Free Ticktock by Dean Koontz Page B

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 the desk, and out of sight, moving at least as fast as a rat, although running on its hind feet as if it were a man.
    Tommy went after it, hoping to corner it and jam the muzzle of the Heckler & Koch against its head and squeeze off one-two-three rounds at zero range, smash its brain if, indeed, it had a brain, because maybe that would devastate it as a single bullet in the guts had failed to do.
    When Tommy followed the minikin around the desk, he discovered it at an electrical outlet, looking back and up at him. The creature appeared to be grinning through its mask of rags as it jammed the steel spring into the receptacle.
    Power surged through bare steel—
cracklesnap
—and outside in the fuse box, a breaker tripped, and all the lights went out except for a shower of gold and blue sparks that cascaded over the minikin. Those fireworks lasted only an instant, however, and then darkness claimed the room.

THREE

    Depleted by distance and filtered by trees, the yellowish glow of the streetlamps barely touched the windows. Rain shimmered down the glass, glimmering with a few dull-brass reflections, but none of that light penetrated to the room.
    Tommy was frozen by shock, effectively blind, unable to see anything around him and trying not to see the fearsome images that his imagination conjured in his mind.
    The only sounds were