When I looked back the Thing had changed its position and stood behind my vacated chair where it was watching the girl and the man, and it seemed that it was taking part in the conversation, for the mouth was opening and closing so that I had the impression it was shouting instructions. More people came in and others left, all of them seeking the stimuli of alcohol for the going is tough along the narrow pathway to the grave, or maybe the seventh whiskey was turning sour on me. Perhaps my liver was at last giving up the fight, or more likely my brain was beginning to present its own film show, but I could distinctly see a row of tables standing in a neat row against the far wall, and seated round them was a number of figures dressed all in black, and wearing white masks. They sat perfectly still; their heads were turned inwards and I could only see the sexless profiles, and I felt an unexplainable dread that they might move, for I knew these were the eternal watchers; the dark ones who know neither anger nor pity.

The girl looked back over one white shoulder, and her blue eyes raked my face with burning intensity; a mute appeal for help, as though I were a lifeboat in a boiling sea, and she a lone swimmer at the end of her strength. There was a scraping of a chair and the young man sprang to his feet; the Thing moved back, its eyes blazing with an unholy joy. The girl rose quickly and ran towards me, and the drinkers drew back in alarm, so that I stood alone with the girl running her last few steps; only the watchers did not move. She clutched my arms and I saw the dark caverns of hell reflected in her eyes, and I wanted to tell her it would all pass, that suffering cannot last for ever — not even in hell, but there was not time. The gun in the young man's hand spoke instead, and the beautiful eyes blinked, then blazed forth their horror, the white shoulders quivered, the neck twisted, and she slumped to the floor.