sworn the doll's eyes turned to me, and that its lips writhed.
McCann staggered back. He stared at me for a moment, and then leaped to the table. He picked up the
doll's head, dashed it to the floor and brought his heel down upon it again and again, like one stamping
out the life of a venomous spider. Before he ceased, the head was a shapeless blotch, all semblance of
humanity or anything else crushed out of it-but within it the two blue crystals that had been its eyes still
glinted, and the knotted cord of the witch's ladder still wound through it.
"God! It was…was drawing me down to it…"
McCann lighted a cigarette with shaking hand, tossed the match away. The match fell upon what had
been the doll's head.
There followed, simultaneously, a brilliant flash, a disconcerting sobbing sound and a wave of intense