The Incredible Shrinking Man Read online

Chapter Eight

  There was a thumping sound, like that of a hammer on wood; like the sound of a huge fingernail tapping, falsely patient, on a blackboard. The tapping pounded at his sleeping brain. He stirred on the bed, rolling over on his back with a fitful toss of arms. Thump-thump-thump.

  He moaned. At his sides, his hands raised up a trifle, then dropped again. Thump. Thump.

  He groaned irritably, still not fully conscious.

  Then the water drop burst across his face.

  Gagging and coughing, he reared up on the sponge, hearing a loud squishing noise. Another drop splashed off his shoulder.

  "What!" His brain struggling to orient itself, his wide-eyed, startled gaze fled around the darkness. Thump! Thump! It was a giant's fist beating at a door; it was a monster gavel pounding on a rostrum. Sleep was gone. He felt his chest jerk with staggering heartbeats. "Good God," he muttered. He threw his legs over the side of the sponge.

  They landed in lukewarm water.

  He jerked his legs back with a gasp. Overhead the noise seemed to be coming faster. Thump-thump-thump! Breath caught in his throat. What in God's name. . .

  Grimacing at the brain-jolting sound, he let his legs over the side of the bed again and let them sink in the warm water. He stood hastily, rigid hands clamped over his ears. Thump thump thump! It was like standing inside a fiercely beaten drum. Gasping, he lurched for the edge of the box top. He slipped on the water-slick surface, crying out as his right knee banged down on the cement. He pushed up with a groan, then slipped again.

  "Damn it!" he screamed. He hardly heard his voice; the noise was almost deafening. Frantic, he braced his feet and, reaching up, lifted the box-top edge and ducked out under it. He slipped again, crashing down on an elbow. Pain knifed up his arm. He started up. A drop of water slammed across his back, sending him sprawling again. He twisted over like a fish and saw the water heater leaking.

  "Oh, my God," he muttered, wincing at the pain in his knee and elbow. He stood up, watching great drops splatter off the box top and cement. The water ran warmly across his ankles; there was a minor waterfall of it flowing over the edge of the block, splashing on the cellar floor.

  For a long moment he stood there indecisively, staring at the falling water, feeling the robe cling warm and wet to his body.

  Then he cried out suddenly. "The crackers. "

  He lunged at the box top again, sliding and struggling for balance. He lifted the top and carried it over the bed, feet almost slipping out from under him all the way. He dropped it, then flung himself across the sponge, hearing water burst out from its swollen pores.

  "Oh, nor

  He couldn't drag the package up, it was so water-logged. Face wild with frightened anger, he tore it open, the soggy paper parting like tissue in his hands.

  He stared at the water-soaked cracker bits moulded together into an ashen paste. He picked up a handful and felt the sodden drag of it, like day-old porridge.

  With a curse he flung the dripping mass away. It flew over the edge of the block and splattered into a hundred pale scraps on the floor.

  He knelt there on the sponge, oblivious now of the water that poured around and over him. His eyes were fastened to the pile of crumbs, his lips pressed into a blood pinched hating line.

  "What's the use?" he muttered. His fists snapped shut like jaws. "What's the use?" A water drop fell in front of him and he took a savage punch at it, losing balance and toppling over, face first, on the sponge. Water flooded from the compressed honeycomb.

  He jolted to his feet on the block, hard with fury.

  "You're not going to beat me," he said, he hadn't the slightest idea to whom. His teeth jammed together and it was defiance and a challenge that he hurled. "You're not going to beat me!" He grabbed up handfuls of the soggy cracker and carried it up to the dry safety of the first black metal shelf of the water heater. What good are soaked crackers? asked his brain. They'll dry he answered. They'll rot first, said his brain. Shut up! he answered.

  He yelled it. "Shut up!" God! he thought. He flung a cracker snowball at the water heater and it spatted off the metal.

