Chasing the Moon Read Online Free PDF Page B

him. The otherness outside the apartment disappeared once she was across the threshold. The heat faded to a mildly uncomfortable warmth. The air was a bit humid, but nothing she couldn’t handle.
    One of the apartment doors opened, and West stuck his head out. He sported an extra pair of eyes above the normal set. And his bushy beard writhed a bit. Not the beard itself, but whatever was underneath it, whatever passed for West’s chin. Not that she wanted to think about that.
    “Still alive, Number Five?” he asked, though the answer should’ve been obvious.
    She nodded.
    “You wouldn’t happen to have any Monopoly money on you, would you, Number Five?”
    She shook her head.
    “Damn. The mole lords are not going to be happy about that.”
    He withdrew into his room and shut the door without another word.
    “He’s a crazy old bird,” said Vom, “but he’s harmless.”
    Considering the source of the reassurance, Diana didn’t find this very comforting.
    She noticed for the first time that every door in the building was different. Different size. Different color. Different style. Nothing in the building matched. The carpeting appeared to be assembled from a thousand discarded scraps. The walls were brick, then wood paneling, then stucco, then polka-dotted wallpaper. Nothing lined up in a conventional way. The hall seemed askew. The stairs curved downward, giving one the impression of walking down when going up. The doors tilted at odd angles, though never the same angle. And the numbers marking the apartments were all in different fonts. The entire building was like a hastily constructed model, put together from bits and pieces of other models by a maker who was only vaguely familiar with traditional design conventions.
    She hadn’t noticed any of this before. Or maybe it hadn’t looked like this before. Maybe this was all a byproduct of her new perceptions. Either way, it weirded her out.
    They passed the gruesome puppy beast in front of Apartment Two. The door opened a crack, and she glimpsed a shadowy figure.
    “Hey,” the figure whispered.
    The puppy snarled, and the door slammed shut.
    The apartment was exactly as she’d left it. She’d expected it to be as twisted and skewed as the rest of her new universe, but everything was in order. Except that the coffee table had had a big bite taken out of it.
    “Sorry,” said Vom. “Kind of hard to put on the brakes once I get going.”
    He helped her push the refrigerator back against the wall. Someone knocked.
    He answered the door before she could stop him.
    A short blond woman in her forties and a hulking bat-like creature in a sweater vest stepped into the apartment.
    “Congratulations.” She gave Vom a polite hug. “We just heard about your early parole.”
    “Stacey, Peter. I thought you’d have moved out by now.”
    “We’re working on it,” she said.
    The bat gurgled.
    “Now, Peter,” said the woman. “Be nice.”
    The creature lumbered over to Diana. She recoiled from the grinning monster and his saber-like fangs. He thrust a lump wrapped in tinfoil into her arms. “Yours,” he said as drool dripped down his chin.
“Now, Peter,” said Stacey. “Is that any way to treat our new neighbor?”
    Diana held the lump in limp hands. It was warm. And was it squirming or was that just her imagination? How the hell could she even tell anymore?
    “You’ll have to excuse Peter. He always gets a little grumpy after a few hours of hosting.”
    “No problem,” replied Diana.
    Peter pounced on Stacey. He squeezed her in a tight embrace. They howled in one terrible harmony as his body collapsed into a frail mortal shell while she took on the bat-monster shape. The only difference was that now it wore a floral-print dress.
    Peter smoothed the few strands of hair on his balding head. “That’s better. You must be Vom’s new warden.”
    “I must be,” said Diana.
    The Stacey-thing snatched the tinfoil lump and bit into it.
    “We just got a new