fixing something. Now Ted was broken, too, and beyond repair.
Because of the ripe stink, Travis first thought the man must have been killed at
least a week ago. But on closer inspection, the corpse proved to be neither
bloated with the gas of decomposition nor marked by any signs of decay, so it
could not have been there for very long. Perhaps only a day, perhaps less. The
hideous stench had two other sources: for one thing, the landlord had been
disemboweled; furthermore, his killer had apparently defecated and urinated on
and around the body.
Ted Hockney’s eyes were gone.
Travis felt sick, and not only because he had liked Ted. He would have been
sickened by such insane violence regardless of who the dead man had been. A
death like this left the victim no dignity whatsoever and somehow diminished the
entire human race.
Einstein’s low growling gave way to ugly snarling punctuated with hard, sharp
barks.
With a nervous twitch and a sudden hammering of his heart, Travis turned from
the corpse and saw that the retriever was facing into the nearby dining room.
The shadows were deep in there because the drapes were drawn shut over both
windows, and only a thin gray light passed through from the kitchen beyond.
Go, get out, leave! an inner voice told him.
But he did not turn and run because he had never run away from anything in his
life. Well, all right, that was not quite true: he had virtually run away from
life itself these past few years when he had let despair get the best of him.
His descent into isolation had been the ultimate cowardice. However, that was
behind him; he was a new man, transformed by Einstein and Nora, and he was not
going to run again, damned if he was.
Einstein went rigid. He arched his back, thrust his head down and forward, and
barked so furiously that saliva flew from his mouth.
Travis took a step toward the dining-room arch.
The retriever stayed at Travis’s side, barking more viciously.
Holding the revolver in front of him, trying to take confidence from the
powerful weapon, Travis eased forward another step, treading cautiously in the
treacherous rubble. He was only two or three steps from the archway. He squinted
into the gloomy dining room.
Einstein’s barking resounded through the house until it seemed as if a whole
pack of dogs must be loose in the place.
Travis took one more step, then saw something move in the shadowy dining room.
He froze.
Nothing. Nothing moved. Had it been a phantom of the mind?
Beyond the arch, layered shadows hung like gray and black crepe.
He wasn’t sure if he had seen movement or merely imagined it.
Back off, get out, now! the inner voice said.
In defiance of it, Travis raised one foot, intending to step into the archway.
The thing in the dining room moved again. This time there was no doubt of its
presence, because it rushed out of the deepest darkness at the far side
of that chamber, vaulted onto the dining-room table, and came straight at
Travis, emitting a blood-freezing shriek. He saw lantern eyes in the gloom, and
a nearly man-size figure that—in spite of the poor light—gave an impression of
deformity. Then the thing was coming off the table, straight at him.
Einstein charged forward to engage it, but Travis tried to step back and gain an
extra second in which to squeeze off a shot. As he pulled the trigger, he
slipped on the ruined books that littered the floor, and fell backward. The
revolver roared, but Travis knew he had missed, had fired into the ceiling. For
an instant, as Einstein scrambled toward the adversary, Travis saw the
lantern-eyed thing more clearly, saw it work alligator jaws and crack open an
impossibly wide mouth in a lumpish face, revealing wickedly hooked teeth.
“Einstein, no!” he shouted, for he knew the dog would be torn to pieces in any
confrontation with this hellish creature, and he fired again, twice, wildly,
from his position on the floor.
His cry and the shots not only brought Einstein to a halt but gave the enemy