And the knife. He would be carrying a long, sharp knife - more of a machete, actually, the sort of knife that could strike off a person's head in a single sweeping stroke.
And he would be grinning, showing those filed cannibal-teeth.
Kinnell knew these things. He was an imaginative guy, after all.
He didn't need anyone to draw him a picture.
"No," he whispered, suddenly conscious of his global nakedness, suddenly freezing all the way around his skin. "No, please, go away." But the footfalls kept coming, of course they did. You couldn't tell a guy like this to go away. It didn't work; it wasn't the way the story was supposed to end.
Kinnell could hear him nearing the top of the stairs. Outside the Grand Am went on rumbling in the moonlight.
The feet coming down the hall now, worn bootheels rapping on polished hardwood.
A terrible paralysis had gripped Kinnell. He threw it off with an effort and bolted toward the bedroom door, wanting to lock it before the thing could get in here, but he slipped in a puddle of soapy water and this time he did go down, flat on his back on the oak planks, and what he saw as the door clicked open and the motorcycle boots crossed the room toward where he lay, naked and with his hair full of Prell, was the picture hanging on the wall over his bed, the picture of the Road Virus idling in front of his house with the driver's side door open.
The driver's side bucket seat, he saw, was full of blood. I'm going outside, I think, Kinnell thought, and closed his eyes.