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surprised him. The old geezer was nothing but a meal ticket.
    He couldn’t find anything on the radio, couldn’t find a signal from any of the local stations.
    “What the hell is going on?” he said out loud.
    He was answered by static.
    And by the roar of the beasts outside.

3
    SEPTEMBER 16, 8:10 P.M.
    T he sound of the vault doors locking nearly drove Rick Morrison around the bend and into the bughouse. The conclusiveness of the clanking latches, the vague feeling that the big dial on the outside was turning with a multitude of tiny, crustaceous clicks, the clanking of the huge bolts as the vault was sealed … it seemed like the end of everything. The world, and whatever was taking place in it, was gone, replaced by a twelve-by-fifteen-foot room.
    Chesya was shouting at him, “Rick, man, stop it! Stop your screaming!”
    He couldn’t, even though he fought against it. There were … things … out there killing people. They’d attempted to slaughter him, but he had fought, had found his way into the vault. No, he’d been
led
to the vault … by this woman who seemed so calm and strong. The woman with the big eyes …
    And it was dark … so very dark in here.
    “The lights!” he shouted, and he felt the woman next to him take his hand. “I can’t see anything.”
    “Get ahold of yourself,” she said. “We’re safe here.”
    “Are you sure?”
    “We’re gonna be all right. Nothing can get through that door. Nothing.”
    Chesya grasped his hand even tighter within her own. She could feel the tremors in his body as he screamed again, clutching urgently at her fingers.
    “Oh, Jesus. Oh, shit.”
    “It’s just the lights. They’re on a timer. It’s okay.”
    “Can’t see anything. The air’s going to go. Is there enough air for us? Are we going to suffocate in this fucking tomb?”
    “Rick, listen to me. The lights are on a timer. Hold on a second, and I’ll find the override switch.”
    “You won’t let go of me?” He wanted to stop the quivering in his voice, wanted to stop being such a pussy, but the endorphins flooding his brain overrode his pretensions.
    “No, I won’t,” she answered. “But I’m going to be moving. Follow me where I go. There’s a switch on the wall somewhere right over here.”
    Chesya eased along the side of the vault, fumbling with her free hand and wondering if she could somehow use the bank robber’s terror to her advantage.
    “It’s just along here somewhere,” she said.
    “Hurry up. Damn it! What about the air?”
    “There’s a ventilator, like an air pump. It keeps it cool in here. Nothing to worry about.”
    She felt the nub of the switch beneath her fingers, and she flicked it toward the ceiling. Instantly, fluorescent bulbs blinked on with a burst of static buzzing. The flickering created a strobe effect, and Rick dropped Chesya’s hand as soon as they flashed for the last time. Humming softly, the lights cast a greenish hue over the stifling room.
    “That’s better,” he said. “I don’t think I could’ve handled the dark right now. I really don’t think I could.”
    “Well, we’re safe for the moment, lights or no lights.”
    His breathing slowed, and she grabbed his head and pivoted his face to hers. The rage was gone from her eyes, replaced by fear and something that surreptitiously resembled concern. There was a true stability within her, and her gaze seemed to ground him, to bring him back to the real world.
    “What?” he asked.
    “Rick, are you with me? You stopped screaming, but are you here? With me?” She spoke slowly, methodically.
    In her college years, she’d had a roommate who’d taken LSD, and Chesya had been forced to sit with the girl one night, speaking toher gently, coaxing her out of the bad place she’d discovered under the influence of the drug. She felt as though she were doing the same thing with Rick, talking him down off a bad trip.
    Only this time there was no drug sculpting the monsters in his mind. She