send someone up here...."

"We understand, Professor Kane."

"Then you'll send someone up immediately with a key!"

"Please don't get upset. The Staff has been busy, but now the Staff will soon be with you."

The Staff....

"I just want a key, I want to get the hell out of here!"

Kane yelled several times into the phone after the click, but no voice came back. He had grabbed up the table, the metal table at the head of the bed, and flung it into the wall before he realized what he was doing.

The shadows moved toward him. Phil, Laura, Ben, Jenny, Lawrence, Lucille, all the others, nameless, what did it matter anyway, their names?

They were smiling, holding out their arms to him. Compassionate, sympathy, they had it all. All they wanted to do was help him.

He ran through them back toward the bathroom. It was still full of men from the downstairs john. "What time is it?" Kane yelled at someone with a paper towel pressed to his eyes.

"'Bout three I'd say, what a night!"

"Three—"

Three o'clock in the morning, but the fact was Kane wasn't sure about the day. He backed out of the bathroom, slammed the door.

"The Staff is ready, Prof," Phil said.

"We're all with you, aren't we?" Laura giggled.

The closet.

Kane ran into the closet and slammed the door. There was something immediately cozy in the narrow black confines of the closet. Either closet walls weren't TV screens, or they had decided to let him sleep at last. Probably the former. Better convert closets to Television. In case kiddies misbehave and get locked in the closet, they'll not be alone in there....

He curled up on the floor in the pitch blackness and almost immediately began to drift off into sleep. The narrow darkness tightened 

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