The monster made no pursuit. She reached the top of the stairs without being overtaken. But as her foot descended, it addressed her.

Its voice was...familiar.

"There you are," it said.

It spoke with melting tones, as if it knew her. She stopped.

"Kirsty," it said. "Wait a while."

Her head told her to run. Her gut defied the wisdom, however. It wanted to remember whose voice this was, speaking from the binding. She could still make good her escape, she reasoned; she had an

eight-yard start. She looked round at the figure. The body in its arms had curled up, fetally, legs against chest. The beast dropped it.

"You killed him..." she said.

The thing nodded. It had no apologies to make, apparently, to either victim or witness.

"We'll mourn him later," it told her and took a step toward her.

"Where's Julia?" Kirsty demanded.

"Don't you fret. All's well..." the voice said. She was so close to remembering who it was.

As she puzzled it took another step, one hand upon the wall, as if its balance was still uncertain.

"I saw you," it went on. "And I think you saw me. At the window..."

Her mystification increased. Had this thing been in the house that long? If so, surely Rory must-.

And then she knew the voice.

"Yes. You do remember. I can see you remember..."

It was Rory's voice, or rather, a close approximation of it. More guttural, more selfregarding, but the resemblance was uncanny enough to keep her rooted to the spot while the beast shambled within snatching distance of her.

At the last she recanted her fascination, and turned to flee, but the cause was already lost. She heard its step a pace behind her, then felt its fingers at her neck. A cry came to her lips, but it was barely mounted before the thing had its corrugated palm across her face, canceling both the shout and the breath it came upon.

It plucked her up, and took her back the way she'd come. In vain she struggled against its hold; the small wounds her fingers made upon its body-tearing at the bandages and digging into the rawness beneath-left it entirely unmoved, it seemed. For a horrid moment her heels snagged the corpse on the floor. Then she was being hauled into the room from which the living and the dead had emerged. It smelled of soured milk and fresh meat. When she was flung down the boards beneath her were wet and warm.

Her belly wanted to turn inside out. She didn't fight the instinct, but retched up all that her stomach held. In the confusion of present discomfort and anticipated terror she was not certain of what happened next. Did she glimpse somebody else (Julia) on the landing as the door was slammed, or was it shadow? One way or another it was too late for appeals. She was alone with the nightmare.

Wiping the bile from her mouth she got to her feet. Daylight pierced the newspaper at the window here and there, dappling the room like sunlight through branches. And through this pastoral, the thing came sniffing her.

"Come to Daddy," it said.

In her twenty-six years she had never heard an easier invitation to refuse.

"Don't touch me," she told it.

It cocked its head a little, as if charmed by this show of propriety. Then it closed in on her, all pus and laughter, and-God help her-desire.

She backed a few desperate inches into the corner, until there was nowhere else for her to go.

"Don't you remember me?" it said.

She shook her head.

"Frank," came the reply. "This is brother Frank..."

She had met Frank only once, at Alexandra Road. He'd come visiting one afternoon, just before the wedding, more she couldn't recall. Except that she'd hated him on sight.

"Leave me alone," she said as it reached for her. There was a vile finesse in the way his stained fingers touched her breast.

"Don't, " she shrieked, "or so help me-"

"What?" said Rory's voice. "What will you do?"

Nothing, was the answer of course. She was helpless, as only she had ever been in dreams, those dreams of pursuit and assault that her psyche had always staged on a ghetto street in some eternal night. Never-not even in her most witless fantasies-had she anticipated that the arena would be a room she had walked past a dozen times, in a house where she had been happy, while outside the day went on as ever, gray on gray.

In a futile gesture of disgust, she pushed the investigating hand away.

"Don't be cruel," the thing said, and his fingers found her skin again, as unshooable as October wasps.

"What's to be frightened of?"

"Outside..." she began, thinking of the horror on the landing.

"A man has to eat," Frank replied. "Surely you can forgive me that?"

Why did she even feel his touch, she wondered? Why didn't her nerves share her disgust and die beneath his caress?

"This isn't happening," she told herself aloud, but the beast only laughed.

"I used to tell myself that," he said. "Day in, day out. Used to try and dream the agonies away. But you can't. Take it from me. You can't. They have to be endured."

She knew he was telling the truth, the kind of unsavory truth that only monsters were at liberty to tell. He had no need to flatter or cajole; he had no philosophy to debate, or sermon to deliver. His awful nakedness was a kind of sophistication. Past the lies of faith, and into purer realms.

She knew too that she would not endure. That when her pleadings faltered, and Frank claimed her for whatever vileness he had in mind, she would loose such a scream that she would shatter.

Her very sanity was at stake here; she had no choice but to fight back, and quickly.

Before Frank had a chance to press his suit any harder, her hands went up to his face, fingers gouging at his eye holes and mouth. The flesh beneath the bandage had the consistency of jelly; it came away in globs, and with it, a wet heat.

The beast shouted out, his grip on her relaxing. Seizing the moment, she threw herself out from under him, the momentum carrying her against the wall with enough force to badly wind her.

Again, Frank roared. She didn't waste time enjoying his discomfort, but slid along the wall-not trusting her legs sufficiently to move into open territory-toward the door. As she advanced, her feet sent an unlidded jar of preserved ginger rolling across the room, spilling syrup and fruit alike.

Frank turned toward her, the bandaging about his face hanging in scarlet loops where she'd torn it away. In several places the bone was exposed. Even now, he ran his hands over the wounds, roars of horror coming as he sought to measure the degree of his maiming. Had she blinded him? She wasn't sure. Even if she had it was only a matter of time before he located her in this small room, and when he did his rage would know no bounds. She had to reach the door before he reoriented himself.

Faint hope! She hadn't a moment to take a step before he dropped his hands from his face and scanned

the room. He saw her, no doubt of that. A beat later, he was bearing down upon her with renewed violence.

At her feet lay a litter of domestic items. The heaviest item amongst them was a plain box. She reached down and picked it up. As she stood upright, he was upon her. She loosed a cry of defiance and swung the box-bearing fist at his head. It connected heavily; bone splintered. The beast tottered backward, and she launched herself toward the door, but before she reached it the shadow swamped her once more, and she was flung backward across the room. It came in a raging pursuit.

This time he had no intention beyond the murderous. His lashes were intended to kill; that they did not was testament less to her speed than to the imprecision of his fury. Nevertheless, one out of every three blows caught her. Gashes opened in her face and upper chest; it was all she could do to prevent herself from fainting.