WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

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

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