The carpet in the hallway was new, but it didn't hide the gap between the baseboard and the floor. The doors that lined the hallway were rich, dark brown, but their frames didn't quite meet the drywall. The ceiling revealed a few cracks and halfhearted attempts to cover water stains. It was a moderately expensive apartment complex, even by Atlanta standards, but it was rapidly sliding down the economic scale. The craftsmanship, or lack thereof, was revealed in the loud creak of the tired floorboards under the heavy boots of the men.

Eric Rohs motioned with his hand at the head of the stairs. A large man in a bulging jacket stood aside and waited for the others to pass, and then leaned against the banister, arms folded. Another went up to the next floor. The others went through the doorway in the landing and walked down the hall, stopping in front of one of the hallway doors. A man dressed in a formal tuxedo rapped his knuckles on the door, softly at first, and then loudly, in agitation. He bared his left arm and consulted a gold Rolex. He looked pointedly at Eric.

"Maybe she's in the shower, Glenn." Eric said.

"Bullshit." the man standing behind Glenn said. "She ain't there. I told ya.. She ain't there. She's-"

"Johnny. Zip it." Glenn said, his eyes still on Eric. He pounded on the door with his fist now, making the door rattle in its frame. "Alegra! Come on, it's time to go. Open the door." There was no noise from behind the door, and he pounded even harder. "Alegra! Goddammit, open the fucking door." He pounded it again, and then stepped back in frustration. "Eric. Open the fucking door."

Eric sighed, and held up a keyring with a single key. One of the two men who had been standing a few feet behind the group came forward and took the key. Eric and the others moved back a few paces.

The man slid the key into the lock and turned it silently. He turned and put his back against the wall next to the door, keeping his left hand on the knob, and slid his right hand under his coat. He turned the knob slowly, and then shoved the door open roughly, rotating around the door frame and into the room. A couple of seconds later he reappeared in the doorway. "There's no one inside, sir." he said. Glenn looked at Eric again, and pushed past the man in the doorway. Eric and Johnny followed behind him.

The room was in much better condition than the hallway. Along one wall was arrayed a collection of expensive electronic video and sound equipment. To the men's right was a pass-through to the well-equipped kitchen, and a short hallway ran off of the left wall. Through an open door at the end of the hall the men could see thick blue carpet and a round waterbed, the sheets and pillows of which were in disarray. Opposite the entry door were three plate glass windows looking out over the Atlanta skyline. Eric sniffed- a faint scent of perfume lingered in the air, several days old. Glenn strode briskly towards the bedroom. "Alegra! Where the fuck are you?" Johnny followed a few steps behind him. The two men stood impassive by the open entry door as Eric wandered into the kitchen. He could hear Glenn in the bedroom, opening drawers and slamming the closet doors.

There was a single dinner plate in the sink basin, covered with a hard brown film. Dried sauce, Eric mused, and ran his finger over the basin's stainless steel bottom. It was bone dry. Eric turned and opened the refrigerator door. In the door pockets were various condiments, a yogurt container, eggs, a half stick of margarine. There was a one-third empty plastic half-gallon container or milk on the top shelf, along with two cans of diet soda.

Eric turned his head at the sound of a crashing thump from the short hallway. Glenn had thrown the shower curtain rod, with the curtain still attached, into the hallway, narrowly missing Johnny. Eric looked back at the refrigerator. On the bottom shelf was an unopened plastic wrapped lump of raw ground beef, very dark red in color. Eric squatted and poked it with his finger- it was thawed and mushy. He could smell the meat beginning to go rancid. The date on the milk container read "Oct. 19", today's date. Just above the level of the fluid, forming a ring around the inside of the container, was a thin line of coagulated milk.

"She's not here, Eric." Glenn said from the kitchen doorway. Eric stood up and shut the refrigerator door. "No," he said, "It looks like she hasn't been here for a couple of days."

Glenn stared at Eric, his mouth open slightly, his eyes expressionless. Glenn Eppinger was a tall man, six foot four, and his height was the first thing people noticed about him. His dark brown hair, flecked here and there with a stray gray strand, was slightly disarrayed and his lanky frame swayed slightly after his violent search of the apartment. His eyes, gray and absolutely devoid on any emotion, stayed fixed on Eric. Behind him Johnny Liverett was watching Eric as well, but his brown eyes were wide and animated. He was breathing hard, but it wasn't as a result of physical effort. His hair was cut very short, and with his narrow, pinched face and pointed chin he reminded Eric of a blonde Joseph Goebbles. He quivered with unreleased energy. Eric, at five foot nine, had to look up at Glenn to meet his gaze.

"Goddammit, Eric, I told you she'd try something while we were gone. I fucking told you. Who knows who the fuck she's talking to now." Glenn said quietly.

"What were you gonna do, Glenn, kill her?" Eric asked.

