event. Perhaps an electromagnetic disturbance of some kind. No more
threat to him than a summer thunderstorm.
On April first, he unloaded the two rifles and two shotguns. After
cleaning them, he returned the guns to the cabinet in the study.
However, still slightly uneasy, he kept the .22 target pistol on his
nightstand. It didn't pack a tremendous punch but, loaded with
hollow-point cartridges, it could do some damage.
In the dark hours of the morning of April fourth, Eduardo was awakened
by the low throbbing that swelled and faded, swelled and faded. As in
early March, that pulsating sound was accompanied by an eerie
electronic oscillation.
He sat straight up in bed, blinking at the window. During the three
years since Margaret had died, he'd not slept in the master bedroom at
the front of the house, which they had shared. Instead, he bunked down
in one of two back bedrooms. Consequently, the window faced west, a
hundred and eighty degrees around the compass from the eastern woods
where he had seen the strange light.
The night sky was deep and black beyond the window.
The Stiffel lamp on the nightstand had a pull-chain instead of a thumb
switch.
Just before he turned it on, he had the feeling that something was in
the room with him, something he would be better off not seeing. He
hesitated, fingers tightly pinching the metal beads of the pull.
Intently he searched the darkness, his heart pounding, as if he had
wakened into a nightmare replete with a monster. When at last he
tugged the chain, however, the light revealed that he was alone.
He picked up his wristwatch from the nightstand and checked the time.
Nineteen minutes past one o'clock.
He threw off the covers and got out of bed. He was in his long
underwear. His blue jeans and a flannel shirt were close at hand,
folded over the back of an armchair, beside which stood a pair of
boots. He was already wearing socks, because his feet often got cold
during the night if he slept without them.
The sound was louder than it had been a month before, and it pulsed
through the house with noticeably greater effect than before. In
March, Eduardo had experienced a sense of pressure along with the
rhythmic pounding-- which, like the sound, crested repeatedly in a
series of waves. Now the pressure had increased dramatically. He
didn't merely sense it but felt it, indescribably different from the
pressure of turbulent air, more like the invisible tides of a cold sea
washing across his body.
By the time he hurriedly dressed and snatched the loaded .22 pistol
from the nightstand, the pull-chain was swinging wildly and clinking
against the burnished brass body of the lamp. The windowpanes
vibrated. The paintings rattled against the walls, askew on their
wires.
He rushed downstairs into the foyer, where there was no need to switch
on a light. In the front door, the beveled edges of the leaded panes
in the oval window sparkled with reflections of the mysterious glow
outside. It was far brighter than it had been the previous month. The
