At first it had been possible to think that 1.13 was pretty much like the world from which they had come, except that here the economy was limping along, and there was a freaky cult whose members dressed in black with stupid-looking knitted caps. But almost minute by minute, the differences mounted until it became impossible to predict what weirdness might wait around the corner or, in this case, in the downstairs hallway. In his book, spooky Ed Harkenbach said there were an infinite number of parallel universes, worlds side-by-side but invisible to one another, each different from the others in lots of unpredictable ways. Infinite differences meant that if you were using the key to everything, you had better be prepared for some upside-down inside-out ass-backward situations. Amity had lost track of this truth. Daddy, too. Which was understandable when you considered all the crap and crazies they’d had to deal with since the black-clad bozo in the library declared that Snowball did not qualify as an approved pet.

Following Daddy as he hurried across the kitchen, Amity reached into the right pocket of her denim jacket to reassure her passenger mouse, who had ridden out the recent action with aplomb. He cuddled into her palm appreciatively.

Grandpa and Grandma Satan hadn’t left any lights on when they had gone outside to work in the garden. The day wasn’t bright enough to chase all shadows from the kitchen. Now sudden sheets of rain battered the windows, and the room darkened further.

The swinging door creaked, and they went into a hallway even gloomier than the kitchen. They halted when they realized they were not alone.

The boy stood where the hall met the foyer, an archway to the right of him, stairs to the left. Backlit by watery, gray light that issued from the windows flanking the front door. A silhouette with no detail. His shoulders were slumped, his posture peculiar, somehow menacing for such a small figure.

Daddy felt the wall to his left, found a switch, and flicked on a pair of frosted ceiling fixtures, providing just enough light to reveal something that chilled Amity to the bone and for a moment left her unable to draw a breath.

The shoeless individual standing at the end of the hallway wore a uniform like the one young Rudy Starkman had worn, with a breast patch featuring a wolf with radiant yellow eyes. Whatever this thing might be, however, it for sure wasn’t an ordinary boy like snotty, snarky Rudy. It looked more like a chimpanzee, in fact a lot like a chimpanzee, although not entirely. Its brow wasn’t as sloped as that of a chimp, its eyes not as deeply set under a prominent brow bone, the nose not as flat or the jaw as forward thrusting as that of an ape. The creature seemed to be more of a chimp than not, with long arms and short legs and thick black body hair and finger-length toes, but its long-fingered hands were less roughly knuckled and less curled than those of a chimpanzee. Its deeply disturbing facial features were frightening and pathetic at the same time, really and truly, suggesting a human child in chimp makeup. No ape in a zoo cage had ever turned a face with such human qualities toward those who came to be amused by its antics. Amity remembered The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells, where animals with human qualities had prowled the jungle, and she shuddered. Her teeth chattered, they really did, if only briefly.

This apparition stood about four feet tall and weighed ninety or a hundred pounds. If it was an exotic species of chimpanzee, its costume was bizarre. Some people put sweaters and funny hats on dogs or dressed them six ways crazy for Halloween. Maybe this was that kind of fun, but it felt different, like cruel mockery, as though someone meant to make fun of the Justice Wolves or else of this man-monkey hybrid. The beast seemed to pose with self-conceit, much as snarky Rudy Starkman had taken pride in his silly uniform, as though it believed it was admired and possessed authority.

“Maybe here is good enough,” her father said, taking the key to everything from his pocket.

Before Daddy could switch on the device, the chimp-boy took three quick steps toward them and spoke. “Who is it you? Who is it you? Where dada-mama?”

Any words issuing from this creature would have stiffened the fine hairs on the nape of Amity’s neck, but the inconsistent quality of its voice made what it said even more horrific, as though it must be two spirits in one husk, simultaneously aggressive and fearful, needful and wary. The raw guttural sound rose almost to a thin whine of anxiety on the word you.

“Get behind me,” her father said, and Amity didn’t hesitate to obey him.

23

Flutters of lightning purling down the foyer windows, shudders of thunder vibrating the bones of the house with greater force than before, drumrolls of rain beating across the roof . . . The hallway lights pulsed as if the power might fail.

The nightmare voice grew more insistent, sharp with suspicion. “Who is it you? Why here? Dada-mama wants you here?”

Jeffy found the beast grotesque in its uniform, an affront to creation, yet nonetheless terrifying, a hideous product of genetic engineering that revealed the depths and the cruelty to which the science and culture of this timeline descended. In his mind’s ear, he heard again the officious prick in the library: Buy the girl an approved animal, something that honors the genius of the state. And here before them loomed the sinister product of a government in rebellion against everything—against economic sanity, against the righteous limits of authority, against freedom and human dignity, against nature itself and beauty and hope and the very idea of transcendent meaning. What was this pitiful and perhaps pitiless creature to those who owned it? Was it part pet and part guard ape, a kind of ersatz child for a childless couple, but also a slave? What strange desires preoccupied it, and what fears constrained it from acting on those desires? How deeply surrealistic and dark might be the landscape of its twisted mind?

It ventured closer, within a few feet of Jeffy, peering up at him with lantern eyes, its dark lips peeling back from teeth like the blades of chisels. “Who is it you? Tell now! Tell now who is!”

Lacking a weapon, scanning the hall for one and seeing nothing suitable, Jeffy said, “A friend. We’re friends of dada-mama. Who are you?”

Scowling, chewing on its lower lip, the creature considered what it had been told, but it did not reply. Its stare was as hard and shiny and dark as polished obsidian.

Inevitably, Jeffy thought of news stories from the past decade, incidents involving chimpanzee attacks on people who kept them as pets. The animals were uncannily quick. Far stronger, pound for pound, than any human being. Capable of sudden rages for which their previous benign behavior had not prepared their human companions. One man had been blinded, and his testicles had been torn off. The friend of a woman who kept a hundred-pound chimp had all her fingers bitten off, her eyes gouged out, and her face torn off in less than two minutes of unimaginable terror.

“Me is name Good Boy. Me loves dada-mama.” It cocked its head at Amity where she sheltered behind Jeffy. “Good Boy think you not belongs here.” The creature hissed its judgment so venomously that Jeffy steeled himself for an attack.

At the back of the house, a window shattered.

Good Boy’s attention at once shifted from Jeffy and Amity to the kitchen. Its nostrils flared and it bared its formidable teeth. With a fierce shriek, the monster flung itself past them, slammed through the swinging door and out of sight.

Jeffy grabbed his daughter’s hand, and they dashed into the foyer.

A pane in the front door shattered, clear blades of glass slicing through the air, chips like sleet glittering in arcs. As the sparkling debris splashed on the floor, the rataplan of rain grew louder. A man reached inside to feel for the deadbolt thumb turn.

Before the police could force entry, Jeffy and Amity raced up the stairs, desperate for a fourteen-second haven.

A shrill, inhuman cry arose from the back of the house, Good Boy in a bestial rage. No men cried out in response and no shots were fired, because the objects of the miscreation’s fury were not the authorities but instead the two intruders who, in its excitement and bad judgment, it had allowed farther into dada-mama’s house.

When they reached the landing and started up the second flight of stairs, Jeffy heard the creature slam through the swinging door between the kitchen and the hall, and then the slap of its feet on the wood floor. By the time they crossed the topmost step, he could tell by sound alone that Good Boy was gaining on them, keening as it came, and he dared not look back.

Just past the head of the stairs were a door to the left and another to the right. He pushed Amity into the room on the right, followed her. A bedroom. No lock, just the simple latch bolt that a twist of the knob would open. He braced his back against the closed door, which wasn’t flimsy Masonite but a solid-core construct, so it might withstand assault.