The generator roared steadily behind its plywood partition, but something had gone wrong. I could smell diesel fumes, and they were much too strong. I walked toward the partition, taking shallow breaths. At last I unbuttoned my shirt and put part of it over my mouth and nose.
The storage area was long and narrow, feebly lit by two sets of emergency lights. Cartons were stacked everywhere-bleach on one side, cases of soft drinks on the far side of the partition, stacked cases of Beefaroni and catsup. One of those had fallen over and the cardboard carton appeared to be bleeding.
I unlatched the door in the generator partition and stepped through. The machine was obscured in drifting, oily clouds of blue smoke. The exhaust pipe ran out through a hole in the wall. Something must have blocked off the outside end of the pipe. There was a simple on/off switch and I flipped it. The generator hitched, belched, coughed, and died. Then it ran down in a diminishing series of popping sounds that reminded me of Norton’s stubborn chainsaw.
The emergency lights faded out and I was left in darkness. I got scared very quickly, and I got disoriented. My breathing sounded like a low wind rattling in straw. I bumped my nose on the flimsy plywood door going out and my heart lurched. There were windows in the double doors, but for some reason they had been painted black, and the darkness was nearly total. I got off course and ran into a stack of the bleach cartons. They tumbled and fell. One came close enough to my head to make me step backward, and I tripped over another carton that had landed behind me. I fell down, thumping my head hard enough to see bright stars in the darkness. Good show.
I lay there cursing myself and rubbing my head, telling myself to just take it easy, just get up and get out of here, get back to Billy, telling myself nothing soft and slimy was going to close over my ankle or slip into one groping hand. I told myself not to lose control, or I would end up blundering around back here in a panic, knocking things over and creating a mad obstacle course for myself.
I stood up carefully, looking for a pencil line of light between the double doors. I found it, a faint but unmistakable scratch on the darkness. I started toward it, and then stopped.
There was a sound. A soft sliding sound. It stopped, then started again with a stealthy little bump. Everything inside me went loose. I regressed magically to four years of age. That sound wasn’t coming from the market. It was coming from behind me. From outside. Where the mist was.
Something that was slipping and sliding and scraping over the cinderblocks. And, maybe, looking for a way in.
Or maybe it was already in, and it was looking for me Maybe in a moment I would feel whatever was making that sound on my shoe. Or on my neck.
It came, again. I was positive it was outside. But that didn’t make it any better. I told my legs to go and the refused the order. Then the quality of the noise changed. Something rasped across the darkness and my heart leaped in my chest and I lunged at that thin vertical line of light. I hit the doors straight-arm and burst through into the market.
Three or four people were right outside the double doors-Ollie Weeks was one of them-and they all jumped back in surprise. Ollie grabbed at his chest. «David!» he said in a pinched voice. «Jesus Christ, you want to take ten years off my-» He saw my face. «What’s the matter with you?»
«Did you hear it?» I asked. My voice sounded strange in my own ears, high and squeaking. «Did any of you hear it?»
They hadn’t heard anything, of course. They had come up to see why the generator had gone off. As Ollie told me that, one of the bag-boys bustled up with an armload of flashlights. He looked from Ollie to me curiously.
«I turned the generator off,» I said, and explained why.