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behind, bobbing in the Arkansas mud. As I said, the corpse
has since been identified by the cops, so there’s your proof
in the pudding, folks! But Gordon didn’t feature too largely
in tonight’s debriefing, so it’s best I move on.
The most important part of tonight’s transcription was that
at some point during Mr. Grey’s clash with Flint, something
showed up and interrupted the showdown—a monstrous
creature that “had the appearance of borrowing from hell
its least attractive characteristics.” The monster’s presence
forced the two adversaries into an awkward alliance—to
fight it off so they could get back to fighting each other.
Unfortunately for Mr. Flint, the creature proved too much
for even their combined strength, and Mr. Grey ended up
dragging what was left of him back to the house. As for
Mr. Grey’s performance in the brawl, I can only assume it
was good enough to get him the hell out of Dodge while the
getting was good. Though I have to admit, it’s a little hard to
think of my abductor as an underdog in any fight.
Now, on more than one occasion, I’ve seen hints of what
Mr. Grey gets up to when he’s on the hunt, and I can tell you
it’s some dark and dangerous business, indeed. One horrible
rainy night, while we were hiding out in an old abandoned
candy factory, I got to see one of my keeper’s infamous
Wolves up close and far too personal. The guy just seemed
to melt out of the shadows, dripping with all these clinking
hooks and chains, and wearing the most bizarre mask you
can imagine—at least, I hope it was a mask. Before I knew
it, the thing had spread out his chains all across the ceiling
and walls like some goddamned metal spiderweb. He
sprang into the middle of the web and crouched down into
the darkness of the room. What I hadn’t noticed was that
I’d been attached to the web by means of a hook that’d slid
through the palm of my hand. Didn’t even feel it, at first. Mr.
Grey later told me the killer laced his hooks with some kind
of chemical agent that dulled nerve endings, so the victims
wouldn’t know they’d been snagged. Anyway, I started to
276 | Mark Anzalone