metal-detecting security gate. Now, having landed at McCarran
International in Las Vegas, they used their ID again to obtain swift
service from the clerk at the rental-car desk, an attractive brunette
named Ruth. Instead of just handing them the keys and sending them out
to the lot to locate their designated rental on their own, she teleued a
night-duty mechanic to pickitupanddriveitauundtothefrontentrariceofthe
terminal.
Since they had not come dressed for rain, they stood inside the terminal
at a set of glass doors until they saw the Dodge pull up at the curb,
then went out into the storm.
The mechanic, more suitably dressed for the foul weather in a vinyl
raincoat with a vinyl hood, quickly checked their rental papers and
turned the car over to them. Although clouds had claimed the sky late
in the day in Orange County, Reese had not realized things would be
worse to the east and had not bargained for a landing in a rainstorm.
Though their descent and touchdown had been as smooth as glass, he had
gripped the arms of his seat so tightly that his hands were still
slightly stiff and achy.
Safely on the ground, he should have been relieved, but he could not
forget Teddy Bertlesman, the tall pink lady, and he could also not
forget little Esther waiting at home for him. This morning, he’d had
only his Esther to live for, just that one small blessing, which was not
a sufficient abundance to tempt the cruelty of fate. But now there was
also the glorious real-estate saleswoman, and Reese was acutely aware
that when a man had more reason to live he was more likely to die.
Superstitious nonsense, perhaps.
But the rain, when he had expected a clear desert night, seemed like a
bad omen, and he was uneasy.
As Julio drove away from the terminal, Reese wiped the rain off his face
and said, “What about all those TV commercials for Vegas on the L.A.
stations?”
“What about them?”
“Where’s the sunshine? Where’re all those girls in tiny little
bikinis?”
“What do you care about girls in bikinis when you have a date with Teddy
Bertlesman on Saturday?”
Don’t talk about that, Reese thought superstitiously.
He said, “Hell, this doesn’t look like Vegas. This looks more like
Seattle.”
With only one arm and one leg, Wiiitney Gavis had first dragged himself
towarid the garage in dogged pursuit of the departing creature that had
torn off his artificial leg.
then throwing itself lightly-almost teasinglyagainst that barrier.
In the closet, Rachael climbed one more step, got a grip on two edges of
the overhead opening, swung off the shelves, dangled for a moment with
the rod against her breasts, then muscled herself up and into the attic.
There was no flooring, just two-by-four beams sixteen inches apart, with
sheathed pads of Fiberglas insulation laid between those supports.
In the wan yellow light that rose through the open trap, she saw the
attic ceiling was very low, providing only a four-loothigh space, with
roofing nails poking through in a lot of places, and with larger exposed
rafter nails lancing out here and there. To her surprise, the attic was
not limited to the area over the office and the manager’s apartment, but
led off across the ceilings of all the rooms in that long wing.
Below, something crashed so hard that she felt the reverberation through
the bedroomceiling beams on which she knelt. Another crash was
accompanied by the dry splintering of wood and the hard sharp snap of
breaking metal.
She quickly closed the trap, plunging the attic into perfect darkness.
She crawled as silently as possible along a parallel pair of
two-by-fours, one hand and one knee on each of them, until she was about
eight feet from the trap. There she stopped and waited in the high
lightless chamber.
Anxiously she listened for movement in the room below. With the trap
closed, she could not easily hear what was happening down there, for the
heavy rain was hammering on the motel’s roof only inches above her head.
She prayed that, in his degenerate state, with an IQ closer to that of
an animal than a man, the Eric-thing would be unable to puzzle out her