husky frame in the door. "What do you want of me?" Harwood asked.

"Do you see what's going on out there?"

He nodded. "So?"

"Those things out there—what are they? What are you letting into the world, Harwood?"

"It's an experiment, young man." He crossed his arms over his dressing-gown. "Would you mind leaving my house, now?"

"Daddy!"

"You keep out of this, Laura." He turned to me. "I've asked you to leave my house. I don't want you meddling in my experiments any more."

I repressed an urge to aim a kick at his well-stuffed belly. Abel Harwood was a crackpot, a crazy amateur scientist who had been riding this other-dimension kick for years. Now, he'd let loose Lord knew what upon the world—the things were still funnelling through the gateway—and he was determined to see it continue.

"Harwood, you're playing with something too big for you! You're foolish and blind, and you—"

"You're a trespasser," he interrupted. "I've ordered you out of my home twice, already. Will you go now—or do I have to get my gun?"

"I'll go," I said. I broke loose from Laura and, with an uneasy look at the gateway outside, headed for the door.

"Wait, Dad—you can't make him go outside in that!"

"Quiet, Laura."

She started to say something else, but I put my hand on her arm. "Never mind, Laura."

I opened the front door and stepped outside.

It was hellish out there. The things had formed a circle around the vortex in the air and hung there, humming and crackling. The air was dry and strange-smelling.

I paused on the porch of the Harwood house for just a moment, tucked my head under my arm and ran—ran as fast as my legs would go. I charged through the garden, carefully averting the vortex that had opened right in front of me, circled the nest of things 

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