  Suddenly he laughed. Suddenly the whole thing seemed hilarious, him four-sevenths of an inch tail, in a tent like robe, standing ankle-deep in lukewarm water and throwing soggy cracker balls at a water heater. He threw back his head and laughed loudly. He sat down in the warm water and slapped his palms at it, splashing geysers of it across himself. He pulled off his robe and rolled around in the warm water. A bath, he thought. I'm having my goddam morning bath.

  After a while he got up and dried himself on what was left of the handkerchief around the sponge. Then he squeezed the water from the robe and hung it up to dry. My throat is sore, he told himself. So what? he said. It'll have to wait its turn.

  He didn't know why he felt so exhilarated and stupidly amused. He was certainly in a fix. It was just, he guessed, that when things got so bad they were absurd, you couldn't take them straight anymore; you had to laugh or crack. He almost imagined that if the spider came lumbering over the edge of the block now, he'd laugh at it.

  He ripped up the handkerchief with teeth, nails, and hands, and made a flimsy robe of it, tying up the sides as he had done with the other robe. He put it on hastily. He had to get over to the sewing box. Picking up the heavy pin, he threw it to the floor, then climbed down the cement block and retrieved it. I'll have to find another sleeping place now, he thought. It was amusing. He might even have to go up the great cliff face after that slice of dry bread. That was amusing, too. He shook his head as he jogged across the floor toward the carton, sunlight streaming through the windows over him. It was like the time after he'd broken the contract. There were all the bills, the pitiless insecurity, the problems of adjustment. He'd tried to go back to work. He'd begged Marty, and Marty had reluctantly agreed. But it hadn't worked. It had got worse and worse until one day Therese had seen him trying to climb onto a chair and had picked him up like a boy and set him on it.

  He'd screamed at her and gone storming to Marty's office; but before he could say a word Marty had shoved a letter across the desk at him. It had been from the Veterans Administration. The GI loan had been turned down.

  And that afternoon, driving home, when the same tire had gone flat a second time, half a block from the apartment, Scott had sat in the car shrieking with laughter, so hysterical that he'd fallen off his special seat, bounced off the regular one, and landed in a laughter-twitching heap on the floor boards. It was the way. Self defence; a mechanism the brain devised to protect itself from detonation; a release when things became wound up too tightly.

  When he reached the carton, he climbed in, not even caring if the spider was waiting in there for him. He walked in long strides to the sewing box and found a small thimble. It took all the strength in him to push it up the hill of clothes and shove it out through the opening.

  He rolled the thimble across the floor like a giant empty hogshead, the pin stuck through his handkerchief robe and scraping behind him on the cement as he moved.

  At the heater he thought first of trying to lift the thimble to the top of the cement block, then realized it was much too heavy and pushed it up against the base of the block, where the torrent of water quickly filled it.

  The water was a little dirty, but that didn't matter. He picked up palmfuls of it and washed his face. It was a luxury he'd not experienced for many months. He wished he could shave off his thick beard, too; that would really feel good. The pin? No, that wouldn't work.

  He drank some of the water and made a face. Not too good. Well, it would cool. Now he wouldn't have to climb all the way down to the pump.

  Straining, he managed to drag the thimble a little bit away from the waterfall and let the quivering surface still itself. Then, propping the pin against the side of the thimble, he shinnied up its slanting length to the lip. There, amidst the faint spray, he looked into the mirror like wat
er at his face. He grunted. Truly, it was remarkable. Small, yes, a particled fraction of its former self; yet still the same, line for line. The same green eyes, the same dark-brown hair, the same broad taper of nose, the same jawline, the same ears and full lips. He grimaced. And the same teeth, though likely rotted after so long a time without being brushed. Yet they were still white; rubbing on them with a moistened finger had accomplished that. Amazing. He would be a poor testimonial for a toothpaste concern. He stared a while longer at his face. It was unusually calm for the face of a man who lived each day with dread and peril. Perhaps jungle life, despite physical danger, was a relaxing one. Surely it was free of the petty grievances, the disparate values of society. It was simple, devoid of artifice and ulcer-burning pressures. Responsibility in the jungle world was pared to the bone of basic survival. There were no political connivings necessary, no financial arenas to struggle in, no nerve-knotting races for superior rungs on the social ladder. There was only to be or not to be.

