There was light pushing out under his door so I knew he must be there. It was noisy inside, which was why he hadn't heard me. I bent my ear closer. What a noise! It sounded like a bullfrog-grasshopper duet. I banged on the door again. No answer. I tried the doorknob. It turned. I was half in when I stopped cold. This I did not believe. Put it on a book jacket and label it Edd Cartier and I'll buy it. I blinked to make it go away but it wouldn't. I whimpered. So it _was_--what my mind had been half-suspecting for months, and laughing at itself even as it suspected--it was _true_! * * * * * The Thing at the machine was a giant insect. Ten feet high, at least. It was brown-green and had lots of claw-like appendages. The most terrible thing about it was its familiarity. I had surveyed it critically on half a dozen of our cover originals. I had quibbled with our artists about it. Not horrible enough, I had said. Well, it was. It was horrible.... It was busy with that machine, making noises into a cone and twisting dials and knobs with its many appendages. The noises it made were carefully inflected. Speech, in fact. It was talking into the cone, which absorbed the sounds, and transmitted them--where? My shoes were glued to the floor. The Thing finished talking, snapped off the machine, turned. It saw me. It yelled and tried to duck out. It moved in a blur. Seven pairs of claws flexed out and grabbed for me. Some of the weaving cilea touched me. I screamed at the sting, like a dozen raking barbs, tearing my clothes and me. I made the hall, yelling. But I couldn't reach the stairs. It got me. It pinned me over the elevator shaft. I bent back further and further so those tentacles couldn't rake my face. Those criss-cross insect eyes were cold as ice, emotionless. The barbs made ready to tear me to rags. I shrieked and let myself fall. First I didn't think to save myself. Better a clean jolting death than those hundreds of needle-like cilea. But my hands grabbed involuntarily for something. They caught the cable, clung to it. It was greasy. I went down fast. I wrapped my legs around it, which helped a little, straining to hold back. When I hit bottom I think every tooth in my head jarred loose. My legs collapsed under me like rubber. For a minute I blacked out. * * * * * The buzzing over my head snapped me up. I was a goner if I didn't move, but fast. Sobbing, I wrenched my legs to a crouching position, and leaped down off the elevator. I dove for the front door. Then I was outside, gulping air, running like billy-hell for the Lexington subway. I didn't know what else to do, so having put half of Manhattan between me and It, I telephoned Alice. I needed the sound of her voice. I needed her to stop me from shuddering. My tic was slowly jerking my jaw out of alignment. She listened patiently while I dumped in dimes.