8. GARRY HAS A SCARE
A huge woman was lumbering toward him down the dim corridor. There was something strange and unreal about her face and her awkward movements that gave Garry chills.
Garry started running. He slammed into the water fountain, bruising his side. But he kept moving, and so did the woman stalker.
Garry knew that the corridor was in the shape of a square and that if he kept turning corners he would arrive back at the dormitory. He wondered why a woman should frighten him, and it embarrassed him when he thought what the others would say when they found out. But the creature was so hostile—and somehow monstrous in her looks—that Garry was sure she meant to attack him.
As he ran, Garry did not even look back to see if his adversary were still in pursuit. Finally, he turned the last corner and saw the dormitory straight ahead at the end of the corridor. He looked back around the corner in the direction from which he had just come. He’d outdistanced her. She wasn’t even in sight.
By now his nerves were a little calmer, although his heart still drummed faster than usual. He began walking briskly, every now and then casting a look back over his shoulder.
There was the dormitory at last. He felt a little silly now, as he reached for the button to open the door. He decided that he would not tell the others of his run and his fright lest they tease him about the incident. He would just tell them that he had seen the strange woman but would not reveal the embarrassing circumstances. He still wondered who she could be, especially since Captain Eaton had not even mentioned her before.
Just as Garry pressed the door button, he heard a metallic clanking behind him.
There was the woman, coming very fast, the dim lights revealing the dark hollows of her eyes. Garry saw her tight-lipped mouth, her hugeness—fully as tall as Mr. Klecker and almost as broad, it seemed.