  He ruffled the water with a hand. Begone, face, he thought, you matter nothing in this cellar life. That he had once been called handsome seemed stupid. He was alone, with no one to please or cater to or like because it was expedient.

  He let himself slide down the pin. Except, he thought, wiping spray from his face, that he still loved Louise. It was a final standard. To love someone when there was nothing to be got from that person; that was love.

  He had just measured himself at the ruler and was walking back to the water heater when there came a loud creaking noise, a thunderous crash, and a glaring carpet of sunlight flung across the floor. A giant came clumping down the cellar steps.

  Paralysis locked him.

  He stood horror rooted to the spot, staring up at the mammoth figure bearing down on him, its plunging shoes raised higher than his head, then slamming down and shaking the floor beneath him. It was double shock that froze him into heart-leaping petrifaction; seeing the mountainous being so abruptly and, at the same time, realizing despite numb terror that he had once been that very size himself. Head thrown back, he stared, open-mouthed, at the giant's approach.

  Then thought and immobility were torn away by a bolt of instinct and with a gasp he sprinted toward the edge of the engulfing shadow. The floor shook harder; he heard the bat squeak of gigantic shoes about to mash him like a bug. With a sucked-in cry, he lunged another yard, then dived headlong toward the light, arms out to brace himself.

  He landed hard, rolling on his shoulder to break the fall. The vast shoe, like a whale leaping, slammed down inches from his body.

  The giant stopped. From the tunnel of a pocket it withdrew a screw driver as long as a seven-story building, then billowed out its black shadow like a spreading pool as it crouched before the water heater. Scott ran, splashing, around its right shoe, the top of his head level with the lip of the sole. Standing beside the cement block, he peered up at the colossus.

  Far up, so far he had to squint to see, was its face: nose like a precipitous slope that he could ski on; nostrils and ears like caves into which he could climb; hair a forest he could lose himself in; mouth a vast, shut cavern; teeth (the giant grimaced suddenly) he could slide an arm between; eye pupils the height of him, black irises wide enough to crawl through, lashes like dark, curling sabers. He stared mutely at the giant. That was what Lou looked like now, monstrously tall, with fingers as thick as redwood trees, feet like elephants that never were, breasts like pliant, hill-peaked pyramids. Suddenly the vast shape wavered before the colourless gelatin of tears. It had never struck him so hard before. Not seeing her, his own physique the norm, he had imagined her as someone he could touch and hold, even knowing it wasn't so. Now he knew it completely; and the knowing was a cruel weight that crushed all memory beneath itself.

  He stood there crying silently, not even caring when the giant picked up his sponge and, with a dinosaur grunt, tossed it aside. Moods had come with quicksilver in distinction that morning panic to misery to hilarity to peacefulness to terror, now to misery again. He stood by the block watching the giant remove the skyscraper side of the water heater and set it aside to poke the screw driver into the heater's belly.

  A cold wind fogged across him then and his head snapped around so quickly it sent painful twinges down his neck. The door!

  "Oh, my God," he muttered, astonished at his own stupidity. To stand here in disconsolate gloom when all the time his escape route was waiting.

  He almost dashed straight across the floor. Then, with a rocking lurch, he realized that the giant might see and think him an insect, being conscious only of smallness and movement. Eyes on the looming figure, he backed along the side of the block until he reached the wall. Then, turning, he raced along its base to the great shadow of the fuel tank. Eyes still on the giant, he ran underneath the tank, past the fifty strides of the ladder, under the red metal table, the wicker table, hardly starting at all when the oil burner flared once more into sound. Behind, the giant tapped and probed at the machinery of the water heater. Scott reached the foot of the steps.

  The first one loomed fifty feet above him. He paced in the chilly shadow of it, looking up its sheer face at the sunlight pouring overhead like a golden canopy. It was still early morning, then; the back of the house faced east.

