As I neared it I thought I was looking at a large bowl made from chewed-up newspaper sc.r.a.ps (it was) that someone had placed two black rocks in.

I a.s.sumed it was an art project of some kind.

But the black stones were wet. They were glistening.

And as I stood above the bowl, looking down into it, I realized what it actually was.

It was a nest.

And in the nest the black oval objects were not stones.

I knew immediately what they were.

They were eggs.

There was another nest next to the closet door. (And another one was later found in the guest room.) I flashed on something Miller had warned me about.

Miller had said that fumigation was necessary so nothing living would be left in the house once the cleansing began.

That was why the house had to be fumigated: the spirits, the demons, would try to find anything living to enter so they could "continue their existence."

A question: What if a doll had hidden itself and waited?

What if the Terby had hidden itself in the house?

What if it had survived the exterminators?

What if something else had entered it?

The connection between the doll and the nests was sane and immediate.

I remember rushing out of the room and tumbling down the staircase, gripping the railing so I wouldn't fall.

When I hit the foyer I started dialing Robby's number.

Again, I don't remember this exactly, but as I waited to leave a message, I think that was when I noticed Victor.

Because of Victor, again I didn't leave a message for Robby.

(But if I had called a third time-as any number of people did later-I would have been told that the cell phone had been deactivated.) Victor was lying in a fetal position, shivering, on the marble floor of the foyer.

The grinning dog that had excitedly loped toward me minutes ago did not exist.

He was whimpering.

When he heard me approach he looked up with sad, gla.s.sy eyes and continued to shake.

"Victor?" I whispered.

The dog licked my hand as I crouched down to soothe him.

The sound of his tongue lapping the dry skin of my hand was suddenly overtaken by wet noises coming from behind the dog.

Victor vomited without lifting his head.

I slowly stood upright and walked around to his backside, where the wet noises were coming from.

When I lifted the dog's tail I tried leaping out of my mind.

The dog's a.n.u.s was stretched into a diameter that was perhaps ten inches across.

The bottom half of the Terby was hanging out of the dog and slowly disappearing into the cavity, undulating itself so it could slide in with more ease.

I was frozen.

I remember instinctively reaching forward as the talons of the doll disappeared, causing the dog's body to bulge and then settle.

Victor quietly vomited again.

Everything stayed still for one brief moment.

And then the dog began convulsing.

I was already slowly backing away from the dog.

But as I did this, Victor-or something else-noticed.

His head suddenly jerked up.

Since the dog was blocking the front door and I did not want to step over it I had started moving back up the staircase.

I was moving deliberately.

I was pretending to be invisible.

Victor's whimpering had suddenly morphed into snarling.

I stopped moving, hoping this might calm Victor down.

I was taking deep breaths.

The dog, still curled on the marble floor of the foyer, began foaming at the mouth. Foam, in fact, was simply pouring out of his mouth in a continuous stream. It was yellow at first, the color of bile, and then the foam darkened into red, and there were feathers in it as the foam continued pouring out. And then the foam became black.

At that point I remember running up the stairs.

And in what seemed like an instant, something-it was Victor's jaw-had clamped itself around my upper thigh as I was midway up the curving staircase.

There was an immediate pressure, and a searing pain and then wetness.

I fell onto the stairs face-first, shouting out.

I turned over onto my side to kick the dog away, but he had already backed off.

The dog was standing, hunched, three steps below where I was writhing.

Then the dog started expanding.

The dog began mutating into something else.

His bones were growing and then began breaking out of his skin.

The noises Victor was making were shrill and high-pitched.

The dog looked surprised as his back suddenly bent up-and his body stretched another foot on its own accord.

The dog made another pained sound and then started gasping for breath.

For one moment everything was still, and as I wept I reached over mindlessly, foolishly, to comfort the dog, to let him know I was his friend and that he didn't need to attack since I wasn't a threat.

But then the dog's lips peeled back and he started shrieking.

His eyes began rolling in their sockets involuntarily until only the whites were visible.

I started screaming for help.

At the moment I began screaming the dog lurched forward, slamming itself against the wall as it kept enlarging.

I tried to stand up but my right leg was so damaged that I collapsed back onto the staircase, the steps slippery from all the blood pouring from the wound in my thigh.

The dog stopped moving again and started shuddering as its face elongated and became lupine.

Its front paws were manically scratching at one of the steps with such force that they were shredding the smooth, varnished wood.

I kept trying to push myself up the stairs.

The dog lowered its head, and when he slowly looked back up, approaching me, he was grinning.

I kicked at it with both feet, panting, backing myself up the staircase.

The dog stopped its approach.

The dog c.o.c.ked its head and then it started shrieking again.

Its eyeb.a.l.l.s bulged until they were pushed out of their sockets and hanging down his muzzle on their stalks.

Blood began pouring from the empty holes, drenching the dog's face, staining its bared teeth red.

It had what looked like wings now-they had sprouted out of both sides of the dog's chest.

They had snapped through the rib cage and were flapping themselves free of the blood and viscera that were keeping them weighed down.

It crept up toward me.

I kept kicking at it.

And, effortlessly, a mouthful of teeth sank into my right thigh again and bit down.

I reared up, screaming, and blood sprayed in an arc across the wall as the thing let go of my thigh.

It was suddenly freezing in the house but sweat was pouring down my face.

I began crawling up the stairs on my stomach when it bit me again, right below the place it had just ripped open.

I tried to shake the thing off.

I began sliding back down toward the dog because the stairs were so wet with blood.

It lashed out again.

The teeth were now the fangs of the Terby and they sank into my calf.

I realized with an awful finality: It wanted to keep me still.

It didn't want me to go anywhere.

It didn't want me to rush to the Fortinbras Mall.

It didn't want me to find Robby.

I became furious and I smashed my hand into the dog's face as it kept blindly snapping at me. Fresh blood burst from its snout. I smashed my hand again into its face.

The face kept spouting blood, and the dog continued shrieking.

I started screaming back at the dog.

I was sliding in place as I looked up to see how far I had to go before reaching the landing.

It was about eight steps.

I started pulling myself upward, dragging my mangled leg behind me.

And then I felt the thing leap on my back when it realized where I was going.

I whirled over, knocking the thing off me.

I thrashed around in all the blood, trying to kick it away.

I vomited helplessly onto my chest, and then whispered, "I hear you I hear you I hear you." "I hear you I hear you I hear you."