Glenn stopped breathing for a second. "Maybe I should have. At least then I'd know where the fuck she was!"

Eric snorted and turned away. He saw a black enameled metal trashcan in the corner of the kitchen, its cover set on top of its almost overflowing contents. Sticking partly out of the trash was a bright red slip of paper. Eric walked over and pulled the paper out of the can.

It was a folded road map of the state of Georgia. Eric unfolded it. The map was creased in squares by the pleated folding, and one of the squares on the upper right edge was torn out. A thick fluorescent yellow line traced a highway from Atlanta to the edge of the tear. Eric looked over the top of the map at Glenn.

"What?" Glenn asked after a moment.

"It's a road map" Eric said.

"I can see that, shithead," Glenn said. "There's a chunk taken out of it."

Eric turned the map around and held it up for Glenn to see. "Looks like she took a trip up highway 78," he said, "to somewhere on the missing part." Glenn snatched the map away and looked at it for a moment, and then back at Eric. "78 goes to Athens." Eric said.

Glenn didn't move for a moment. Then he threw the map at Eric. "It also goes to Schrader, and Kevin." he said. His face darkened and Eric could see muscles bunching at his jaw. "Fuck!" he said explosively. He whirled around and stomped out of the kitchen. Eric followed him a moment later.

Glenn paced behind the black leather couch that was in the middle of the floor facing the entertainment center. He stopped, whirled, and punched the wall, his fist crunching through the drywall and leaving a large hole. He pointed his dust covered finger at Eric.

"Goddammit! The fucking bitch's gone to Schrader! Kevin's probably dicking her right now! And you didn't want me to kill him, either, did you? You fuck!" He stopped, breathing heavily now. Eric stood silently, meeting his boss' gaze, before quietly asking "Well. What are we gonna do about it?"

"Do? What you are gonna do is fucking go get her, and take care of that fuck Kevin!"

"He's been the best expediter we've ever had. He's made more for you in the past two months than any of the other shitheads you've sent to that hole."

Glenn's eyes suddenly sparked emotion. "And he's been keeping more than his fair share! He wants to be number one, goddammit, and he's using Schrader to make allies of his own so he can move me out!" Glenn slapped the back of the couch, sending a fat cushion spinning off onto the floor. "You fix this problem for me, kill that fuck and tell his fucking spic friends that the party's over, and I'll give you Schrader. You fuck up again, and I'll send your fucking head to Columbia!"

Eric sighed, and nodded. "And Alegra?"

Glenn's eyes went expressionless again. "Send her back to me." he said quietly. "I'll take care of her myself." He was quiescent for a moment, and then suddenly snatched at his bow tie. The knot slid loose and he flung it on the couch, and began shrugging out of his tuxedo jacket. "Leave tomorrow. Take enough of the boys with you to take care of any of Kevin's friends. She could have been gone for the entire two weeks we were out of town." The jacket joined the tie on the couch, and Glenn began unbuttoning his dress shirt. "She called us while we were gone. We never tried calling here. Fuck knows whether she called us from Schrader or here." He stopped, the shirt opened to reveal a surprisingly muscular chest. "Take care of this shit for me, Eric." he said, tugging at his cuff links. "Take care of it and we'll be squared again between us."

Eric watched as the skin on Glenn's chest began to.. move, as if small mice were running just under the surface. Johnny noticed too and jumped onto a coffee table, and began to tear off his shirt with a whoop. Eric thought Goddammit, boss, not here, not now, not in front of... He whirled around and snapped his fingers at the two men by the entry door. "Out" he snapped, and they looked at him with startled expressions. They gave a last glance at their boss undressing, and hastily retreated. Eric paused in the doorway. "Watch the hallway," he said, "and tell Vincent to watch for the cops." One of the men swallowed hard and nodded, trying to glance past Eric into the apartment. Eric slammed the door and leaned his back against it.

Glenn was naked, staring out at the city through the picture window. His back was hunched, his knees bent, and his arms were outstretched. As Eric watched, conscious of his heart pounding in his own chest, thick hair began sprouting from Glenn's shoulders. Johnny was no longer Johnny. He was ripping the couch open with gleaming black claws, attached to a sinewy forearm covered thickly with short blonde hairs. He looked at Eric and opened his long muzzle, and bared two inch long incisors as he let out a deafening, inhuman howl. Eric began to breath heavily through his open mouth, feeling a familiar tightness in the skin of his face and a tingle in his groin. He began to shrug out of a jacket that no longer seemed to fit...

Outside, one of the large men that Eric pushed out of the room was passing a lighter to a man seated behind the steering wheel of a red Acura NSX. Both men jerked their heads at the sound of a long, low, animal howl that seemed to echo forever from the tall apartment building and crawl down their backs with icy claws. The driver looked at the man outside his car, and lit his cigarette with trembling hands.