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"Who? What people? What the hell kind of people would like the way I smell?"

"You must like it So other people like you, they’d like it"

Gathering the clothes he had chosen, Mr Lyss said, "I’e Don’t try to talk me out of it"

Nummy followed the old man into the hallway, to the door of the bathroos?"

"Don’t answer it"

"What if the phone rings?"

"Don’t answer it"

"What if Mrs Trudy LaPierre comes back?"

"She won’t"

"What if--"

Mr Lyss turned on Nummy, and his face twisted up so he looked every bit like the worst kind of badme! Stay away from the s and sit somewhere with your head up your butt till I tell you to take it out, you clueless, useless, fu, flat-footed retard!"

The old man stepped into the bathroom and sla to ask a couple of questions through the door, but he decided that would be a bad idea

Instead, he went into the kitchen He circled the roo

He said aloud, "Faster is disaster Easy and slow h double, you’ll stay out of trouble"

The phone didn’t ring

Nobody rang the doorbell

Everything was going to be all right

Chapter 37

When Bryce came out of Room 218, no one manned the nurses’ station Her back to him, Doris Makepeace proceeded to the farther end of theand disappeared into a patient’s room

No other nurse, orderly, or maintenance person could be seen Even for a hospital, the long hallway struck him as uncannily quiet Especially for a hospital The i see a pretense of nor truth

With the nurses’ station unattended, thenoticed He wanted to check out lower floors to learn if the conditions here were universal

The building was shaped like a squared-off C, with three wings of equal length, one running north-south and two running east-west Theoffered central stairs and elevators, and the east-ings each provided a staircase The hallway at the south end of the building was the nearer of the two, and he headed for it

As he passed roolanced at the patients For this time of day, an unusual number appeared to be asleep Few TVs were on He saw a couple of visitors sitting at bedsides, waiting for the sleepers to wake

He should have told Travis to pretend to take any pill a nurse ue and spit it out the moment she left the room

In the south hall, he went to the west end, where an exit sign identified the eround floor

This was the ift shop, with the labs and surgeries It also provided additional patient rooms

Bryce cracked the door, peered out As he re, where MRIs, X-rays, and other tests were performed To meet requirements of the hospital’s liability insurance, a patient here would always be in a wheelchair, being taken to and fro to risk being stopped and escorted back to his roolimpse of the lowest floor, the basement The voices that he’d heard in the return-air duct had seereater than the baseinated below the hts to the bottom of the stairwell The basement door bore the same stern notice that had appeared on upper doors--THIS FIRE EXIT MUST REMAIN UNLOCKED AT ALL TIMES--but it would not open He tried the lever again, with no success

Then he heard someone insert a key in the lock

With the instinct of a rabbit stalked by a wolf, Bryce turned and bounded up the stairs two at a tiht enter below, he snatched off his slippers because they made too much noise

As the lower door opened, Bryce continued cli, where he paused with one hand on the lever of the exit door

He heard no footsteps ascending, but neither did he hear the base it open

Whoever ordered the door to be illegally locked had not trusted in the lock alone A guard apparently had been stationed on the other side

Bryce held his breath, listening to the sentinel who listened for movement in the silent stairwell

From somewhere in the base as any of the tortured voices that had risen through the return-air duct

The door at the bottoer hear the uard had returned to the baseered this side of the door If someone still listened for hih an entirely internal sound, his thunderous heartbeat haround floor and the base to see a shadowThe concrete was cold under his bare feet

Chapter 38