Upstairs. She was upstairs, in their bedroom.

Got to get there! Got to get upstairs!

He started up the flight, stumbling on the first step and barely catching himself on the mahogany banister. A wave of dizziness swept over him as he pulled himself back upright. His stomach felt queasy.

Drank too much. Drank just a little too much.

Hanging onto the banister with both hands, he pulled himself up a few more steps.

And the tolling of the clock struck him again.

Sagging to his knees, he peered up into the gloom, and there, on the landing, he could see it.

The clock!

The same clock that had been in the living room and the dining room.

"Nooo…" he wailed, his voice cracking as a sob of fear choked his throat. Turning away from the tolling clock, he stumbled back toward the foot of the stairs, but missed his footing completely on the third step, reached for the banister, missed again, and tumbled down the stairs, his right shoulder wrenching painfully as he sprawled out on the floor of the entry hall. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Ted scrambled to his feet, stumbling from one room to another, searching for some place-any place-that would be free of the terrible striking of the clock. Everywhere he went the clock was there, tolling the impossible hour time after time until it felt as if every part of his body was being subjected to the blows of the hammer.

Finally there was only one door left, and Ted stumbled through it.

He was at the top of a steep flight of stairs leading into the basement. The darkness below him yawned like the gaping mouth of some great beast, and Ted fumbled for a light switch, found one, and flipped it on.

The darkness below was pierced by a beckoning light. His heart still pounding, the terror of the impossible chimes still battering at him, Ted lurched down the stairs until he came to the bottom.

And still the terrible tolling found him.

"Stop it," he whispered, jamming his hands against his ears, but now the sound seemed to come from inside his head itself, throbbing inside his skull, falling into rhythm with his heart.

A stroke!

That was it!

He was having a stroke!

The pain in his head ballooning, he stumbled through another door. Once again he tripped, and this time when he fell to the floor an agonizing knife-twist shot through his right wrist. Screaming, Ted clutched at his wrist.

Another wave of dizziness hit him, and his belly heaved. As the contents of his stomach shot from his mouth, he dropped to the floor and felt the heat of his own vomit on his cheek.

The rancid fumes caused him to puke again, and then, rolling over onto his back, he began to sob.

"No-" he pleaded, his voice breaking and choking.

"Don't want to die. Don't want to."

But he was going to die-lying in the dark chamber with only a few rays of light leaking through the door. He knew it.

With Janet asleep upstairs, he was going to die.

Die alone, die drunk.

Dead drunk.

"No. No. Nooo." A whisper. A sob. "Help me… please, help me. Someone, please help me."

He retched again, and then again. He struggled to move, at least to slither away from the pool of vomit in which he lay, but any movement he made was pure agony.

Then, from somewhere deep in the darkness surrounding him, he saw something.

From somewhere hidden in the darkness a mist was rising. A mist that seemed to be illuminated from within, as if a thousand candles were burning unseen in the strange fog. As he stared at the fog, a face began to take shape.

A powerful face, with glowing eyes that bored into the depths of his soul.

A hallucination.

That had to be it-he was hallucinating.

Or dying.

That was it-his life was ebbing away, and this was a spirit come to lead him into the mists of death.

"Help me," he whispered once again. "Please help me."

The mist itself seemed to reach out to him, and he felt a touch-a burning touch-on his cheek.

A voice spoke. A whisper. Neither a woman's voice nor a man's, something unearthly yet distinct. "Will you give me whatever I ask?"

Ted stared up into the glittering eyes. "Yes," he whispered. "Oh, God, yes."

The terrible tolling in Ted's head eased.

The nausea in his belly calmed.

"Anything," he pleaded once again. "I'll do anything. Just help me."

Once again he felt the searing touch.

In an instant the pain in his wrist and shoulder were gone.

In the sudden silence Ted Conway fell into sleep. But just before he surrendered to blankness, he knew that something inside him had changed.

Nothing, he knew, would ever be the same again.

Jared?" The sound faded into the silence that surrounded him. At first Jared wasn't really sure he'd heard someone calling his name. But then it came again, faint, barely audible. "Jared!"

His father's voice.

Though he could barely hear it, Jared recognized it immediately, rasping with the anger that was always there, even when his father was sober.

Was he sober now?

Jared couldn't tell.

Then the voice came again, and this time it carried a note of command. "Jared!"

He sounded nearer now, and Jared tensed. His eyes flicked first one way then the other, trying to catch a glimpse of his father. But he saw nothing. Then, as his father called out to him yet again, Jared realized he was lost. But that was crazy-he knew exactly where he was: in the big house in St. Albans, in his room on the second floor. Except now he wasn't. He was in a room-a big room-but there was nothing in it. No furniture, no carpets, nothing hanging on the walls. One of the walls, though, was pierced by two windows. Jared moved close enough to the glass to look out.

Nothing.

It was as if a thick fog had fallen beyond the window, and when he tried to peer into it, his eyes found nothing to focus on. A weird disorientation fell over him, causing him to lose his balance. Staggering, he instinctively reached out to steady himself against the window frame.

His right hand plunged through it, disappearing into the gray morass beyond the boundaries of the room. Jared froze in shock.

He jerked his arm back, and for a single terrible instant thought his hand was gone. But no! It was there, and it didn't hurt, and-

What the hell had happened?

For several long seconds he stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the spot where his hand had disappeared. Then, as if drawn by some unseen force, his hand started moving once again toward the same spot.

"No!"

The word jabbed his consciousness like the stinger of a hornet, and Jared jerked back to life. He sprung around, certain his father was standing right behind him. The room was still empty.

He whirled around again. Now the gray fog beyond the window had vanished. Instead there was a blackness that seemed to go on for all eternity. But it was a blackness that was not empty.

As he gazed into it, his heart pounding, he felt something reaching out to him.

Something that wanted to touch his soul.

A strangled cry rising in his throat, Jared backed away from the window, then turned and fled through the room's single door.

He found himself in a corridor, a long, broad passage that seemed to stretch on forever in both directions. He looked one way, then the other. Which way should he go? Panic began to rise in him. One way looked exactly like the other.

But he had to make up his mi-

He stopped.

Something was close to him. Very close.

He held his breath, listening.

Silence.

Yet it was there. He could feel it; it was edging closer.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and a shiver passed through him.