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said.
        
        Then he and Della were alone in the tiny lobby, listening to the banshee roar of the trucks on the distant highway. The air seemed flat, the darkness beginning to press the light from the room.
        
        “Do we have to stay here and wait for him?” she asked.
        
        “No.”
        
        “Then let's get away from here, Pete. Please.”
        
        “You think I'm crazy, breaking into a strange room like that? Telling wild stories about strange men watching me from dark doorways, all of that? I know it sounds-”
        
        His voice trailed away, for he realized that he was talking much too fast, that he was not communicating anything but his own panic.
        
        Color had returned to Della's face. Now some of it drained away again. He took time to notice how beautiful she was, even when her face was pasty with fear.
        
        “I don't think you're crazy,” she said. “I saw him too, Pete. I saw him, just before he closed the door on you.”
        

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    VI
        
        
        Pete discovered the new complications when he woke from a bad dream Monday night. All that day, he had been tense, expectant. When nothing out of the ordinary transpired, the tension broke loose in a nightmare and sent him scurrying down imaginary alleyways, running from his own shadow and from things far worse than that.
        
        The dream ended as he sat straight up in bed, unable to breathe, his stomach cramped with pain. There was perspiration dripping from his jawline. The sheets around him were soaked.
        
        But something was wrong.
        
        For a long while, as his chest heaved with his labored breathing and he gripped the edge of the mattress with his right hand in order to still the dizziness that bothered him, he could not place the source of his annoyance. Della still slept. The clock hummed; the soft green glow from the clock-radio face was the only source of light. But something was definitely wrong; there was something in the room which did not belong here, which had never been here before.
        
        As his pulse slowed and the dizziness abated along with the memory of the nightmare, he realized that he could hear voices, soft, murmuring voices speaking close at hand. He could not see anyone in the bedroom, and nothing about the furniture seemed out of place to him.
        
        He rose and crept, quietly, to the window. The lawn was empty and still, the town quiet. He could not see anyone lurking about the willow or the hedges. There was no movement among the oak trees by the curb. Certainly, there was no one close enough to be heard.
        
        Apparently, there was someone in the house, more than one someone, and the best he could do for a weapon was a handsized dumbell with twenty pounds of weight on it. He hefted it and left the bedroom.
        
        The whispers continued, barely audible strings of words which only occasionally were clear enough to understand. “… twice in one week… only then… what am I going to… isn't… where…”
        
        It was not sufficient to be sensible, and the clarity of it did not increase as he went from room to room. He thought that it was a woman's voice, though it was more neuter than anything else.
        
        In fifteen minutes, he had cautiously inspected the house, and he had not discovered any intruders.
        
        Still: whispers.
        
        He stood in his den, by the large walnut desk there, holding the dumbell as if it were a talisman. Slowly, it occurred to him that he was not listening to a voice; he was not hearing these words with his ears, but in some altogether strange fashion that sent a chill along his spine.
        
        “If he thinks he can… never… even if she… there shouldn't be… could kill him if… damn, damn, damn…” The voice became softer until it was not a voice at all, but