  Abruptly he ran along the block-long distance of the step, looking for a place to climb. But there was nothing except a narrow vertical passage at the far right end where mortar between two cement blocks had contracted, leaving a three-sided chimney about the thickness of his body. He'd have to climb it as mountaineers did, braced rigid between back and sandal bottoms, inching himself up by leg tension. It was a terribly difficult way, and there were seven steps to the back yard. Seven fifty-foot faces to climb. If he were exhausted after the first one. . .

  The thread. It might help. He ran back to the wicker table and shook loose the bar from its place. He glanced over at the giant, still crouching in front of the heater, then ran back to the step, dragging the thick thread behind him. There was just a chance.

  He flung the bar up. But it wouldn't reach the top of the step, and even if he could throw it that high, there wasn't likely to be any niche for it to catch in. He dragged the thread to the three-sided chimney and stood there searching its narrow height for a crevice in which he might lodge the bar. There was none.

  He threw the bar down and half walking, half running, moved restlessly along the base of the steps. He turned like a trapped animal and ran back again. There had to be a way. He'd been waiting for this opportunity for months; through half a winter in the cellar, waiting for someone to open that vast door so he could climb to freedom.

  But he was so small. "No, no. " He wouldn't let himself think about that. There was a way; there always was a way. No matter how difficult, there always was a way. He had to believe that. Nervously he cast another glance back at the crouching giant. How long would he stay there? Hours? Minutes?

  There was no time to waste.

  The broom.

  Whirling again, Scott raced across the floor, shivering in the wind. He should have put on the heavier robe. But there had been no time. Besides, it was probably still wet. The thimble; he wondered whether the giant's monstrous feet had knocked it over, perhaps even crushed it.

  It doesn't matter! he yelled at himself. I'm getting out of here! He skidded to a halt in front of the broom that leaned against the refrigerator.

  There was a spider web across the top of the bound bristles. He knew it wasn't the black widow's work, but it reminded him that his pin was back at the water heater. Should he go back and try to get it?

  He shook that off too. It doesn't matter! He was going to get out of there. That was all he'd let himself concentrate on. I'm going to get out, that's all; I'm going to get out.

  He grabbed one of the club-thick straws and pulled at it with all his strength. It stuck. He pulled again, with the same result. He grabbed the next straw and jerked at it.
It stuck fast. With an impatient curse, he grabbed the next straw and pulled and the next and the next. They all stuck fast. He tried another. He pulled as hard as he could, carelessly, bracing his feet against the bristles. When one finally did pull out, it came loose so easily that it sent him flying over on his back on the cement floor. He cried out sharply, then had to roll out of the way quickly to keep the toppling straw from crashing down on his skull.

  He struggled to his feet, wincing at the pain in his back. Squatting, he grabbed hold of the straw and dragged it slowly over to the step, laying it perpendicular to the face. Then he let it drop and stood there panting, hands on hips. The sunlight overhead was like a bolt of shimmering cloth, so thick and brilliant it seemed that he could run right up it to the yard.

  He closed his eyes and drank in fast lungfuls of the cold March air. Then he ran back to the other end of the straw and lifted it. Bracing the end against the rough cement face, he kept lifting it, drawing in the far end so that the straw rose at a steeper and steeper angle against the step. Wouldn't the giant hear the scraping? No, of course not. Those vast ears could never pick up such a tiny sound. When the straw was leaning against the step at approximately a seventy-degree angle, he dropped his arms and let them hang aching at his sides. His head fell forward, mouth open, gasping at the air. As cold as it was, he leaned against the cement. The cellar swam in shadowy ripples before his exhaustion-glazed eyes. The oil burner had stopped. In the void of silence, he could hear the clatter of the giant's tools in the water heater.

  When normal sight returned and his arms had stopped throbbing so badly, he looked up at the straw. He groaned. It wasn't nearly as long as he had expected; and shorter yet because, reared, it sagged limply in the middle. Even if he reached its very top, there would still be a good eight to ten feet for him to scale before he reached the top of the step. Eight to ten feet of vertical cement with no handholds to help him up.

