I rushed to the shelves and began searching for Penicillin, for Doxycycline and Metronidazole, for painkillers of any kind. Searched for them and found some, even as the motorcycle sputtered to life.
“Hurry up!” shouted Maldano. “We have to go! Now!”
But I couldn’t, of course; I had to gather the medicines. I had to save Galatia, our Aphrodite on a scallop shell. Had to think of home and a final place to rest. “It’s not safe, damn you!” I cried, sweeping pill bottles with my arm, filling the plastic bag. “That thing, it’s still out there!”
I gazed out the window at the Holiday Inn, saw the creature creeping forward with its body slung low, intently, single-mindedly, like a wolf or a great cat. I jerked to look at Maldano and saw that he too was aware of it; that he had apprehended the a
