watchman folded up and my uncle was out of a job. He was out of
work for almost half a year. We were getting desperate, with
only unemployment checks to feed us and college looming up for
me. Then he got a job. It was a good paying one and it brought in
fabulous sums. I used to joke with him about the banks be robbed.
One night he looked at me and said, 'Not banks.''
I felt fear and guilt tap me on the shoulder with cold fingers. Vicki
went on.
'He started to get mean. He started bringing home whisky and
getting drunk. The times I asked him about his job he evaded me.
One night he told me point-blank to mind my own business.'
'I watched him decay before my very eyes. Then one night he let a
name slip - Weinbaum, Steffen Weinbaum. A couple of weeks
later he forgot his midnight lunch. I looked up the name in the
telephone book and took it out to him. He flew into the most
terrible rage I have ever seen.'
'In the weeks that followed he was away more and more at this
terrible house. One night, when he came home he beat me. I
decided to run away. To me, the Uncle David I knew was dead. He
caught me - and you came along.' She fell silent.
I was shaken right down to my boots. I had a very good idea what
Vicki's uncle did for a living. The time Rankin had signed me up
coincided with the time Vicki's guardian would have been cracking
up. I almost drove away then, despite the wild shambles the lab
was in, despite the secret stairway, despite the blood trail on the
floor. But then a faraway, thin scream reached us. I thumbed the
glove compartment button, and reached in, fumbled around and got
the flashlight.
Vicki's hand went to my arm 'No, Danny. Please, Don't. l know
that there's something terrible going on here. Drive away from it!'
The scream sounded again, this time fainter, and I made up my
mind. I grabbed the flashlight. Vicki saw my intention. 'All right,
I'm coming with you.'
'Uh-uh,' I said. 'You stay here. I've got a feeling that there's
something ... loose out there. You stay here.'
She unwillingly sat back. I shut the door and ran back to the lab. I
didn't pause, but went back into the garage. The flashlight
illuminated the dark hole where the wall had slid away to reveal
the staircase. My blood pounding thickly in my temples, I ventured
down into it. I counted the steps, shining the flashlight at the
featureless walls, at the impenetrable darkness below. 'Twenty,
twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three '
At thirty, the stairway suddenly became a short passage. I started
cautiously along it, wishing that I had a revolver, or even a knife to
make me feel a little less naked and vulnerable.
Suddenly a scream, terrible and thick with fear soon sounded in the
darkness ahead of me. It was the sound of terror, the sound of a
man confronted with something out of the deepest pits of horror. I
broke into a run. As I ran I realized that the draft was blowing
