“Abandoned buildings like that always attract vandals, Mr. Smith,” Buckley said.
Smith made a wordless noise of agreement into the phone, and then added, “By the way, there’s something I should tell you, if you’re still investigating all this. I’ve moved out of my apartment there; after what happened, it made me nervous staying there.”
“I think that’s understandable, Mr. Smith, but if you’ll forgive me, don’t you feel that you’re giving in to the people responsible? They’ll probably think it’s all very funny that they forced you out of your home…”
“Lieutenant,” Smith interrupted, “That’s not my home. I only lived there a few months, and I was never all that comfortable there. I just wanted to let you know where you can reach me.”
“All right, then.”
“For now, I’m staying at the Red Roof Inn in Gaithersburg, Room 203. I’ll be looking for a new apartment this afternoon. If I forget to tell you where I am, you can either ask my boss, Einar Lindqvist, or a friend of mine, George Brayton.” He gave George’s address and phone number.
There was silence for a moment, and Smith assumed Buckley was noting down the information.
“All right, Mr. Smith, thank you. Was there anything else?”
Smith hesitated, trying to think if there was anything he could say that would force Buckley to push his investigation a little harder, anything that might help him discover the monsters.
“No, that’s all,” he said at last. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Smith.”
He hung up.
7.
As he passed the Willow Street fork he began to slow down.
By the time he reached the entrance to the Bedford Mills complex he was creeping along at little more than walking speed, and on the small bump that marked the division between street and lot he let the car come to a full stop.
It was mid-afternoon, and sweltering hot. He had eaten lunch, found himself a new apartment over in Gaithersburg that would be available Wednesday and only cost about twice what it should, and it was time to come and look over his old place, pack up a few useful things and load them in the car. He was tired of living out of a hastily-packed suitcase.
But this place was full of monsters.
One of them was apparently living in his own apartment.
What would he do if he walked in the door and came face to face with that thing?
He hadn’t entirely worked that out, but his new folding knife was in his hip pocket, and the crowbar was on the seat beside him, waiting for him.
Sooner or later, he would have to face this. He was not going to abandon all his belongings. His books, his stereo, his Kaypro 2000 laptop – he was not going to just leave them.
He stepped on the gas, and the Chevy rolled forward into the lot.
The lot was fuller than usual for this time of the afternoon on a weekday, even a Friday; he glanced at his watch, and saw that it wasn’t even 4:30 yet. Mildly puzzled, he found a space in front of C building and pulled in.
He glanced around carefully before shutting off the engine, but he saw no one. He picked up the crowbar and hefted it, then climbed out of the car.
He left the door unlocked, just in case he had to leave quickly, and stuffed the keys well down into his pocket, where they wouldn’t fall out accidentally.
Then, crowbar in hand, he entered the building.
The stairwell was empty and quiet, and seemed even more dusty than usual. He tried to move silently as he climbed the stairs, pausing on each landing to look ahead and make sure no one was waiting for him.
At the top he headed for the door to C41, and his hand fell to his keys from habit, but he stopped himself before he put the key in the lock. He leaned forward and peered into the peephole.
It didn’t work properly in this direction, and in any case could only show him a small part of the interior, but he stared through it anyway.
Nothing looked wrong. Nobody was there. Everything was as he had left it.
He unlocked the door, pocketed the key, and then shifted the crowbar to his right hand and adjusted his grip. He took a deep breath, and swung open the door.
He had half expected to find the place torn up, as burglars might have left it, but nothing had been disturbed. Everything was just as he had left it on Wednesday afternoon.
The air conditioning still hadn’t been fixed, and the apartment was like an oven, but it was otherwise undisturbed.
He had not expected to see the nightmare person in it, and he didn’t. The apartment was empty.
Somehow, he simply couldn’t imagine seeing that creature in full daylight, and the bright August sunlight was pouring in every window.
Of course, the creature had to be somewhere, and it had answered his phone in daylight – though that had been morning, when his side of the building was in shadow.
Still, he somehow hadn’t expected to find it here.
He moved cautiously through the place, checking the living room, the dining area, the tiny walk-through kitchen, then down the hall, a quick look in the bathroom, and into the front bedroom that he had used as his library-cum-office.
Nothing had been disturbed. The laptop computer was packed up and sitting beside the bookcase, and his main machine, a customized Compaq Deskpro 386, was on the desk.
The dustcover was off the monitor, and he tried to remember whether he had left it that way or not.
After a moment’s thought he decided he had. He usually did.
He went on to the bedroom, but nothing was out of place there, either.
There was no sign that the monster had ever dared to intrude here.
He wondered, for an instant, where it was just now, and then suppressed the thought. It wasn’t here, and that was enough.
He held onto the crowbar, though, as he began planning what to take with him.
The first thing to get was the laptop, he decided as he emerged into the hallway again, and second would be the Compaq. With those in his possession he would be much more in control of things, he thought. He’d also have something better to do than watch TV all night.
Someone knocked at the door.
He froze.
Another knock sounded.
“Who is it?” he called.
After all, he tried to tell himself, it didn’t have to be one of the monsters. It could be Lieutenant Buckley, or Einar come to check on his story, or any number of other people.
“Mr. Smith? It’s me, Bill Goodwin, from downstairs.”
He hesitated, unsure what to do.
The Goodwin boy was one of them, wasn’t he? He was the one who had alerted them all after spotting Smith coming out of the Orchard Heights basement, so that they could clear out the bones and paint over the blood in time.
But this might be a chance to learn more about what was really going on, if he could talk to one of them. And if it was just the one of them, in broad daylight – and Bill wasn’t that big, and he had his crowbar…
“Just a minute!” Smith called.
He crossed the living room and peered through the peephole.
It looked like Bill Goodwin, certainly, standing there in cut-off shorts and an old Metallica T-shirt. And he couldn’t see anybody else.
He hooked the chain-bolt, opened the door a crack, and looked out.
He still saw nobody else.
“All right, come in,” he said, opening the door wide.
“Hey, I didn’t mean…”
“Get in here!” Smith bellowed, startling them both.
“Okay, okay!” The boy ducked quickly inside, and Smith slammed and locked the door behind him.
Then he turned to face his guest, still holding his crowbar, and gestured toward the chairs over by the windows. “Have a seat,” he said.
He wanted the boy in the sunlight. He couldn’t have said why; it just seemed safer, somehow.
“Sure,” the lad said, dropping onto one of the chairs. “Hey, what’s with the wrecking bar?”
Smith settled slowly onto the other chair, never loosening his grip on the crowbar and never taking his eyes off his guest. “Just a precaution,” he said. “I think somebody broke in here while I was out.”
The other made a wordless noise of concern.