Chuck

Baking soda.

That's right.

All right, so he ran up the marble floors and into that bedroom, which is the sensible thing to do.

I rushed into my bedroom and slammed the door behind me, and then, I was certainly wide awake now, I found myself standing by my bed with the sweat of terror pouring from me.

The noise of the banged door still rang in my ears, but, as would have been more usual, if this had been mere nightmare, the terror that had been mine when I saw those foul beasts crawling about the bed or dropping softly on the floor did not cease then.

Awake now, if dreaming before, I did not at all recover from the horror of dream.

It did not seem to me that I had dreamed.

And until dawn, I sat or stood, not daring to lie down, thinking that every rustle or movement that I heard was the approach of the caterpillars.

To them and the claws that bit into the cement, the wood of the door was child's play.

Steel would not have kept them out.

So basically, like, this guy's just waiting for these caterpillars to bum rush him.

Yeah.

All night long.

Yeah, that's what I'd be saying.

I like this detail, by the way.

Mm-hmm.

The admirable rule of the house was that everybody had breakfast where and when he pleased, and in consequence it was not till lunchtime that I met any of the other members of our party, since I had breakfast on my balcony and wrote letters and other things till lunch.

In fact, I got down to that meal rather late, and the other three had begun.

Between my knife and fork there was a small pillbox of cardboard, and as I sat down, Inglis spoke.

Should I do Inglis?