  He ran a shaky hand through his hair. You're not going to beat me, he thought, addressing unknown powers again. His face was a tense mask of lines and ridges. He was going to get up there, that was all there was to it.

  He looked around.

  Against the wall near the log pile there was a hill of stones, leaves, and wood scraps. Long ago, in a life that seemed now more imaginary than real, he had swept them all there in a spurt of atypical neatness. He ran to the pile. It rose above him like a hill of boulders and giant logs, some as high as houses. Could he hope to drag some of them to the base of the step, at least enough to prop the straw on and make up five of those eight to ten feet? The rest of the footage he could chance with an upward spring, as he had done in climbing to the tabletop. But you almost fell from the tabletop, he reminded himself. If it hadn't been for that paint-can handle. . .

  He ignored the recollection. This was beyond argument. Every action since his plunge into the cellar had been dedicated to the hope of getting up those steps. In the beginning, he'd been up and down them a hundred times, always stopped by the closed door. When he thought of how easily he'd been able to mount the steps then, it made him sick. It was cruel that now, when the door was finally opened, the steps should no longer be walls to him, but cliffs.

  The first stone he tried to move was so heavy he couldn't budge it. He stumbled over the uneven surface of the hill looking for smaller stones, his restless gaze pausing momentarily on various of the dark cave openings formed by the piled rock. What if the spider were hiding in one of them? Heart thudding in slow, heavy beats, he moved over the broken slope until he found a flat stone he could move. This he pushed with agonizing slowness across the floor, jamming it up against the step. He straightened up and stepped back. The stone was a little higher than his knees. He'd need another one. Returning to the hill of rocks, he continued searching until he'd found a similar stone plus a piece of bark. Added to the original stone, these two extra pieces would just about make up the needed height. Moreover, there was a groove in the bark onto which the end of the straw might fit. Grunting with satisfaction, he pushed the dead weight of the second stone back to the step. There, teeth clamped, body shaking with taut muscled exertion, he managed to lift it to the top of the first stone, something giving in his back as he did it. Straightening up, he felt a flare of pain in his back muscles. You're coming apart, Carey, he told himself. It was amusing.

  The second stone teetered a little on the first, he discovered. He had to cram pieces of torn cardboard into the gaps between the two facing surfaces. That done, he climbed up on top of it and jumped up and down. So far, his little platform was secure.

  Worriedly he looked over at the giant, still working on the water heater, but for how long? He jumped down off the top stone, gasping at the pain in his back, and limped back to the hill. Sore throat, aching back, twitching arms. What next? A cold wind blew over him and he sneezed. Pneumonia next, he thought. It was well, almost amusing.

  The scrap of bark was easier to transport. He carried the thin end of it on his shoulder and walked, bent over, dragging the bark behind him. It was getting colder. It suddenly occurred to him that he didn't know what he was going to do when he got out in the yard. If it was so cold, wouldn't he freeze to death? He pushed the thought aside.

  He slid the bark over the top of the two stones, then stood leaning against his structure, looking at it. No, now that they were close together, he could see that the straw end was too thick to fit into the groove in the bark. He blew out a breath through gritted teeth. Troubles, troubles. Another anxious glance at the giant. How could he tell how much time there was? What if he got up two steps and the giant finished and went back up? If he weren't crushed to death by those monstrous shoes, he would be, at the very least, stranded on the high, darkened step, unable to see well enough to get down again. But he wasn't going to think of that. That was it, the end, the finale. He got out now or, No, there was no or. He wouldn't let there be one.

  Picking up a tiny scrap of rock, he climbed to the top of his platform and scraped at the groove, tearing away stringy fibers until the slot was wide enough to accommodate the end of the straw. He threw down the piece of rock and, lifting the hem of his robe, mopped his sweaty face dry. He stood there for a few minutes, breathing deeply, letting his muscles unknot. There's no time for rest, his brain scolded. But he answered it, I'm sorry, I've got to rest or I'll never make the top. He'd have to take a chance on the length of time the giant would be working. He'd never make the summit in one all-out effort, that was clear.

