of inconsequential things and laughing at his own jokes. Then, as they turned to one another in the shadowy vestibule and she lifted her lips, he sensed her features altering queerly, lengthening. "A funny sort of light here,” he thought as he took her in his arms. But the thin strip of fur on her collar grew matted and oily under his touch, her fingers grew hard and sharp against his back, he felt her teeth pushing out against her lips, and then a sharp, prickling sensation as of icy needles.
Blindly he pushed away from her, then saw—and the sight stopped him dead—that she had not changed at all, or that whatever change had been was now gone.
"What’s the matter, dear?” he heard her ask startledly. "What’s happened? What’s that you’re mumbling? Changed, you say? What’s changed? Infected with it? What do you mean? For heaven’s sake, don’t talk that way. You’ve done it to me, you say? Done what?” He felt her hand on his arm, a soft hand now. "No, you’re not crazy. Don’t think of such things. But you’re neurotic, and a little batty. For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together.”
“I don’t know what happened to me,” he managed to say, in his right voice again. Then, because he had to say somethingmore: "My nerves all jumped, like someone had snapped them.”
He expected her to be angry, but she seemed only puzzledly sympathetic, as if she liked him but had become afraid of him, as if she sensed something wrong in him beyond her powers of understanding or repair.
"Do take care of yourself," she said doubtfully. "We’re all a little crazy now and then, I guess. My nerves get like wires too. Good night.”
He watched her disappear up the stair. Then he turned and ran into the night.
At home his mother was waiting up again, sitting close to the hall radiator to catch its dying warmth, the inevitable shapeless bathrobe wrapped about her. Because of a new thought that had come to the forefront of his brain, he avoided her embrace and, after a few brief words, hurried off toward his room. But she followed him down the hall.
"You’re not looking at all well, David,” she told him anxiously, whispering because father might be asleep. "Are you sure you’re not getting flu again? Don’t you think you should see the doctor tomorrow?” Then she went on quickly to another subject, using that nervously apologetic tone with which he was so familiar. “I shouldn’t bother you with it, David, but you must really be more careful of the bedclothes. You’d laid something greasy on the coverlet and there were big black stains on it when I went in this morning.”
He was pushing open the bedroom door when she spoke, but her words halted his hand for an instant. It was only what might be expected. And how could you avoid the thing by going one place rather than another?
"And one thing more,” she added, as he switched on the lights. "Will you try to get some cardboard tomorrow to black out the windows? They’re out of it at the stores around here and the radio says we should be ready.”
"Yes, I will. Good night, mother.”
"Oh, and something else,” she persisted, lingering uneasily just beyond the door. "That really must be a dead rat in the walls. The smell keeps coming in waves. I spoke to the real estate agent, but he hasn’t done anything about it. I wish you’d speak to him again.”
"Yes. Good night, mother.”
He waited until he heard her door softly close.
Then he went over to the dresser to examine his lips in the mirror, lifting aside the lampshade to get a brighter light. On the lower lip were two tiny white spots. Each felt distinctly numb to the touch, as if
