by Dean Koontz
When I failed to answer Viola’s question at once, she thought that I’d seen something wrong with her daughters, and she took a step toward the bed.
Gently I gripped her arm and held her back. “I’m sorry, Viola. Nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to be sure the girls were safe. And with those bars on the windows, they are.”
“They know how to work the emergency release,” she said.
One of the entities at Nicolina’s bedside appeared to rise out of its swoon and recognize our presence. Its hands slowed but did not entirely stop their eerie movements, and it raised its wolfish head to peer in our direction with disturbing, eyeless intensity.
I was loath to leave the girls alone with those five phantoms, but I could do nothing to banish them.
Besides, from everything that I have seen of bodachs, they can experience this world with some if not all of the usual five senses, but they don’t seem to have any effect on things here. I have never heard them make a sound, have never seen them move an object or, by their passage, disturb so much as the dust motes floating in the air.
They are of less substance than an ectoplasmic wraith drifting above the table at a seance. They are dream creatures on the wrong side of sleep.
The girls would not be harmed. Not here. Not yet.
Or so I hoped.
I suspected that these spirit travelers, having come to Pico Mundo for ringside seats at a festival of blood, were entertaining themselves on the eve of the main event. Perhaps they took pleasure in studying the victims before the shots were fired; they might be amused and excited to watch innocent people progress all unknowing toward imminent death.
Pretending to be unaware of the nightmarish intruders, putting one finger to my lips as if suggesting to Viola and Stormy that we be careful not to wake the girls, I drew both women with me, out of the room. I pushed the door two-thirds shut, just as it had been when we’d arrived, leaving the bodachs to slither on the floor, to sniff and thrash, to weave their patterns of sinuous gesticulations with mysterious purpose.
I worried that one or more of them would follow us to the living room, but we reached the front door without a supernatural escort.
Speaking almost as quietly as in the girls’ bedroom, I said to Viola, “One thing I better clarify. When I tell you not to go to the movies tomorrow, I mean the girls shouldn’t go, either. Don’t send them out with a relative. Not to the movies, not anywhere.”
Viola’s smooth satin brow became brown corduroy. “But my sweet babies … they weren’t shot in the dream.”
“No prophetic dream reveals everything that’s coming. Just fragments.”
Instead of merely sharpening her anxiety, the implications of my statement hardened her features with anger. Good. She needed fear and anger to stay sharp, to make wise decisions in the day ahead.
To stiffen her resolve, I said, “Even if you had seen your girls shot … God forbid, dead … you might’ve blocked it from your memory when you woke.”
Stormy rested her hand on Viola’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t have wanted those images in your mind.”
Tense with determination, Viola said, “We’ll stay home, have a little party, just ourselves.”
“I’m not sure that’s wise, either,” I said.
“Why not? I don’t know what place that was in my dream, but I’m sure it wasn’t this house.”
“Remember … different roads can take you to the same stubborn fate.”
I didn’t want to tell her about the bodachs in her daughters’ room, for then I would have to reveal all my secrets. Only Terri, the chief, Mrs. Porter, and Little Ozzie know most of the truth about me, and only Stormy knows all of it.
If too many people are brought into my innermost circle, my secret will leak out. I’ll become a media sensation, a freak to many people, a guru to some. Simplicity and quiet hours will be forever beyond my reach. My life will be too complicated to be worth living.
I said to Viola, “In your dream, this house wasn’t where you were gunned down. But if you were destined to be shot at the movies, and now you aren’t going to the theater … then maybe Fate comes here to find you. Not likely. But not impossible.”
“And in your dream, tomorrow is the day?”
“That’s right. So I’d feel better if you were two steps removed from the future you saw in your nightmare.”
I glanced toward the back of the house. Still no bodachs had ventured after us. I think they have no effect on this world.
Nevertheless, taking no chances with the girls’ lives, I lowered my voice further. “Step one—don’t go to the movies or the Grille tomorrow. Step two—don’t stay here, either.”
Stormy asked, “How far away does your sister live?”
“Two blocks. Over on Maricopa Lane.”
I said, “I’ll come by in the morning, between nine and ten o’clock, with the photo I promised. I’ll take you and the girls to your sister’s.”
