At seven thirty p.m. the Baltimore sky was striped with a bloodred sunset.
Hundreds of workers crowded the streets, hurrying to get home.
On the contrary George Usher, a middle-aged businessman, was returningto his office for a long evening of work.
When Usher left the elevator on the fifteenth floor of his office building,he looked at the long, silent hallways, lit with Exit signs that shone in thedark.
The office felt different at night. Usher reminded himself, Nobody can getin unless they work here.
He walked into his office, turned on the light, and dialled a number on hisphone. An answering machine clicked on and his wife's voice asked callersto leave a message after the beep.
"Hello, darling," he said. "It's about seven thirty and it looks like. I'll behere for a while. Call me back. I love you. Bye."After hanging up, Usher looked at the dark hallway outside his office.
Suddenly he felt an odd tremor: it was fear!
He thought that a cup of coffee would help him, so he headed for thecoffee machine.
A tiny noise broke the silence the moment he left his office. High on thewall, the cover of an air vent began to move slowly. The two screwsholding the vent in place started to turn. First the right. Then the left. Then,very slowly, long, skinny fingertips came out from inside the vent,pushing the cover to one side.
When Usher came back with his coffee, he stopped outside his office door;he was sure that he'd left the light on inside. He went in and tried to switchon the lamp on his desk. Then, all of a sudden, the door slammed shut withan unearthly force. And Usher suddenly realised that he wasn't alone.
Frantically he reached for the door. He got hold of the knob and triedto open it. But someone or something had hold of him.
Usher fought in the stranger's grasp and slipped free. He rolled acrossthe desk only to feel powerful hands lock around his throat. He couldn'tbreathe. He couldn't make a sound as his body was raised into the air withinhuman strength.
For a moment the hands left his throat and his desperate scream rangthrough the office as his body slammed into the door with enough force tosplinter it.
And then there was only silence.
An hour later Usher's office was a mess and the carpet was drenchedwith blood.
Directly above Usher's body, one of the screws in the cover of the air ventbegan to turn. Something inside the vent was screwing the cover back intothe wall. Slowly. Victoriously.
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