He was paralyzed by the alienness of those eyes and the sheer malevolence behind them.

Kolabati had to be aware that something was wrong—there was no way she could not be. She leaned back and looked at him.

“What do you see?” Her eyes were wide and her voice barely audible.

“Eyes,” Jack said. “Yellow eyes. Two pairs.”

She caught her breath. “In the other room?”

“Outside the window.”

“Don’t move, don’t say another word.”

“But—”

“For both our sakes. Please.”

Jack neither moved nor spoke. He stared at Kolabati’s face, trying to read it. She was afraid, but anything beyond that was closed off to him. Why hadn’t she been surprised when he told her there were eyes watching from the other side of a third-story window with no fire escape?

He glanced over her shoulder again. The eyes were still there, still searching for something. What? They appeared confused, and even when they looked directly at him, they did not seem to see him. Their gaze slid off him, slithered around him, passed through him.

This is crazy! Why am I sitting here?

He was angry with himself for yielding so easily to fear of the unknown. There was some sort of animal out there—two of them. Nothing he couldn’t deal with.

As Jack started to lift Kolabati off him, she gave a little cry. She wrapped her arms around his neck in a near stranglehold and dug her knees into his hips.

“Don’t move!” Her voice was hushed and frantic.

“Let me up.” He tried to slide out from under but she twisted around and pulled him down on top of her. It would have been comical but for her very genuine terror.

“Don’t leave me!”

“I’m going to see what’s out there.”

“No! If you value your life you’ll stay right where you are!”

This was beginning to sound like a bad movie.

“Come on! What could be out there?”