'But it didn't work out that way.'
'No.' Dex ran a hand through his thinning hair.
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'Why not?'
'Because when we got down there, the body was gone.'
'It was gone?'
'That's right. And the crate was gone, too.'
When Charlie Gereson saw the blood, his round and good-natured face went very pale. His eyes, already magnified by his thick spectacles, grew even huger. Blood was puddled on the lab table. It had run down one of the table legs. It was pooled on the floor, and beads of it clung to the light globe and to the white tile wall. Yes, there was plenty of blood.
But no janitor. No crate.
Dex Stanley's jaw dropped. 'What the fuck!' Charlie whispered. Dex saw something then, perhaps the only thing that allowed him to keep his sanity. Already he could feel that central axle trying to pull free. He grabbed Charlie's shoulder and said, 'Look at the blood on the table!'
'I've seen enough,' Charlie said.
His Adam's apple rose and fell like an express elevator as he struggled to keep his lunch down.
'For God's sake, get hold of yourself,' Dex said harshly. 'You're a zoology major. You've seen blood before.'
It was the voice of authority, for that moment anyway. Charlie did get a hold of himself, and they walked a little closer. The random pools of blood on the table were not as random as they had first appeared. Each had been neatly straight-edged on one side.
'The crate sat there,' Dex said. He felt a little better. The fact that the crate really had been there steadied him a good deal. 'And look there.'
He pointed at the floor. Here the blood had been smeared into a wide, thin trail.
It swept toward where the two of them stood, a few paces inside the double doors. It faded and faded, petering out altogether about halfway between the lab table and the doors. It was crystal clear to Dex Stanley, and the nervous sweat on his skin went cold and clammy.
It had gotten out.
It had gotten out and pushed the crate off the table. And then it had pushed the crate...where? Under the stairs, of course. Back under the stairs. Where it had been safe for so long.
'Where's the...the...' Charlie couldn't finish.
'Under the stairs,' Dex said numbly. 'It's gone back to where it came from.'
'No. The...' He jerked it out finally. 'The body.'
'I don't know,' Dex said. But he thought he did know. His mind would simply not admit the truth.
Charlie turned abruptly and walked back through the doors. 'Where are you going?' Dex called shrilly, and ran after him. Charlie stopped 83
opposite the stairs. The triangular black hole beneath them gaped. The janitor's big four-cell flashlight still sat on the floor. And beside it was a bloody scrap of gray cloth, and one of the pens that had been clipped to the man's breast pocket.
'Don't go under there, Charlie! Don't.' His heartbeat whammed savagely in his ears, frightening him even more.
'No,' Charlie said. 'But the body...'
Charlie hunkered down, grabbed the flashlight, and shone it under the stairs.
And the crate was there, shoved up against the far wall, just as it had been before, squat and mute. Except that now it was free of dust and three boards had been pried off the top.
The light moved and centered on one of the janitor's big, sensible work shoes. Charlie drew breath in a low, harsh gasp. The thick leather of the shoe had been savagely gnawed and chewed. The laces hung, broken, from the eyelets. 'It looks like somebody put it through a hay baler,' he said hoarsely.
'Now do you believe me?' Dex asked.
Charlie didn't answer. Holding onto the stairs lightly with one hand, he leaned under the overhang – presumably to get the shoe. Later, sitting in Henry's study, Dex said he could think of only one reason why Charlie would have done that – to measure and perhaps categorize the bite of the thing in the crate. He was, after all, a zoologist, and a damned good one.
'
Suddenly there were two green gold eyes glaring over the top of the crate. They were almost exactly the color of owls' eyes, but smaller.
There was a harsh, chattering growl of anger. Charlie recoiled, startled, and slammed the back of his head on the underside of the stairs. A shadow moved from the crate toward him at projectile speed. Charlie howled. Dex heard the dry purr of his shirt as it ripped open, the click as Charlie's glasses struck the floor and spun away. Once more Charlie tried to back away. The thing began to snarl – then the snarls suddenly stopped. And Charlie Gereson began to scream in agony.
Dex pulled on the back of his white tee shirt with all his might. For a moment Charlie came backwards and he caught a glimpse of a furry, writhing shape spread-eagled on the young man's chest, a shape that appeared to have not four but six legs and the flat bullet head of a young lynx. The front of Charlie Gereson's shirt had been so quickly and completely tattered that it now looked like so many crepe streamers hung around his neck.
Then the thing raised its head and those small green gold eyes stared balefully into Dex's own. He had never seen or dreamed such savagery.
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His strength failed.