  That was when the thought occurred to him. What am I doing all this for?

  For a moment it stopped him cold. What was he doing it for? In a matter of days it would all be over. He would be gone. Why all this exertion, then? Why this pretence at continuing an existence that was already doomed?

  He shook his head. It was dangerous to think like that. Dwelling on it could end him. For in the final analysis, everything he had done and was doing was illogical. Yet he couldn't stop. Was it that he didn't believe that everything would be over on Sunday? How could he doubt it? Had the process faltered once, once, since it had begun? It had not. A seventh of an inch a day, as precise as clockwork. He could have devised a mathematical system on the absolute constancy of his descent into inevitable nothingness.

  He shuddered. Strange, thinking about it was debilitating. Already he felt weaker, more exhausted, less confident. If he pursued it long enough he would be finished.

  He blinked his eyes and, deliberately ignoring his rise of hopeless weariness, moved to the straw. He wouldn't let it happen to him. He'd lose himself in work.

  Lifting the straw to the top of the bark proved extremely difficult. It was one thing to lift an end of it, using the floor as a fulcrum. It was one thing to slide the straw to a leaning position against the step. It was another entirely to lift the whole weight of it from the floor and prop it on the base he had erected. The first time he lifted the straw, it slipped from his grasp and banged down on the ceme
nt, crushing one edge of a sandal. He remained pinned until he lifted the straw again and pulled his foot away. He leaned against the platform, chest throbbing with agitated breath. If the straw had landed on his foot. . .

  He closed his eyes. Don't think about it, he warned himself. Please. Don't think about the things that could have happened.

  The second time he tried, he managed to get the straw propped on the edge of the first stone. But while he was resting the straw fell over and almost knocked him down. Cursing with desperate anger, he dragged the straw to a leaning position, then, with a surge of energy, lifted it once more, this time making sure it was secure before letting go.

  The next lift was harder yet. Leverage would be bad because he'd have to start raising the straw at waist level, and then up to the top of the second stone, which was at the level of his shoulders. His legs would be of no service. All the strength would have to come from his back, shoulders, and arms. Drawing in breath through his mouth, he waited till his chest was swollen taut, then cut off air abruptly and lifted the heavy straw, setting it down on the second stone. It wasn't until he let go that he realized how much of a lift it had been. There was a painful tension through his back and groin that loosened very slowly, as if the muscles had been twisted like wrung-out cloths and were unraveling now. He pressed a palm against the soft area on his back.

  A few moments later he climbed to the top of the platform. With one more short lift, he slid the end of the straw into the groove. He shook the straw until it was in the most advantageous position, then sat down to gather strength for the climb. The giant was still working. There would be time. Of course there would.

  Then he stood and tested the straw. Good, he thought. He inhaled quickly. Now to get out of there. He felt at the coil of thread over his right shoulder. Good. He was ready. He began inching up the straw, shinnying along it carefully to keep it from sliding over. It sagged even more under his weight. Once it began to slip a little to the side, and he had to stop and, with body jerks, shake it back into position.

  After a pause, he started climbing again, legs wrapped around the straw, lips drawn back from clenched teeth, eyes looking straight ahead at the dead gray of the cement face. When he got to the top of the step, he'd lower a thread loop and pull up the straw. There would be no stones to prop it on up there, but he'd manage something. Now he was twenty feet up, now twenty-five, now thirty, now. . .

  A gigantic shape slid over him, blotting the sun from view.

  He almost fell off the straw. Losing his grip, he spun around to the underside of the straw, arms hugging wildly at its smooth surface. He jerked himself to a halt, and found himself looking into the green lantern eyes of the cat.

