"Yes." Her head drooped as though she were utterly discouraged. "It wouldn't be so bad as sticking it out here—alone."
He could not help but notice that she hesitated a bit before the word alone. Undoubtedly she could not get the thought of those things—those live things she so feared, out of her head. The things that waited for her in the shadows.
They walked along the wet pavements together.
An engine shrieked weirdly above them, like something neither bird nor beast; like something inhuman.
Under a street lamp she glanced up at him curiously.
He heard her gasp. He looked down at her. He saw her eyes widen in terror; he saw her pale, bare hands creep uncertain, stumbling to her neck, as if she were choking. He heard her voice rattling in her throat.
"What is it?" He asked. "You are ill?"
He put his hand on her shoulder. He could feel her shudder, as she writhed and twisted under his touch.
"Let go of me." Her voice was hoarse. "Let go of me, I say!"
For some unaccountable reason his fingers closed all the more tightly on her shrinking flesh.