With Jones, it had been snakes, not spiders. The others—to each his own? Somehow that made it seem even worse. Jones wanted to come along with me? I was glad and grateful. I don't know that I could have stood being alone that night.
Up in my apartment, we turned on all the lights. Had a couple of nightcaps. Sat up all night in my luxurious eight-by-ten living-dining-kitchen area for modern living. We talked a little, but not about Stanley and his friend. It was too fresh and we were too shaken. It seemed safer not to mention it.
I suppose we must have dozed off and on. In the morning, I woke up. I still had the shakes. No hangover, but the shakes.
"Jonesy," I said. "Jonesy, I guess maybe I ought to be getting along to work. What are you going to do?"
He woke up, full awake, like that. "I'm not going back," he said. "You know?"
"Yeah."
"I got a feeling. I got kind of a feeling that maybe I am sort of Stanley's doorway or gate back here, if you know what I mean. He was always nearer to me than anyone. You notice he kept telling me to wait for him? I think maybe he needs to feel around and find me to make his way back across from wherever he went. So, if I'm not there, if he can't locate me, could be he won't be able to make his way back—with his friends. I think I better stay as far away from down there as I can get. You reckon there might be some kind of job I could do on that paper you work for?"
"Sure," I said. I knew they needed some men in the circulation department. "That isn't so very far away, though, is it?" I had a sense that he was right about Stanley.
"Not miles. Distance, like that, I don't think it makes much difference where Stanley is. It's the Yard and all that, huh? Seems to be like if I get a steady job, get to be a real, steady, normal citizen, that's what would make me hard for Stanley to find."