Phil could see Lucky mincing inquisitively down the side corridor, which was lined with doors. He tried to go around the arm, but it extended itself until it stretched from wall to wall.
"Still here?" the rasping wall inquired. "Look, Mack, I don't know your voice. If you got business with somebody, name me their name and the word they gave you."
"I just want to get my cat," Phil answered. Lucky had reached the end of the corridor and was peering into the last doorway. "Here, Lucky," he called, but the cat took no notice.
"Means nothing to me," the wall rasped on. "You still ain't named me no names that tripped any of my relays."
Lucky disappeared through the doorway. Phil said, "Please let me through a minute to get my cat," trying to sound as sincere as he could. "I'll be right back."
"I ain't letting nobody through," the wall asserted. "Give me a name and word, quick, Mack."
At that instant an appalling spasm of fear went through Phil, as if a light had been turned out inside his mind and his heart sprayed with liquid ice. He knew that something had happened to Lucky. He ducked under the gray arm and darted forward, but before he had taken five steps he felt himself grabbed. The corridor whirled as he was roughly spun back. Looking down he saw the elastic arm wrapped around him like a gray python, while the wall grated in his ear, "No go, Mack. Now I'll have to hold you till the man comes."
"Let me go. I've got to get in there, do you hear!" Phil yelled. He struggled futilely to release his arms, yet all the while he kept his eyes on the doorway through which Lucky had vanished. "Let me go!"
"Hey, what goes on?" A large, tall woman with close cropped blonde hair, a broken nose, an out-size jaw and big blue eyes had stepped out of the nearest doorway. "Cool down, son," she boomed out, coming toward him. "What did you want?"
"My cat ran in here," he explained, trying to speak calmly. "It ran in that room down there at the end." He nodded his head toward it. "I tried to go after it and this thing grabbed me."