  Shock drained breath from him. He felt even more helplessly petrified than when the giant had come down the steps. He clung to the straw, staring at the cat as if hypnotized. The spear like whiskers twitched. The huge cat edged forward in wary curiosity, belly near the floor, front legs flattened, back slightly arched. Scott felt the warm wind of its breath misting over him, and he almost retched.

  Unconsciously he let himself slide down a few inches. There was a liquid rumbling in the cat's throat and he stopped abruptly, hanging there motionless. The cat's whiskers twitched again. Its breath was sickening. Turning his head from side to side, he saw its protruding side teeth like giant, yellow-edged daggers that could pierce his body in an instant.

  An electric shuddering ran down his back. He slid down the straw a little more. The cat hunched forward. No! his mind screamed. He froze to the quivering straw, heartbeat like a fist pounding at his chest.

  If he tried to descend, the cat would attack. If he jumped, he'd break a leg and be eaten. Yet he couldn't stay there. His throat contracted with a dry clicking. He hung there impotently under the bland surveillance of the huge cat.

  When it raised its right paw twitchingly, his breath stopped.

  In a fascination of absolute horror, he watched the huge, gray, scythe-clawed paw rise up slowly, coming closer and closer to him. He couldn't move. Unblinking, stark-eyed he hung there waiting. Just before the paw was going to touch him, everything shook loose at once.

  "Get out!" he screamed into the cat's face. It jumped back, startled. With a lurch, he flung the straw to the side, and it began sliding raspingly along the cement face, faster and faster. Not looking at the cat, he hung on till the toppling straw was about five feet from the floor. Then he leaped. Landing, he twisted himself in a somersault. Behind him the cat glided forward, growling. Get up! his mind shrieked. He found his feet again and lurched forward, falling.

  As he skidded to his knees, the cat jumped, great paws banging down on each side of him, claw ends raking sparks from the cement. The mouth yawned open, a cave of scimitars and hot winds. Twitching back against the step, Scott felt the thread coil slip off his shoulder. Grabbing it, he flung it deep into the cat's mouth and it jumped back, spitting and gagging. Pushing off from the step, Scott raced to the hole of stones and dived into a cave.

  A second after, the cat's paw raked across the spot where he had entered. A cuffed stone rattled away. Scott crawled to the back of the cave and down a side tunnel as the cat scratched wildly at the rocks.

  "Hey, Puss. "

  Scott stopped abruptly, head cocked, as the deep voice thundered.

  "Hey, what're you after?" asked the voice. Scott heard chuckling like a threat of distant thunder. "Got yourself a mouse in there?"

  The floor shook as the giant's shoes thudded across it. With an indrawn cry, Scott ran down the sloping tunnel, off into another one, again into yet another, until he skidded to a halt before a blank wall. There he crouched shivering and waiting.

  "Got yourself a mouse, have you?" the voice asked. It made Scott's head hurt. He covered up his ears. He still heard the fierce meowing of the cat.

  "Well, let's see if we can't find 'I'm, puss," the giant said.

  "No," Scott didn't even know he spoke. He shrank against the wall hearing the boulders being shoved aside by the giant's hands, the sound a grating, screeching rasp that plunged like a knife into his brain. He pressed both palms against his ears as hard as he could.

  Suddenly, light speared across him. With a cry, he dived headlong into a newly opened tunnel. Clawing wildly at the air, he fell seven feet to a hard rock shelf, landing on his side and raking skin off his right arm. In the darkness, a boulder slammed down beside him, tearing skin from the hell of his right hand. He cried out in terror.

  The giant said, "We'll find 'I'm, puss, we'll find 'I'm. " Light again. With a rasping sob, Scott lurched up and dived into the darkness again. A stone bounced off the floor and knocked him down. He rolled over and up again, running across the floor of the collapsing cavern, mute with panic. Another bouncing rock sent him flailing across the floor to smash head-on into a rock wall.

  As deeper blackness blotted out his mind, he felt blood trickling warmly down his cheek. His legs went limp, his hands uncurled like flowers dying, and falling rocks reared up a tomb around him.