TickTock by Dean Koontz Page B

assume that this strange creature’s intention was to harm him any more than he could have had reason to assume that a rat possessed the strength and power and will to plot the murder of a human being.
    Nevertheless, he couldn’t convince himself that the threat was less than mortal. His heart continued to race, and his chest was almost painfully tight with apprehension.
    He recalled too clearly the radiant green eyes with elliptical black pupils, which had fixed him so threateningly from within the rag face. They were the eyes of a predator.
    The brass wastebasket was half filled with crumpled sheets of typing paper and pages from a yellow legal pad. He kicked it to see if he could elicit an alarmed response from anything hiding at the bottom of the trash.
    The papers rustled when he kicked the can, but at once they settled again into a silent heap.
    From the shallow pencil drawer in the desk, Tommy withdrew a ruler and used it to stir the papers in the wastebasket. He poked it violently down into the trash a few times, but nothing squealed or tried to wrest the ruler from his hand.
    Chain lightning flared outside, and with arachnid frenzy, the turbulent black shadows of wind-shaken trees thrashed across the glass. Thunder boomed, thunder roared, and thunder tumbled down the coal chute of the night.
    Across the room from the desk, a sofa stood against the wall, under framed reproductions of movie posters advertising two of his favorite films. Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward G. Robinson in James M. Cain’s
Double Indemnity.
Bogart and Bacall in
Dark Passage.
    Occasionally, when his writing wasn’t going well, especially when he was stuck for an engaging plot twist, Tommy stretched out on the sofa, his head elevated on the two decorative red pillows, did some deep-breathing exercises, let his mind drift, and gave his imagination a chance to work. Often he solved the problem within an hour and went back to work. More often he fell asleep—and woke with a flush of shame at his laziness, sticky with perspiration and excessive guilt.
    Now Tommy gingerly moved the two red throw pillows. The minikin wasn’t hiding behind either of them.
    The sofa was built to the floor rather than supported on legs. Consequently, nothing could be hiding under it.
    The doll-thing might be behind the sofa, however, and to move such a heavy piece away from the wall, Tommy needed both hands. He would have to put aside the pistol; but he was reluctant to let go of it.
    He worriedly surveyed the room.
    The only movement was the vaguely phosphorescent wriggle of the rain streaming down the windows.
    He placed the gun on a cushion, within easy reach, and dragged the sofa away from the wall, sure that something hideous, half clothed in torn cotton rags, would come at him, shrieking.
    He was uneasily aware of how vulnerable his ankles were to sharp little teeth.
    Furthermore, he should have tucked the legs of his jeans into his socks or clamped them shut with rubber bands, as he would have done in an actual rat hunt. He shuddered at the thought of something squirming up the inside of a pant leg, clawing and biting him as it ascended.
    The minikin had not taken refuge behind the sofa.
    Relieved but also frustrated, Tommy left the cumbersome piece standing away from the wall and picked up the pistol.
    He carefully lifted each of the three square sofa cushions. Nothing waited under them.
    Perspiration stung the corner of his right eye. He blotted his face on the sleeve of his flannel shirt and blinked frantically to clear his vision.
    The only place left to search was a mahogany credenza to the right of the door, in which he stored reams of typing paper and other supplies. By standing to one side of the cabinet, he was able to peer into the narrow space behind it and satisfy himself that nothing lurked between it and the wall.
    The credenza had two pairs of doors. He considered firing a few rounds through them before daring to look inside, but