now and then there would be a breathless whistling sound in
between.
At last Dex broke free of his paraiysis and lunged creakily forward.
He grabbed the janitor's free arm. He yanked ... with no result at
all. It was like trying to pull a man who has been handcuffed to the
bumper of a trailer truck.
The janitor screamed again--a long, ululating sound that rolled
back and forth between the lab's sparkling, white-tiled walls. Dex
could see the gold glimmer of the fillings at the back of the man's
mouth. He could see the yellow ghost of nicotine on his tongue.
The janitor's head slammed down against the edge of the board he
had been about to remove when the thing had grabbed him. And
this time Dex did see something, although it happened with such
mortal, savage speed that later he was unable to describe it
adequately to Henry. Something as dry and brown and scaly as a
desert reptile came out of the crate--something with huge claws. It
tore at the janitor's straining, knotted throat and severed his jugular
vein. Blood began to pump across the table, pooling on the formica
and jetting onto the white-tiled floor. For a moment, a mist of
blood seemed to hang in the air.
Dex dropped the janitor's arm and blundered backward, hands
clapped flat to his cheeks, eyes bulging.
The janitor's eyes rolled wildly at the ceiling. His mouth dropped
open and then snapped closed. The click of his teeth was audible
even below that hungry growling. His feet, clad in heavy black
work shoes, did a short and jittery tap dance on the floor.
Then he seemed to lose interest. His eyes grew almost benign as
they looked raptly at the overhead light globe, which was also
blood-spattered. His feet splayed out in a loose V. His shirt pulled
out of his pants, displaying his white and bulging belly.
'He's dead,' Dex whispered. 'Oh, Jesus.'
The pump of the janitor's heart faltered and lost its rhythm. Now
the blood that flowed from the deep, irregular gash in his neck lost
its urgency and merely flowed down at the command of indifferent
gravity. The crate was stained and splashed with blood. The
snarling seemed to go on endlessly. The crate rocked back and
forth a bit, but it was too well-braced against the instrument mount
to go very far. The body of the janitor lolled grotesquely, still
grasped firmly by whatever was in there. The small of his back
was pressed against the lip of the lab table. His free hand dangled,
sparse hair curling on the fingers between the first and second
knuckles. His big key ring glimmered chrome in the light.
And now his body began to rock slowly this way and that. His
shoes dragged back and forth, not tap dancing now but waltzing
obscenely. And then they did not drag. They dangled an inch off
the floor... then two inches.., then half a foot above the floor. Dex
realized that the janitor was being dragged into the crate.
Tile nape of his neck came to rest against the board fronting the far
side of the hole in the top of the crate. He looked like a man resting
