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The bad scent, thing scent, is all around the bed, up on the bed
The thing stood here and talked to the wo the white cloth draped over her, its vile residue there, up there in the bed, rich and ripe up there in the bed with the wo
He races back to the door, turns, runs at the bed, leaps, sails, one paw catching the railing but otherwise clearing all obstacles, up with the sick and fearsoaked woman", plop
A woman screamed
Janet had never been afraid that Woofer would bite anyone He was a gentle and friendly dog, and see that had confronted them in the alleyway earlier in the day
But when she burst into the softly lighted hospital roo on the patient’s bed, for an instant Janet thought it was attacking the woe sight, before she realized Woofer was only straddling the patient and sniffing her, vigorously sniffing but nothing worse
"No," the invalid died, "no, no," as if notout of the deeper pits of Hell had leapt upon her
Janet was ashamed of the commotion, felt responsible, and was afraid of the consequence She doubted that she and Danny would be welcoer
The woman in the bed was thinbeyond thin, wastedand so pale, as softly radiant as a ghost in the laht Her hair hite and lusterless She seemed ancient, a shriveled crone, but some indefinable aspect of her er than she appeared
Obviously weak, she was struggling to rise slightly froht ar Woofer, she turned her head toward the door
Her gaunt face ht once have been beautiful but was now cadaverous and, in one respect at least, nightmarish
Her eyes
She had none
Janet shuddered involuntarilyand was glad she had shielded Danny, after all
"Get it off me!" the woman shrieked in terror out of proportion to any threat that Woofer posed "Get it off ray and purple shadows, the invalid’s eyelids ht fell more directly across her drawn face, the true horror of her condition became apparent Her lids were sewn shut like those of a corpse
The surgical thread had no doubt long ago dissolved, but upper and lower lids had grown together Nothing existed immediately beneath the flaps of skin to support the shallow concavities
Janet felt sure the woman had not been born without eyes Some terrible experience, not nature, had stolen her vision How severe must the injuries have been, if physicians had concluded it wasn’t possible to install glass eyes even for cosmetic reasons? Dire intuition told Janet that this blind and shriveled patient had encountered someone worse than Vince, and more coldblooded thanJanet’s own reptilian parents
As Angelina and athe blind wo to be all right, Woofer leaped to the floor again and foiled the directly for the door to the corridor, he streaked into the adjoining bathroom, which was shared with the roo Danny’s hand in hers, Janet led the chase this time, not solely because she felt responsible for what had happened and was afraid that their dining privileges at Pacific Vieere on the verge of being canceled forever, but because she was eager to leave the shadowed, stuffy room and its mealyskinned, eyeless resident
This time the chase led into the e
Janet da thewasn’t even the huht the She feared attention
Huddling down, keeping quiet, staying in the corners and shadows of life was the only way to reduce the amount of abuse you had to take
Besides, she wanted to remain virtually transparent to others at least until her dead husband had rested under Arizona sands for another year or two
Woofer was too fast for the every step of the way
The evening receptionist in the lounge was a young Hispanic woman in a white unifor risen fro tumult, she assessed the situation and acted quickly She stepped to the front door as Woofer flew into the lounge She opened it, and let him shoot past her into the street
Outside, breathless, Janet halted at the bottom of the front steps
The care hohway, on a sloped street lined with Indian laurels and bottlebrush trees The ht When a fluctuant breeze shivered branches, the pave leaf shadows
Woofer was about forty feet away, dappled by the blue light, sniffing continuously at the sidewalk, shrubs, tree trunks, curb He tested the night airan elusive scent
From the bottlebrush trees, the storm had knocked down scores of bristly red blooms which littered the pavement, like colonies of mutant sea ane sniffed at these, he sneezed His progress was halting and uncertain but steadily southward
"Woofer!" Danny shouted
The mutt turned and looked at them
"Come back!" Danny pleaded
Woofer hesitated Then he twitched his head, snapped at the air, and continued after whatever phantoht he liked ret the unvoiced curses she had heaped upon the dog during the chase She called after him, as well
"He’ll come back," she assured Danny
"He’s not"
"Maybe not now but later, maybe tomorrow or the day after, he’ll come home"
The boy’s voice trembled with loss: "How can he come home when there’s no home to find us at?"
"There’s the car," she said lamely
She was rievously inadequate ho able to provide no better for her son suddenly made her heart so heavy that it ached She was troubled by fear, anger, frustration, and a desperation so intense that it s have sharper senses than we do," she said "He’ll track us down
He’ll track us down, all right"
Black tree shadows stirred on the pavement, a vision of the dead leaves of autu reached the end of the block and turned the corner, ht