Dr. NoSleep

do they know i'm here there was a 50 50 chance and even then a generous estimation to relax himself he had taken precautions or at least the most that one man could do against a threat so organized his house should be a pile of charred timbers by now or at least assuming that neighbor that turncoat bastard hadn't called the fire department at the first sign of fire

He'd left his car behind the 95 rest stop long after the needle had broken off.

Took only the essentials, cash and clothes mostly.

Scant pre-packaged foods he gnawed at like a scavenger, nothing traceable.

His phone was at the bottom of the river somewhere, and that was after he had pried the computer parts out.

Necessary precautions to be sure.

Any slovenly donut-eating detective would be stumped by his disappearance and, had the average lawman been what he was dealing with, he would have breathed a sigh of relief.

But they were not ordinary.

Far from it.

He might have fooled a few of the lesser ones.

The ones with their mouths hanging open like whales swallowing krill and their feeble minds excited by the shortest bursts of lights and sounds, yes.

But it was the older ones, the smarter ones, that he feared the most.

No doubt they had been tracing him, already traced him, and were now zeroing in on his location.

Horrible things.

Their hideous and vile appearance almost betrayed their incredible intellect.

The sound of their suction cup feet snapping through the drywall echoed through the vents, and if he closed his eyes to pretend to sleep, he'd hear the dull scratching of their bristly antennae brushing against the hotel door.

Yesterday, the cleaning lady had knocked on his door and offered to change his sheets.

A slug-like creature with seven flabby chins and a single bloodshot eye brain disguised as a squat little Mexican woman.

It was good he had left the door locked, or else it would have most likely barged right in.

They had surrounded him.