1For several seconds, Ross can't move, speak, or even breathe. The impossible sight of the rearrangement of Bale's hand seizes him, crushes him, and won't let go. Earlier, he'd been ashamed of the paralyzing fear the man generated in him, but there's no shame now. Hell no. He decides nearly browning his breeks is well within the bounds of acceptability under the circumstances. Because this isn't just being scared. This is bone-deep terror, something primal inscribed on his very DNA. The instinctive awareness of being in the presence of something inhuman, predatory, and old beyond time. Hate, malice and hunger given physical form. Ross remembers a low lit room in the Inverclyde Royal ICU. Sitting beside Duncy Brown's bed as the old soldier had gasped his last. The look on his face as he'd t
