The Door to December

a flock of secretaries from San Diego; the rich and the not-so-rich; losers and winners; more losers; a three-hundred-pound lady in a bright-yellow caftan and a matching turban, who was betting a thousand dollars a hand at blackjack, but who knew so little about the game that she was routinely splitting pairs of tens; an inebriated oilman from Houston who was betting fifty dollars a hand, every hand, for the dealer, and only twenty-five dollars a hand for himself; uniformed security guards so big that they looked as if they ate furniture for breakfast, but who were soft-spoken and unfailingly polite; blackjack and craps dealers in black slacks and white shirts and black string ties; a tuxedo-clad crew at the baccarat table; pit bosses and their assistants, all in well-tailored dark suits, all with the same sharp, quick, suspicious eyes. It was a people-watcher's paradise.
     Staying at Eddie's side as he prowled restlessly around the enormous room, drifting from game to game but playing at none of them, Regine reacted to the Vegas turmoil in a way that was, for her, uncommon. A quickening of the pulse, a sudden rush of adrenaline, a strange electric crackle of excitement that made her skin tingle — all led her to believe that something big was going to happen. She didn't know what it would be, but she knew it was coming. She sensed it. Maybe she would win a lot of money. Maybe this was what people meant when they said they 'felt lucky.' She had never felt lucky before. She had never been lucky before. Maybe she wouldn't be lucky tonight, either, but she sensed that something was going to happen. Something big. And soon.
    * * *
    The air in the motel room grew colder.
     Though apparently still asleep, Melanie writhed and kicked her legs beneath the covers. She gasped and whimpered softly and said, 'The ... door ... the door ...'
     Dan went to the door, checked the lock, because the girl seemed to sense that something was coming.
     '... keep it shut !'
     The door was locked. The air temperature dropped even lower.
     Softly but urgently: ' Don't ... don't ... don't let it out! '
     In, Laura thought. She should be afraid of it getting in .
     Melanie thrashed, gasped, shuddered violently, but didn't wake.
     Oppressed by a feeling of utter helplessness, Laura surveyed the small room, wondering which inanimate objects, like the radio in her kitchen, might abruptly come to life.
     Dan Haldane had drawn his revolver.
     Laura turned, expecting the window to explode, expecting the door to burst into splinters, expecting the chairs or the television to be infused with sudden malevolent life.
     Dan stayed near the door, as if anticipating trouble from that quarter.
     But then, as abruptly as the disturbance had begun, it ended. The air grew warm again. Melanie stopped whimpering and gasping, ceased speaking. She was also utterly motionless on the bed, and her breathing was unusually slow and deep.
     'What happened?' Dan asked.
     Laura said, 'I don't know.'
     The room was now as warm as it had been before the disturbance.
     'Is it over?' Dan asked.
     'I don't know.'
     Melanie was death-pale.
    * * *
    Because she was wearing a dress that bared her shoulders, Regine felt the change in the air before Eddie did. They were standing at a craps table, watching the action, and Eddie was deciding whether or not to put a bet down and go with the shooter. People were crowding in on every side, and the casino was warm, so warm that Regine wished that she had something with which to fan herself. Then, abruptly, there was a change of atmosphere. Regine shivered and saw gooseflesh on her arms. For an instant she thought that the management had overreacted to the heat and had turned the air conditioning too high, but then she realized that the temperature had plummeted too quickly and too steeply to be explained merely by the air conditioning.
     A couple other women noticed the change, and then Eddie became aware of it, and the effect on him was astonishing. He turned from the craps table, hugging himself, shaking, a look of horror on his face. His skin was bloodless alabaster, and his eyes were bleak. He looked wildly left and right, then pushed through the crowd that had formed around the table, shoving and elbowing toward the broad aisle between rows of gaming tables, moving away from