Jim Wilson was swearing industriously. "There was a guy over there. He ducked around the corner. Some damn fool out scrounging. Wish I had a gun." Frank and Nora moved ahead and the four stood in a group. "Put out your lights," Wilson said. "They make good targets if the jerk's got any weapons." They stood in the darkness, Nora holding tightly to Frank's arm. Frank said, "That was the damndest noise I ever heard." "Like a siren?" Frank thought Jim Wilson spoke hopefully, as though wanting somebody to agree with him. "Not like any I ever heard. Not like a whistle, either. More of a moan." "Let's get into that goddam hotel and--" Jim Wilson's words were cut off by a new welling-up of the melancholy howling. It had a new pattern this time. It sounded from many places; not nearer, Frank thought, than Lake Street on the north, but spreading outward and backward and growing fainter until it died on the wind. Nora was shivering, clinging to Frank without reserve. Jim Wilson said, "I'll be damned if it doesn't sound like a signal of some kind." "Maybe it's a language--a way of communication." "But who the hell's communicating?" "How would I know?" "We best get to that hotel and bar a few doors. A man can't fight in the dark--and nothing to fight with." They hurried up the street, but it was all different now. Gone was the illusion of being alone; gone the sense of solitude. Around them the ghost town had come suddenly alive. Sinister forces more frightening than the previous solitude had now to be reckoned with. "Something's happened--something in the last few minutes," Nora whispered. Frank leaned close as they crossed the street to the dark silent pile that was the Morrison hotel. "I think I know what you mean." "It's as though there was no one around and then, suddenly, they came." "I think they came and went away again." "Did you actually _see_ anyone when you flashed your light?" "No--I can't say positively that I did. But I got the impression there were figures out there--at least dozens of them--and that they moved back away from the light. Always just on the edge of it." "I'm scared, Frank." "So am I." "Do you think it could all be imagination?" "Those moans? Maybe the first one--I've heard of people imagining sounds. But not the last ones. And besides, we all heard them." Jim Wilson, utterly oblivious of any subtle emanations in the air, boomed out in satisfaction: "We don't have to bust the joint open. The revolving door works." "Then maybe we ought to be careful," Frank said. "Maybe somebody else is around here." "Could be. We'll find out." "Why are we afraid?" Nora whispered. "It's natural, isn't it?" Frank melted the beam of his light with that of Jim Wilson. The white finger pierced the darkness inside. Nothing moved. "I don't see why it should be. If there are people in there they must be as scared as we are." Nora was very close to him as they entered.