second thoughts about going up against an armed man. The thing turned— it was
quick, far quicker than a cat—and crossed the unlighted dining room to the
kitchen doorway. For a moment, he saw it silhouetted in the murky light from the
kitchen, and he had the impression of something that had never been meant to
stand erect but was standing erect anyway, something with a misshapen head twice
as large as it ought to have been, a hunched back, arms too long and terminating
in claws like the tines of a garden rake.
He fired again and came closer the mark. The bullet tore out a chunk of the door
frame.
With a shriek, the beast disappeared into the kitchen.
What in the name of God was it? Where had it come from? Had it really escaped
from the same lab that had produced Einstein? But how had they made this
monstrosity? And why? Why?
He was a well-read man: in-fact, for the last few years, most of his time was
devoted to books, so possibilities began to occur to him. Recombinant-DNA
research was foremost among them.
Einstein stood in the middle of the dining room, barking, facing the doorway
where the thing had vanished.
Lurching to his feet in the living room, Travis called the dog back to his side,
and Einstein returned quickly, eagerly.
He shushed the dog, listened intently. He heard Nora frantically calling his
name from the yard out front, but he heard nothing in the kitchen.
For Nora’s benefit, he shouted, “I’m okay! I’m all right! Stay out there!”
Einstein was shivering.
Travis could hear the loud two-part thudding of his own heart, and he could
almost hear the sweat trickling down his face and down the small of his back,
but he could hear nothing whatsoever to pinpoint that escapee from a nightmare.
He did not think it had gone out the back door into the rear yard. For One
thing, he figured the creature did not want to be seen by a lot of people and,
therefore, only went outside at night, traveled exclusively in the dark, When it
could slip even into a fair-sized town like Santa Barbara without being
spotted. The day was still light enough to make the thing leery of the outdoors.
Furthermore, Travis could sense its presence nearby, the way he might sense that
someone was staring at him behind his back, the way he might sense an oncoming
thunderstorm on a humid day with a lowering sky. It was out there, all right,
waiting in the kitchen, ready and waiting.
Cautiously, Travis returned to the archway and stepped into the half-dark dining
room.
Einstein stayed close at his side, neither whining nor growling nor barking. The
dog seemed to realize that Travis needed complete silence in order to hear any
sound the beast might make.
Travis took two more steps.
Ahead, through the kitchen door, he could see a corner of the table, the sink,
part of a counter, half of the dishwasher. The setting sun was at the other end
of the house, and the light in the kitchen was dim, gray, so their adversary
would not cast a revealing shadow. It might be waiting on either side of the
door, or it might have climbed onto the counters from which it could launch
itself down at him when he entered the room.
Trying to trick the creature, hoping that it would react without hesitation to
the first sign of movement in the doorway, Travis tucked the revolver under his
belt, quietly picked up one of the dining-room chairs, eased to within six feet
of the kitchen, and pitched the chair through the open door. He snatched the
revolver out of his waistband and, as the chair sailed into the kitchen, assumed
a shooter’s stance. The chair crashed into the Formica-topped table, clattered
to the floor, and banged against the dishwasher.
The lantern-eyed enemy did not go for it. Nothing moved. When the chair finished
tumbling, the kitchen was again marked by a hushed expectancy.
Einstein was making a curious sound, a quiet shuddery huffing, and after a
moment Travis realized the noise was a result of the dog’s uncontrollable