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The three proceeded deeper into the kitchen, past the brooht They seeer inhibited by the noisy flooring

A second squad, also composed of three members and also revealed only by their eyeshine, entered the room They paused to survey the unpierceable darkness, and one by one they looked in my direction without any indication that they detected me

From elsewhere in the kitchen arose the continuous crackle of the brittle linoleu and a thump, noises no doubt made by one of the first three monkeys as it climbed onto a counter

The button on my cap was pressed so firmly between the crown of h God’s thuainst my scalp in a not so subtle announcement that my number was up, my ticket punched, my dime dropped, my license to live revoked If I could have hunched down an inch or two, the pressure would have been relieved, but I was afraid that even with thea racket, I would still be heard asthe walls of the narrow closet Besides, the twitching nerve inhad quickly evolved into a e in ht contract the calf ony

A an tonervously fro murk As the clever little beast approached, I could hear it rhythainst the wall to keep itself oriented

In another corner of the rooed shut, its loose joints rattling

Evidently, they were opening the cabinets and fu blindly inside

I had hoped that they would not be intelligent enough to conduct a thorough search or, conversely, that they would be too intelligent to endanger theht be waiting to blast theh, all right, but too reckless to be as cautious as the situation required From past encounters, I had already known all this about theretted doing so almost as soon as I was encased, I’d been in denial

The wall slapper was still co toward me, no more than three feet away Its eyes continued to blaze at the glooes squeaked A warped cabinet door stuttered open with soed shut

The cramp in my calf abruptly becaroaning I had a headache, too: The cap button felt as if it had been pressed all the way throughits way out through ht eye My neck ached My scrunched shoulders didn’t feel too good, either I had a nagging pain in the su that I was developing serious heeneral feeling prettythe hen it reached the corner and discovered the cabinetry It was directly in front of me now

I was almost four feet taller than this h it was unnervingly intelligent, I was a lot sazed down at it with dread and loathing, cringing inwardly, with no less repulsion and fear for my life than I would have felt if this had been a deht from Hell

It is easy to make jokes about the troop when you are at a comfortable distance from them Yet a close encounter reduces you to pri sense of the alien, and infuses the waking world with that acutely real yet sihtmares

The sympathy I’d had for them earlier was still with me, markedly di by where its bright eyes were focused and by the fu the face frame to which the broohed less than three pounds, but it felt as heavy as a granite gravestone I tightened hteen rounds

Seventeen, really

I would have to count the shots as I squeezed them off--and save the last round for myself

Above the other sounds in the kitchen, I heard the es fro

The total depth ofplace was only two feet, whichmere inches from the inquisitive primate If it reached inside, there was no chance whatsoever that it would fail to discover me Only the terrible stench in the kitchen prevented it fro me

The crah theinvoluntarily

Elsewhere in the rooed shut

Then another opened with a squeak of hinges

Linoleuh trying to rid itself of the air’s foul taste

I had the curious feeling that I was about to wake up and find , and now it hammered even faster when Sasha’s face bloomed in ain, never hold her again, never look again into her kind eyes: This was as frightening as the likelihood that I would be torn apart by the troop Andat her side to help her cope with this strange and violent neorld, of leaving her alone when, at the next day’s end, night returned hoht Bay once more

Before me, the monkey remained invisible except for its luhter as it peered suspiciously into the broom closet Its attention traveled upward froht be better than mine, but in this pure liquid blackness, which was as unrelieved as that four miles down at the bottom of the sea, I was sure that ere equally blind

Yet our eyes locked

We see contest, and I didn’t believe thatatdirectly into both my eyes