When he lowered the cup again he grimaced.

He had two explanations, so far – real supernatural monsters that only he had seen, or an incredibly complicated practical joke directed at him.

Neither one seemed very likely, and a third possibility occurred to him, one he didn’t like to think about, but one that certainly made as much sense as either of the others.

Maybe he had imagined the entire thing, from start to finish. Maybe none of it was real at all.

Maybe he’d gone mad.

He finished his coffee and sat staring at his half-eaten eggs.

He had three possible explanations, and he didn’t like any of them.

The next step was to figure out what had to be done.

If he was mad, then perhaps the best thing to do was to do nothing and hope he recovered. He’d read Operators and Things years ago, and he knew that insane people, even ones with horrible delusions, sometimes recovered spontaneously.

More often they didn’t. Perhaps he should see a psychiatrist.

But then, if he wasn’t mad, that would be a mistake. The psychiatrist would probably think he was hallucinating, and would feed him Thorazine or Stelazine or some other such drug and he’d be reduced to a zombie-like state. He’d heard that while Thorazine could return many schizophrenics to near-normal functioning, it could reduce non-schizophrenics to a near-vegetable condition.

He remembered the discussions in his college abnormal-psych class where this had come up. Someone had said that yeah, some doctors used Thorazine not just to treat schizophrenia, but to diagnose it, too. If they gave a patient Thorazine and he got better, then he was schizophrenic and treatment was working. If he sat around and did nothing but stare at the walls, then he hadn’t been schizophrenic after all, and they’d stop the drug.

If he went to a doctor and got dosed with Thorazine and the monsters were real, then he’d be easy prey until the doctors decided he wasn’t schizo after all.

That assumed that the monsters were not only real, but were pursuing him – but after the little scene on the motel balcony, that seemed a reasonable assumption. After all, he knew they existed, and besides, if his theory was right, then one of them had intended to replace him all along, and had been delayed – but not necessarily stopped.

Well, if the monsters were real, then, what should he do?

He could go to the authorities, to the police, and tell them.

And they’d think he was nuts and he’d be in a cell somewhere, dosed with Thorazine, the next time the nightmare people came looking for him.

That was one thing that he thought the horror movies probably had right, despite all their foolishness – he couldn’t look for much help from the police or the government unless he had real, solid proof that there really were monsters around.

Even then, what could the police do?

What could anybody do?

What could he do?

He could run away, of course, but he had tried that last night. It hadn’t worked.

Maybe he hadn’t run far enough.

If he ran, though – if he went back home to Boston, or headed out to California the way he’d intended to before he got the offer from DML – he’d lose his job, and the friends he’d made in the area, and he’d have to start all over again, looking for work.

And he wouldn’t be able to explain why he left this job so suddenly. What could he say? If he said, “Oh, I didn’t like the area,” would anyone believe that?

Actually, they might; he could talk about the humid weather and the ridiculous cost of living. Not that Silicon Valley would be any cheaper.

But even if it worked, he didn’t want to find a new job.

And besides, the things might follow him, even to California. Why not? He had no way of knowing what they might do.

Was there some way to stop them?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know what they were, after all.

If the monsters were real, he had no idea what he should do. He just didn’t know enough.

Enough, hell, he didn’t know anything.

What, then, if it was all a prank?

He frowned. If it was a trick, how had they found him at the motel?

He shook his head and ignored that. Maybe someone had followed him, or recognized his car.

If it was a prank, was it done with? Would they leave him alone now?

Why had they done it? To drive him out of his apartment? If that was it, then why did they come after him at the motel?

He didn’t know.

Whatever was happening, he didn’t know enough. Whether it was a prank, or insanity, or genuine monsters, or something else he hadn’t thought of, he didn’t know enough.

He could just forget about it and try to go on with his life – but then, if he was insane, he might get worse, he might lose control completely.

The pranksters might continue to torment him.

Or the monsters might get him.

He had to do something.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to write anything that would run properly with this hanging over him; there was no point in trying to go to work. He could stay in the motel for another few nights if he had to, or maybe he could go stay with George down in Bethesda; finding an apartment could wait. He wouldn’t need a new apartment if he got himself killed or committed, or if he made up with the pranksters.

The first thing to do, then, was to learn more about whatever it was he was involved in.

In the horror movies, people got themselves killed by walking blithely and disbelievingly into the monster’s lair. While it was hard to think of life as being anything like a horror movie when he was sitting on an ordinary green-upholstered bench in a quiet booth in a sunny restaurant, drinking coffee and staring at plastic plants, he intended to be a bit more prepared, and more careful, than the people in the movies.

He picked up the check and headed for the register.

Simply walking into the Bedford Mills complex, he decided as he waited for a chance to make his left turn onto Route 124, would be too much like entering the locked room, the haunted house, the forbidden vault – if there were really monsters there, he’d be asking for it by doing anything so foolhardy.

In fact, walking in anywhere with nothing but the clothes on his back would be stupid. He abruptly changed his mind and turned right, instead of left, when a break in traffic finally appeared.

A quick switch to the left lane as he went under I-270, and he turned left at the light, onto Route 355 northbound.

Most of the traffic was southbound this time of day, in toward Washington, so he was able to get up a little speed. Then a kid in a battered green pickup cut him off, and he leaned on the horn for a moment, almost missing the entrance to the new Hechinger’s. His rear wheels slewed a bit on the gravel at the corner as he took the turn too fast, but then he was safely into the mostly-empty parking lot.

It was mostly empty for a good reason, he realized when he looked at the dark facade – the place wasn’t open yet.

He looked at his watch and saw 8:17; he sighed, unbuckled his harness, and got out of the car.

He stood for a moment looking at the store, then closed and locked the car and crossed to the concrete apron.

A small sign on the door gave the hours, starting at 8:30. He looked at his watch again – 8:18.

He tried to think of someplace that would already be open, and decided that 84 Lumber on Bureau Drive might be, or Barron’s down by the Cuddy Bridge, but by the time he could fight his way through the traffic to either one it would be 8:30.

He waited.

At 8:28 a black-haired kid in a red Hechinger’s vest unlocked the door.

Smith had had time to consider what he wanted, and wasted no time in finding it.