Free TickTock by Dean Koontz Page A

understand that message at all. What deadline, for God’s sake? Who had established it? What did he have to do to
meet
the deadline?
    TICKTOCK .
    Oh, he understood
that
message well enough. Time was running out. The night was passing as fast as the rain was falling outside, and if he didn’t get his act together, then he was going to be toast before sunrise.
    TICKTOCK .
    Toast for the hungry minikin.
    TICKTOCK .
    Munch, munch. Crunch, crunch.
    His head was spinning—and not simply because he had thumped it hard against the floor when he fell.
    He circled the sofa, studying it as he moved.
    Fire. Maybe a roaring fire could achieve better results than a bullet.
    While the creature was building a nest—or doing whatever the hell it was doing in there—Tommy might be able to sneak down to the garage, siphon a quart of gasoline out of the Corvette, grab a pack of matches from a drawer in the kitchen, and return to set the sofa on fire.
    No. No, that would take too long. The repulsive little creepozoid would realize that he was gone, and when he came back, the thing probably wouldn’t be inside the sofa any more.
    Now the minikin was quiet, which didn’t mean that it was taking a nap. It was scheming at something.
    Tommy needed to scheme too. Desperately.
    Think, think.
    Because of the light-beige carpet, Tommy kept one can of spot remover downstairs and another upstairs in the master bathroom, so he would be able to attack an accidental spill of Pepsi or whatever before it became a permanent stain. The can contained approximately one pint of fluid, and in bold red letters the label warned HIGHLY FLAMMABLE.
    Highly flammable.
That had a pleasant ring to it.
Highly flammable, hugely flammable, spectacularly flammable, explosively flammable
—no words in the English language sounded sweeter than those.
    And on the hearth of the small fireplace in the master bedroom was a battery-sparked butane match he used to light the gas under the ceramic logs. He should be able to leave the office, grab the spot remover, pluck the match off the hearth, and return here in a minute, maybe less.
    One minute. Even as clever as it seemed to be, the minikin probably wouldn’t realize that Tommy was out of the room for that brief time.
    So now who’s going to be toast?
    Tommy smiled at the thought.
    From deep in the mysterious creature’s upholstered haven came a creaking and then a sharp
twang.
    Tommy flinched—and lost his smile.
    The beast fell silent once more. It was up to something, all right. But what?
    If Tommy retrieved the spot remover and set the sofa on fire, the flames would spread across the carpet and swiftly to the walls. The house might burn down, even if he telephoned the fire department immediately after setting the blaze.
    He was fully insured, of course, but the insurance company would refuse to pay if arson was suspected. The fire marshal would probably investigate and discover traces of an accelerant—the spot remover—in the rubble. Tommy would never be able to convince them that he had set the fire as an act of self-defense.
    Nevertheless, he was going to ease open the door, step quietly into the hallway, sprint for the can of spot remover, and take his chances with—
    From the minikin’s lair came the sound of fabric ripping, and one of the seat cushions was dislodged by the beast as it tore out of the sofa directly in front of Tommy. In one dark bony hand it held a six-inch length of a broken seat spring: a spiral of gleaming eighth-inch steel wire.
    Shrieking with rage and mindless hatred, its piercing voice as shrill as an electronic oscillation, the creature flung itself off the sofa and at Tommy with such force and velocity that it almost seemed to fly.
    He scrambled out of its way, reflexively firing—and wasting—one more round from the P7.
    The beast hadn’t been attacking, after all. The lunge had been a feint. It dropped to the carpet and streaked past Tommy, across the office, around the corner of