Carl Johnson sat in the yellow light of a dim desk lamp. A mostly ignored cigarette dangled between his trembling fingers like the weakest of security blankets. He took a nervous drag before crushing it out in the overflowing ashtray. Whiskey called to him from the half-empty bottle standing watch by the lamp. He felt a longing for the rot-gut liquor, for the numbness that it could bring. Johnson reached for it, but retracted his hand as if an angry rattlesnake were coiled around the bottle. Not even drunken stupor could save him from the things he had done. It would not dull the terror of the hideous thing that hunched in the darkness, barring his escape.