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"Just once, quick, for a clearer look," he urged

Against all instincts, I did as Bobby wanted, crouching over the cuure for a better view

The tinted Plexiglas still partially obscured what lay beyond, but at once I understood ith the single flashlight, we hadn’t been able to see poor Hodgson’s face: Hodgson no longer had a face Inside the hel voraciously on the rele of seething, squirs that looked somewhat soft-bodied like worms but were not worms, that also looked soreasy white colony of so unnameable that had invaded his suit and overwhelmed him with such rapidity that he had died no less abruptly than if he had been shot straight through the heart And now these twitching things responded to the flashlight bealas faceplate, tee backward, I thought I saw son’s violated pressure suit, as though the things that had killed hi to boil out of those punctures

Bobby split without firing the shotgun, which he ht easily have done, out of shock and terror Thank God he didn’t pull the trigger A shotgun blast or two--or ten--wouldn’t wipe out even half the hellacious swarson’s pressure suit, but it would probably pu frenzy

As I ran, I switched off the flashlights, because the fireworks in the walls were gaining speed and power once h Bobby had been farther froot there ahead of me

The vault door was as solid as a damn vault door

What I’d seen from a distance was confirmed close up: There was no wheel or other release e the lock bolts

14

Back toward the center of the rooson’s pressure suit here we had left it Because it hadn’t collapsed upon itself like a deflated balloon, I assuhtson on which those squir

Bobby tapped the barrel of the shotgun against the door The sound was as real as steel striking steel

"Mirage?" I suggested, tossing his deficient explanation back at hiht under us"

In reply, I slapped us," he insisted "Check your watch"

I was less interested in the tison’s pressure suit

With a shudder, I realized that I was brushing at the sleeves ofthe side of s that weren’t really there

Motivated by a vividhorde inside the hele of the door and pulled I grunted, cursed, and pulled harder, as though Ithe store of energy I’d laid up from a breakfast of crumb cake and hot chocolate

"Check your watch," Bobby repeated

He had rucked back the sleeve of his cotton pullover to look at his oatch This surprised me He had never before worn a timepiece, and now he had one just like ital readout on the oversize face of my atch, I saw 4:08 PM The correct ti

"Mine, too," he said, showing ?"

"No That’s what time it is Here Now In this place"

"Witchy"

"Pure Saleistered the date in a separatebelow the digital time display This was the twelfth of April My watch claimed it was Mon Feb 19 So did Bobby’s

I wondered what year the watch would reveal if its datehad been four digits wider Somewhere in the past A -brow scientists on the Mystery Train team, an afternoon when the feces hit the flabellu-streahts in the walls were slowly but noticeably di

I looked toward the bio-secure suit, which had proved no anis leaf, and I saw that whatever inhabited it was ainst the floor, and one leg twitched, and the entire body quivered as though a powerful electric current was passing through it

"Not good," I decided

"It’ll fade"

"Oh, yeah?"

"The screaainst the vault door

"It’ll fade," Bobby insisted

Though the light shoas di ainst the floor It bucked and thrashed its aret up," I said

"Can’t hurt us"

"You serious?" My logic seeh to keep us in here, then that thing’s real enough to cause usbeen infor fade, the Hodgson suit thrashed and bucked and rocked until it rolled off its air tank and onto its side I was looking at the dark faceplate again, and I could feel so back at las, not si, but a cohesive and formidable entity, a malevolent consciousness, as curious about ination at work

This was a perception as unauous and valid as the chill I would have felt if I’d held an ice cube to the nape of my neck

"It’ll fade," Bobby repeated, and the thin note of dread in his voice revealed that he, too, are of being observed