The Eyes of Darkness

part of it somehow."
    "Part of it? The cops?"
    "Where do you keep your suitcases?"
    She felt dizzy. "Where are we going?"
    "I don't know yet."
    "But—"
    "Come on. Hurry. Let's get you packed and the hell out of here before any more of these guys show up."
    "I have suitcases in my bedroom closet."
    He put a hand against her back, gently but firmly urging her out of the foyer.
    She headed for the master bedroom, confused and beginning to be frightened.
    He followed close behind her. "Has anyone been around here this afternoon?"
    "Just me."
    "I mean, anyone snooping around? Anyone at the door?"
    "No."
    "I can't figure why they'd come for me first."
    "Well, there was the gas man," Tina said as she hurried down the short hall toward the master bedroom.
    "The what?"
    "The repairman from the gas company."
    Elliot put a hand on her shoulder, stopped her, and turned her around just as they entered the bedroom. "A gas company workman?"
    "Yes. Don't worry. I asked to see his credentials."
    Elliot frowned. "But it's a holiday."
    "He was an emergency crewman."
    "What emergency?"
    "They've lost some pressure in the gas lines. They think there might be a leak in this neighborhood."
    The furrows in Elliot's brow grew deeper. "What did this workman need to see you for?"
    "He wanted to check my furnace, make sure there wasn't any gas escaping."
    "You didn't let him in?"
    "Sure. He had a photo ID card from the gas company. He checked the furnace, and it was okay."
    "When was this?"
    "He left just a couple minutes before you came in."
    "How long was he here?"
    "Fifteen, twenty minutes."
    "It took him that long to check out the furnace?"
    "He wanted to be thorough. He said—"
    "Were you with him the whole time?"
    "No. I was cleaning out Danny's room."
    "Where's your furnace?"
    "In the garage."
    "Show me."
    "What about the suitcases?"
    "There may not be time," he said.
    He was pale. Fine beads of sweat had popped out along his hairline.
    She felt the blood drain from her face.
    She said, "My God, you don't think—"
    "The furnace!"
    "This way."
    Still carrying the magazine, she rushed through the house, past the kitchen, into the laundry room. A door stood at the far end of this narrow, rectangular work area. As she reached for the knob, she smelled the gas in the garage.
    "Don't open that door!" Elliot warned.
    She snatched her hand off the knob as if she had almost picked up a tarantula.
    "The latch might cause a spark," Elliot said. "Let's get the hell out. The front door. Come on. Fast!"
    They hurried back the way they had come.
    Tina passed a leafy green plant, a four-foot-high schef-flera that she had owned since it was only one-fourth as tall as it was now, and she had the insane urge to stop and risk getting caught in the coming explosion just long enough to pick up the plant and take it with her. But an image of crimson eyes, yellow skin—the leering face of death— flashed through her mind, and she kept moving.
    She tightened her grip on the horror-comics magazine in her left hand. It was important that she not lose it.
    In the foyer, Elliot jerked open the front door, pushed her through ahead of him, and they both plunged into the golden late-afternoon sunshine.
    "Into the street!" Elliot urged.
    A blood-freezing image rose at the back of her mind: the house torn apart by a colossal blast, shrapnel of wood and glass and metal whistling toward her, hundreds of sharp fragments piercing her from head to foot.
    The flagstone walk that led across her front lawn seemed to be one of those treadmill pathways in a dream, stretching out farther in front of her the harder that she ran, but at last she reached the end of it and dashed into the street. Elliot's Mercedes was parked at the far curb, and she was six or eight feet from the car when the sudden outward-sweeping shock of the explosion shoved her forward. She stumbled and fell into the side of the sports car, banging her knee painfully.
    Twisting around in terror, she called Elliot's name. He was safe, close behind her, knocked off balance by the force of the shock wave, staggering forward, but unhurt.
    The garage had gone up first, the big door ripping from its hinges and splintering into the driveway, the roof dissolving in a confetti-shower of shake shingles and flaming debris. But even as Tina looked from Elliot to the fire, before all of the shingles had fallen back to earth, a second explosion slammed through the house, and a billowing cloud of flame roared from one end