“You don’t have to do that, Odd. We can get there ourselves.”
“No. I want to take you. It’s necessary.”
I needed to be certain that no bodachs followed Viola and her daughters.
Lowering my voice to a whisper, I said, “Don’t tell Levanna and Nicolina what you’re going to do. And don’t call your sister to say you’re coming. You could be overheard.”
Viola surveyed the living room, worried but also astonished. “Who could hear?”
By necessity, I was mysterious: “Certain … forces.” If the bodachs overheard her planning to move the kids to her sister’s house, Viola might not have taken two safe steps away from her dreamed-of fate, after all, but only one. “Do you really believe, like you said, that I know about all that’s Otherly and Beyond?”
She nodded. “Yes. I believe that.”
Her eyes were so wide with wonder that they scared me, for they reminded me of the staring eyes of corpses.
“Then trust me on this, Viola. Get some sleep if you can. I’ll come around in the morning. By tomorrow night, this’ll have been all just a nightmare, nothing prophetic about it.”
I didn’t feel as confident as I sounded, but I smiled and kissed her on the cheek.
She hugged me and then hugged Stormy. “I don’t feel so alone anymore.”
Lacking an oscillating fan, the night outside was hotter than the warm air in the little house.
The moon had slowly ascended toward the higher stars, shedding its yellow veils to reveal its true silver face. A face as hard as a clock, and merciless.
CHAPTER 27
Little more than an hour before midnight, worried about a new day that might bring children in the line of gunfire, I parked the Mustang behind the Pico Mundo Grille.
When I doused the headlights and switched off the engine, Stormy said, “Will you ever leave this town?”
“I sure hope I’m not one of those who insists on hanging around after he’s dead, like poor Tom Jedd out there at Tire World.”
“I meant will you ever leave it while you’re alive.”
“Just the idea gives me hives on the brain.”
“Why?”
“It’s big out there.”
“Not all of it is big. Lots of towns are smaller and quieter than Pico Mundo.”
“I guess what I mean is … everything out there would be new. I like what I know. Considering everything else I have to deal with … I can’t at the same time handle a lot of new stuff. New street names, new architecture, new smells, all new people …”
“I’ve always thought it would be nice to live in the mountains.”
“New weather.” I shook my head. “I don’t need new weather.”
“Anyway,” she said, “I didn’t mean leave town permanently. Just for a day or two. We could drive to Vegas.”
“That’s your idea of a smaller, quieter place? I’ll bet that’s a place with thousands of dead people who won’t move on.”
“Why?”
“People who lost everything they o
wned at the craps tables, the roulette wheels, then went back to their rooms and blew their brains out.” I shivered. “Suicides always hang around after they’re dead. They’re afraid to move on.”
“You have a melodramatic view of Las Vegas, odd one. The average hotel maid doesn’t turn up a dozen suicides every morning.”
“Bunch of guys murdered by the mob, their bodies dumped in the fresh concrete footings of new hotels. You can bet your ass they have unfinished business and plenty of postmortem rage. Besides, I don’t gamble.”
“That doesn’t sound like the grandson of Pearl Sugars.”
“She did her best to turn me into a card hustler, but I’m afraid I disappointed her.”
“She taught you poker, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. We used to play for pennies.”
“Even just for pennies is gambling.”
“Not when I played with Granny Sugars.”
“She let you win? That’s sweet.”
“She wanted me to travel the Southwest poker circuit with her. Grandma said, ‘Odd, I’m going to grow old on the road, not in a rocking chair on some damn retirement-home porch with a gaggle of farting old ladies, and I’m going to die facedown in my cards in the middle of a game, not of boredom at a tea dance for toothless retirees trying to cha-cha in their walkers.’ ”
“On the road,” Stormy said, “would have been too much new.”
“Every day, new and more new.” I sighed. “But we sure would have had fun. She wanted me along to share the laughs … and if she died in the middle of a particularly rough game, she wanted me to be sure the other players didn’t split her bankroll and leave her carcass in the desert as a coyote buffet.”
“I understand why you didn’t go on the road, but why don’t you gamble?”
“Because even if Granny Sugars didn’t play sloppy to give me an edge, I almost always won anyway.”
“You mean because of your … gift?”
