The magnetic door chime clicked with a delayed mechanical wheeze.
CLIK-CLAK.
Four-tenths of a second after the brass threshold sill felt the weight of rubber, the solenoid fired. The green indicator bulb over the vestibule blinked twice, its filament buzzing at sixty hertz.
Thomas Vance’s boots crossed onto the black ribbed rubber entrance mat.
He did not cross by his own will.
The thick, arterial cords of red Executive Ink pulsed with terrible pressure, their slick surfaces glistening under the overhead fluorescent tubes. The cords jerked his right arm forward, hauling his heavy frame through the doorframe inch by agonizing inch.
The front doors of Store #04 did not close behind him.
They hung open at forty-five degrees, held in place by the suspended, frozen raindrops hovering just outside the jamb.
