Tick Tock

reluctant to let go of it.
    He worriedly surveyed the room.
    The only movement was the vaguely phosphorescent wriggle of the rain streaming down the windows.
    He placed the gun on a sofa cushion, within easy reach, and he dragged that heavy piece of furniture away from the wall, sure that something hideous, half clothed in torn cotton rags, would come at him, shrieking.
    He was uneasily aware of how vulnerable his ankles were to sharp little teeth.
    Furthermore, he should have tucked the legs of his jeans into his socks or clamped them shut with rubber bands, as he would have done in an actual rat hunt. He shuddered at the thought of something squirming up the inside of a pants leg, clawing and biting him as it ascended.
    The mini-kin had not taken refuge behind the sofa.
    Relieved but also frustrated, Tommy left the cumbersome piece standing away from the wall, and he picked up the pistol.
    He carefully lifted each of the three square sofa cushions. Nothing waited under them.
    Perspiration stung the comer of his right eye. He blotted his face on the sleeve of his flannel shirt and blinked frantically to clear his vision.
    The only place left to search was a mahogany credenza to the right of the door, in which he stored reams of typing paper and other supplies. By standing to one side of the cabinet, he was able to peer into the narrow space behind it and satisfy himself that nothing lurked between it and the wall.
    The credenza had two pair of doors. He considered firing a few rounds through them before he dared to look inside, but at last he opened them and poked among the supplies without finding the tiny intruder.
    Standing in the middle of the office, Tommy turned slowly in a circle, trying to spot the hiding place that he had overlooked. After making a three hundred sixty degree sweep, he was as baffled as ever. He seemed to have searched everywhere.
    Yet he was certain that the doll-thing was still in this room. It could not have escaped during the short time that he had been gone to fetch the pistol. Besides, he sensed its hateful presence, the coiled energy of its predatory patience.
    He felt something watching him even now.
    But watching from where?
    “Come on, damn you, show yourself,” he said.
    In spite of the perspiration that sheathed him and the tremor that periodically fluttered through his belly, Tommy was gaining confidence by the minute. He felt that he was handling this bizarre situation with remarkable aplomb, conducting himself with sufficient courage and calculation to impress even Chip Nguyen.
    “Come on. Where? Where?”
    Lightning flashed at the windows, and tree shadows ran spider-quick over glass and streaming rain, and like a warning voice, the tolling thunder seemed to call Tommy's attention to the drapes.
    The drapes. They didn't extend all the way to the floor, hung only an inch or two below the bottoms of the windows, so he hadn't thought that the mini-kin could be hiding behind them. But perhaps somehow it had climbed two and a half feet of wall—or had leaped high enough—to snare one of the drapes, and then had pulled itself upward into concealment.
    The room had two windows, both facing east. Each window was flanked by panels of heavy fabric, a faux brocade in shades of gold and red, probably polyester, backed by a white lining, which hung from simple brass rods without concealing valances.
    All four drapery panels hung in neat folds. None appeared to be pulled out of shape by a rat-size creature clinging to the back.
    The fabric was heavy, however, and the doll-thing might have to weigh even more than a rat before it noticeably distorted the gathered pleats of the drapes.
    With the pistol cocked and his finger taut on the trigger, Tommy approached the first of the two windows.
    Using his left hand, he took hold of one of the drapery panels, hesitated, and then shook it vigorously.
    Nothing fell to the floor. Nothing snarled or scrambled for a tighter hold on the fabric.
    Although he spread the short drape and lifted it away from the wall, Tommy had to lean behind it to inspect the liner to which the intruder might be clinging. He found nothing.
    He repeated the process with the next drapery panel, but no snake-eyed mini-kin hung from the back of it, either.
    At the second window, his colourless reflection in the rain-sheathed glass caught his attention, but he averted his gaze when he glimpsed such a stark fear in his own eyes that it belied the confidence and courage on which he