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@@@@@At least clock it one with the phone, for Christ's sake! But I couldn'tI was like a bird hypnotized by a snakeThe best I could do was to take one numb step backward into the living roomNow I was in the shadows againIt stood in the kitchen doorway with the white light of the fluorescents striking across its damp and rotted face and throwing its shadow across the living room carpetI considered closing my eyes and trying to wish it away, but that wasn't going to work; I could smell it, like a Dumpster behind a restaurant that specializes in fish dinnersAnd - "Time to go, Edgar 834 - it could talk, after allThe words were slushy but understandable It took a step into the living roomI took another of my numb steps backward, knowing in my heart it would do no good, that compensation wasn't enough, that when it got tired of playing it would simply dart forward and clamp that iron manacle on my wrist and drag me, screaming, down to the water, down to the caldo largo, and the last sound I'd hear on the living side would be the grating conversation of the shells under the houseThen the water would fill my ears I took another step back just the same, not sure I was even moving toward the door, only hoping, then anotherand a hand fell on my shoulder vii "What the fuck is that thing?" Wireman whispered in my ear "I don't know," I said, and I was sobbingLook out at the Gulf, WiremanI don't dare take my eyes off it But the thing in the doorway had seen Wireman now - Wireman who'd come in through the open door just as it had itself, Wireman who had arrived like the cavalry in a John Wayne Western - and had stopped three steps inside the living room, its head slightly lowered, the manacle swinging back and forth from its outstretched arm "Christ," Wireman said"That ship! The one in the paintings!" "Go on," the thing said"We have no business with youGo on, and you may live "It's lying," I said "Tell me something I don't know," Wireman said, then raised his voice