The floor in there was littered with a dozen mangled paintings and glass from
the broken window by which the thing had entered after climbing ontO the front
porch roof.
Waiting, Travis stood with his legs spread wide. The gun in both hands. Blinking
sweat out of his eyes. Trying to ignore the seething pain in his right shoulder.
Waiting.
The Outsider must be to the left of the door—or behind it on the right,
crouched, ready to spring. If he gave it time, maybe it would grow tired of
waiting and would rush him, and he could cut it down in the doorway.
No, it’s as smart as Einstein, he told himself. Would Einstein be so dumb as to
rush me through a narrow doorway? No. No, it’ll do something more intelligent,
unexpected.
The sky exploded with thunder so powerful it vibrated the windows and shook the
house. Chain lightning sizzled through the day.
Come on you bastard, show yourself.
He glanced at Nora and Einstein, who stood a few steps away from him, with the
master bedroom on one side of them and the bathroom on the other side, the
stairs behind them.
He looked again through the doorway, at the window glass among the debris on the
floor. Suddenly he was certain that The Outsider was no longer in the studio,
that it had gone out through the window, onto the roof of the front porch, and
that it was coming at them from another part of the house, through another door,
perhaps out of one of the bedrooms, or from the bathroom—or maybe it would
explode at them, shrieking, from the top of the steps.
He motioned Nora forward, to his side. “Cover me.”
Before she could object, he went through the doorway, into the studio, moving in
a crouch. He nearly fell in the rubble, but stayed on his feet and spun around,
ready to open fire if the thing was looming over him.
It was gone.
The closet door was open. Nothing in there.
He went to the broken window and cautiously looked out onto the roof of the
rain-washed porch. Nothing.
Wind keened over the dangerously sharp shards of glass still bristling from the
window frame.
He started back toward the upstairs hail. He could see Nora out there, looking
in at him, scared, but gamely clutching her Uzi. Behind her, the door to the
future nursery opened, and it was there, yellow eyes aglow. Its monstrous jaws
cracked wide, full of teeth far sharper than the wicked glass shards in the
window frame.
She was aware of it, started to turn, but it struck at her before she had a
chance to fire. It tore the Uzi out of her hands.
It had no chance to gut her with its razor-edged six-inch claws because, even as
the beast was tearing the pistol out of her hands, Einstein charged it,
snarling. With catlike quickness, The Outsider shifted its attention from Nora
to the dog. It whipped around on him, lashed out as if its long arms Were
constructed with more than one elbow joint. It snatched Einstein up in both
horrendous hands.
Crossing the studio to the hall door, Travis had no clear shot at The Outsider
because Nora was between him and that hateful thing. As Travis reached the
doorway, he cried out for her to fall down, to give him a line of fire, and she
did, immediately, but too late. The Outsider scooped Einstein into the nursery
and slammed the door, as if it were an evil nightmare-spawned jack-in-the-
box that had popped out and popped back in with its prey, all in the blink of an
eye.
Einstein squealed, and Nora rushed the nursery door.
“No!” Travis shouted, pulling her aside.
He aimed the automatic carbine at the closed door and emptied the rest of the
magazine into it, punching at least thirty holes in the wood, crying out through
clenched teeth as pain flared through his shoulder. There was some risk of
hitting Einstein, but the retriever would be in worse danger if Travis did not
open fire. When the gun stopped spitting bullets, he ripped out the empty