Dean Koontz - Tick Tock

Instead of charging again, the mini-kin abruptly darted toward the sofa, which still stood away from the wall where Tommy had left it during the search.

With the pistol sight, Tommy followed the creature, but he wasn’t able to track it closely enough to justify squeezing off one of his remaining shots.

The thing disappeared behind the sofa.

Buoyed slightly by his adversary’s retreat, Tommy dared to hope that the.40-caliber round had done some damage after all, at least enough to make the little beast cautious. Seeing the mini-kin run from him, he regained a degree perspective regarding the indisputable advantage of size that he enjoyed. A modest measure of his lost confidence returned to him.

Tommy eased across the room to peer around that big piece of furniture. The far end of the sofa still touched the wall, and it was built to the floor, so the space behind it was a V-shaped dead end, yet the mini-kin wasn’t there.

Then he saw the torn flaps of fabric and the ragged hole in the upholstery. The creature had burrowed into the sofa and was now hiding inside it.

Why?

Why ask why?

From the moment the stitches had pulled out of the doll’s face and the first monstrous eye had blinked at him through the tear in the cloth, Tommy had been beyond all the why questions. They were more suitable for a sane universe where logic ruled, not for this place in which he currently found himself. The main issue now was how - how could he stop the beast, how could he save himself? And he also had to ask what next? Even if the utter irrationality of these events made it impossible to anticipate where the night would lead before dawn, he had to try to puzzle out the purpose behind the doll, the course of the plot.

THE DEADLINE IS DAWN.

He didn’t understand that message at all. What dead-line, for God’s sake? Who had established it? What did he have to do to meet the deadline?

TICKTOCK.

Oh, he understood that message well enough. Time was running out. The night was passing as fast as the rain was falling outside, and if he didn’t get his act together, then he was going to be toast before sunrise.

TICKTOCK.

Toast for the hungry mini-kin.

TICKTOCK.

Munch, munch. Crunch, crunch.

His head was spinning - and not simply because he had thumped it hard against the floor when he’d fallen.

He circled the sofa, studying it as he moved.

Fire. Maybe a roaring fire could achieve better results than a bullet.

While the creature was building a nest - or doing whatever the hell it was doing in there - Tommy might be able to sneak down to the garage, siphon a quart of gasoline out of the Corvette, grab a pack of matches from a drawer in the kitchen, and return to set the sofa on fire.

No. No, that would take too long. The repulsive little creepozoid would realize that he was gone, and when he came back, the thing probably wouldn’t be inside the sofa any more.

Now the mini-kin was quiet, which didn’t mean that it was taking a nap. It was scheming at something.

Tommy needed to scheme too. Desperately.

Think, think.

Because of the light-beige carpet, Tommy kept one can of spot remover downstairs and another upstairs in the master bathroom, so he would be able to attack an accidental spill of Pepsi - or whatever - before it became a permanent stain. The can contained approximately one pint of fluid, and in bold red letters the label warned highly flammable.

Highly flammable. That had a pleasant ring to it. Highly flammable, hugely flammable, spectacularly flammable, explosively flammable - no words in the English language sounded sweeter than those.

And on the hearth of the small fireplace in the master bedroom was a battery-sparked butane match with which he could light the gas under the ceramic logs. He should be able to leave the office, grab the spot remover, pluck the match off the hearth, and return here in a minute, maybe less.

One minute. Even as clever as it seemed to be, the mini-kin probably wouldn’t realize that Tommy was out of the room for that brief time.

So now who’s going to be toast?

Tommy smiled at the thought.

From deep in the mysterious creature’s upholstered haven came a creaking and then a sharp twang.

Tommy flinched - and lost his smile.

The beast fell silent once more. It was up to something, all right. But what?

If Tommy retrieved the spot remover and set the sofa on fire, the flames would spread across the carpet and swiftly to the walls. The house might burn down, even if he telephoned the fire department immediately after setting the blaze.

He was fully insured, of course, but the insurance company would refuse to pay if arson was suspected. The fire marshal would probably investigate and discover traces of an accelerant - the spot remover - in the rubble. Tommy would never be able to convince them that he had set the fire as an act of self-defence.

Nevertheless, he was going to ease open the door, step quietly into the hallway, sprint for the can of spot remover, and take his chances withFrom the mini-kin’s lair came the sound of fabric ripping, and one of the seat cushions was dislodged by the beast as it tore out of the sofa directly in front of Tommy. In one dark bony hand it held a six-inch length of a broken seat spring: a spiral of gleaming eighth-inch steel wire.

Shrieking with rage and mindless hatred, its piercing voice as shrill as an electronic oscillation, the creature flung itself off the sofa and at Tommy with such force and velocity that it almost seemed to fly.

He scrambled out of its way, reflexively firing - and wasting - one more round from the P7.

The beast hadn’t been attacking, after all. The lunge had been a feint. It dropped to the carpet and streaked past Tommy, across the office, around the corner of the desk, and out of sight, moving at least as fast as a rat, although running on its hind feet as if it were a man.

Tommy went after it, hoping to comer it and jam the muzzle of the Heckler & Koch against its head and squeeze off one-two-three rounds at zero range, smash its brain if, indeed, it had a brain, because maybe that would devastate it as a single bullet in the guts had failed to do.

When Tommy followed the mini-kin around the desk, he discovered it at an electrical outlet, looking back and up at him. The creature appeared to be grinning through its mask of rags as it jammed the steel spring into the receptacle.

Power surged through bare steel - cracklesnap - and outside in the fuse box, a breaker tripped, and all the lights went out except for a shower of gold and blue sparks that cascaded over the mini-kin. Those fireworks lasted only an instant, however, and then darkness claimed the room.

Depleted by distance and filtered by trees, the yellowish glow of the streetlamps barely touched the windows. Rain shimmered down the glass, glimmering with a few dull-brass reflections, but none of that light penetrated to the room.

Tommy was frozen by shock, effectively blind, unable to see anything in the room and trying not to see the fearsome images that his imagination conjured in his mind.

The only sounds were the rataplan of rain on the roof and the moaning of wind in the eaves.

Undoubtedly the doll-thing was alive. The electricity hadn’t fazed it any more than a.40-caliber bullet in the midsection.

Tommy clutched the P7 as if it possessed magical power and could protect him from all the known and unknown terrors of the universe, whether physical or spiritual. In fact, the weapon was useless to him in this saturant darkness. He couldn’t stun the mini-kin with a well-placed shot if he couldn’t see it.

He supposed that by now it had dropped the twisted piece of steel spring and had turned away from the electrical outlet. It would be facing him in the gloom. Grinning through its mummy rags.