Quell lay across the bed: a dummy in bloodstained clothes. His half-open eyes looked at me in glazed horror. Hopper had bitten into his jugular vein. He was deader than a dead mackerel.
“Give me the key,” Hopper said in a forced whisper. “Others shall die tonight.”
I moved away. I thought I was a tough guy, but not now: Malloy the squeamish with cold sweat on his face and a lump of lead in his belly. I have seen some pretty horrible sights in my life, but this little tableau took the Oscar.
“Give me the key or I will kill you, too,” Hopper said, and threw Quells body off the bed on to the floor. He began to creep down the bed towards me, his face working, the blood on his mouth glistening in the soft lamp-light.
A Grand Guignol nightmare this. A dream to tell your friends about; a dream they wouldn’t believe.
I began a slow, backward, circling movement towards the door.
“Don’t go away, Seabright,” Hopper said, crouching on the bed and glaring at me. “Give me the key!”
I reached the door, and, as my hand closed over the handle he let out an unearthly scream of frustrated rage and threw himself off the bed at me. The bed rocked, but held, and his clawing fingers scrabbled at the carpet six feet or so away from me.
I was shaking. I got the door open and almost fell into the passage. As I grabbed the handle to shut it, the horrible animal sound burst out of his throat again.
For some moments I just stood in the long, silent corridor, my heart jumping and my knees knocking, then slowly I took hold of myself. With one hand against the wall to support me, I set off slowly towards the massive door at the end of the corridor. I passed four other doors before I came to the end one. I ran my hands over the surface, feeling the soft rubber cool against my hot skin. I turned the handle, but nothing happened. The door was locked as fast as Pharaoh’s tomb.