I don’t recall much of how I came to the city. It was a bad time in my life. I didn’t care about where I was or where I was going. I’d done some things that I regretted. I guess most people do, somewhere along the line. It’s hard to live any kind of life without building up a store of regrets. The important thing for me was just to keep moving. I thought that if I kept shifting from place to place, then I could leave my past behind me. By the time I realized that I was bringing my past right along with me, it was too late to do anything about it.

There wasn’t much work on offer when I arrived. The season was almost over, and the casual workers in the restaurants and the bars had already departed for Florida and California, or for the winter resorts in New Hampshire and Vermont. I found a cheap room in a run-down house, and spent my nights looking for two-for-one specials in bars desperate for custom, asking anyone who sat still long enough if they knew of somewhere I might pick up a job. But the people who frequented those kinds of places either didn’t much care for work or would take the job themselves if they heard about it first, so I didn’t have a lot of luck. After a week, I was getting pretty desperate.

I don’t think I would even have found out about the job had I not been walking along the waterfront, smoking a cigarette and wondering if I hadn’t made a mistake by coming this far north, but there it was: a hand-lettered sign covered in plastic to shield it from the rain:

NIGHT WATCHMAN WANTED. APPLY WITHIN.

With nothing else to do, and no other hope for employment on the horizon, I went inside to inquire in the main office about the job. A guy who was sweeping the floors asked my name, then told me to come back the next morning, when the man in charge would be available to talk to me. I was told to bring along a résumé. I thanked him, but he kept his back to me the whole time. I never even saw his face.

The next morning, I sat in the offices of the Thibault company’s administration department and listened as a man in an expensive gray suit explained my duties to me. His name was Mr. Rone, but he told me that most folk just called him Charles. He said he used to be in the marine business, and still liked to keep his hand in. Transport, he explained: animals, sometimes, and people. Mostly people.

The night watchman’s job would require me to patrol the complex, making sure that the vacant premises did not become homes for hobos and junkies, for there were still buildings unoccupied or under development. I was not being paid to sit in a chair and read the sports pages, or snooze. There were no electronic clocks, nothing to monitor my activity, or lack of activity, but, if anything went wrong, then it was my ass that would be in a sling, yessir.

“Any questions?” said Charles.

I was confused.

“You mean I have the job, just like that?”

Charles gave me a 40-watt smile. “Sure, you seem like the guy we’ve been waiting for.”

He hadn’t even asked for my résumé. I’d typed it up at the local Kinko’s the night before, spending money I couldn’t afford to waste. Now I was feeling a little resentful at having spent my time preparing it. True, it maybe wouldn’t stand up much to close examination, and the people included for reference purposes would be harder to track down than dodos, but I’d made the effort.

“I brought a résumé,” I said, and I was kind of surprised at how hurt my voice sounded. Hell, you’d think the guy had refused to hire me, the way I was going on.

Charles’s smile brightened maybe two watts.

“Hey, that’s great,” he said.

I handed it over. He didn’t even glance at it, just put it on top of a trayload of papers that looked as if they hadn’t been touched since the last locomotive left the building. In fact, it was hard to see precisely what Mr. Rone’s company actually did. From what I could tell, we were the only people in the entire building.

Still, that was it. I had the job.

They gave me a brown uniform, a flashlight, and a gun. I was told the paperwork for the gun would be sorted out later, and I didn’t question them. I didn’t imagine that I’d ever have to use it, anyway. The worst that could happen, I thought, was that some kids might try to break in and I’d have to run them off. I figured that I could handle myself against kids. Just in case, I brought my own telescopic baton and a can of Mace.

Each night before I went to work, I filled a small flask with Wild Turkey, just to keep out the cold. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a big drinker, and never was, but a northeastern waterfront gets pretty cold in the winter. When you’re wandering around the yards, or checking out those unheated buildings, then there are times when you’re pretty glad of something to warm the heart.

I never minded working alone. I’d read some-mystery stories, mainly-or do word puzzles, or watch late-night TV. I didn’t have a wife to worry about. I used to have a wife, but she’s gone now. People think she left me, went to live in Oregon, but I know different.

It was the start of my second week when the noises began. There were two vacant buildings on the site, close by the main road. The larger one was three stories tall, and kind of run-down. The windows were covered with wire screens, so mostly I just checked the locks on the doors to make sure that they hadn’t been tampered with, but I’d never gone inside. I’d never had any call to, until then.

I was doing my usual 2 A.M. round when I heard the sound of doors opening and closing inside the empty building, and thought I saw the flicker of flames. When I checked the doors and windows, they all seemed to be secure and I could hear no voices from within. I shone my flashlight onto the roof, but, as far as I could see, it looked okay. There were no holes, no busted slates through which someone could have squeezed. But those flames were a worry: if some hobo had found a way in, then lit a fire and fallen asleep, the whole place might go up.

I took my keys from my belt and found the one that fitted the main door lock. I’d color-coded them all with Scotch tape, then learned the colors so I’d know them immediately. The door opened easily and I stepped inside, finding myself in a low-ceilinged room that extended the entire length of the ground floor.

At the end of the room was an open doorway from which one flight of stairs ascended to the upper levels, while another flight led down to the furnace room. The light was coming from there. I slipped the Taurus from its holster, and gun in my right hand, flashlight crossed under it, I headed for the door. I was maybe halfway there when footsteps sounded. A little warning noise was triggered in my head, and I twisted the Mag-lite to kill the beam while I waited, quietly, in the shadows.

Two people appeared in the doorway. They wore long black coats over black trousers and heavy-soled black boots. Their faces were hidden in shadow until they stepped into the warehouse itself. A single dusty bulb burned over the doorway, and its faint light briefly illuminated their forms. They were a man and a woman, but they were all wrong. Both were bald, with pale, almost gray skulls, crisscrossed with thick veins that bulged against their skin. The man was bigger, with red eyes set into his hairless face, but he had no other features. There was no nose, no mouth, just a flat expanse of skin below those eyes. The woman stood beside him, the shape of her breasts visible beneath her coat. She had a mouth, and a small button nose, but no eyes, just smooth skin from her hairline to her nose.

From my left came a sound, and two more figures came forward. The first was another tall man, dressed in black like the others. I couldn’t see his face, but the back of his skull was perfectly round and pale. There were no ears to be seen. One hand hung by his side, but the other hand rested on the shoulder of a small, thin man wearing a brown shirt and pants. His back was to me, so I couldn’t see his face, but there was a wound to his right temple and blood on the left side of his head and on the left shoulder of his shirt, as if a bullet had exited from his left temple.