“Yeah.”
“You could see what cards were coming?”
“No. Nothing that dramatic. I just have a feeling for when my hand is stronger than those of other players and when it’s not. The feeling proves to be right nine times out of ten.”
“That’s a huge advantage at cards.”
“It’s the same with black jack, any card game.”
“So it’s not really gambling.”
“Not really. It’s just … harvesting cash.”
Stormy understood at once why I’d given up cards. “It would be pretty much the same as stealing.”
“I don’t need money that bad,” I said. “And I never will as long as people want to eat what’s been fried on a griddle.”
“Or as long as they have feet.”
“Yeah. Assuming I make the move into shoe retailing.”
“I said Vegas not because I want to gamble,” she explained.
“It’s a long way to go for an all-you-can-eat buffet.”
“I said Vegas because we could be there in maybe three hours, and the wedding chapels are open around the clock. No blood tests required. We could be married by dawn.”
My heart did one of those funny gyrations that only Stormy can make it do. “Wow. That’s almost enough to give me the nerve to travel.”
“Only almost, huh?”
“We can have our blood tests tomorrow morning, get a marriage license Thursday, get hitched by Saturday. And our friends can be there. I want our friends there, don’t you?”
“Yes. But I want married more.”
I kissed her and said, “After all the hesitation, why the sudden rush?”
Because we had sat for a while in that unlighted alley, our eyes were thoroughly dark-adapted. Otherwise I would not have fully recognized the depth of concern in her face, her eyes; in fact, she seemed to be gripped not by mere anxiety but by a quiet terror.
“Hey, hey,” I assured her, “everything’s going to be all right.”
Her voice didn’t quaver. She’s too tough for easy tears. But in the softness of her speech, I could hear a haunted woman: “Ever since we were sitting on the edge of the koi pond and that man came along the promenade …”
When her voice trailed away, I said, “Fungus Man.”
“Yeah. That creepy sonofabitch. Ever since I saw him … I’ve been scared for you. I mean, I’m always scared for you, Oddie, but I don’t usually make anything of it because the last thing you need, on top of everything else on your mind, is a weepy dame always nagging you to be careful.”
“ ‘Weepy dame’?”
“Sorry. I must’ve flashed back to a prior life in the 1930s. But it’s true, the last thing you need is some hysterical bitch always on your case.”
“I liked ‘weepy dame’ a lot better. Listen, I think this guy is maximum sick, he’s ten megatons of blast power with a fast-ticking timer, but the chief and I are on his case, and we’re going to pluck his fuse before he blows.”
“Don’t be so sure. Please, Oddie, don’t be so sure. Being too sure with this guy will get you killed.”
“I’m not going to be killed.”
“I’m scared for you.”
“By tomorrow night,” I told her, “Bob Robertson, alias Fungus Man, is going to be wearing a jail-issued orange jumpsuit, and maybe he’ll have hurt some people, or maybe we’ll have stopped him right before he pulls a trigger, but whatever the situation, I’m going to be with you for dinner, and we’ll be planning our wedding, and I’ll still have both legs, both arms—”
“Oddie, stop, don’t say any more—”
“—still have the same stupid head you’re looking at now—”
“Please stop.”
“—and I won’t be blind, because I really need to see you, and I won’t be deaf because how can we plan our wedding if I can’t hear you, and I won’t be—”
She punched me in the chest. “Don’t tempt fate, dammit!”
In a sitting position, she couldn’t get enough swing behind her fist to land a solid blow. I was hardly winded by the punch.
With as little wheeze as I could manage, I drew a breath and said, “I’m not worried about tempting fate. I’m not superstitious that way.”
“Maybe I am.”
“Well, get over it.”
I kissed her. She kissed back.
How right the world was then.
I put an arm around her and said, “You silly, weepy dame. Bob Robertson might be so psychotic he wouldn’t even qualify to manage the Bates Motel, but he’s still just a mug. He has nothing going for him except sixteen wheels of craziness spinning in his head. I will come back to you with no punctures, no scrapes, no dents. And none of my federally mandated stuffing-identification tags will have been ripped off.”
“My Pooh,” she said, as sometimes she does.
Having somewhat calmed her nerves and partially settled her fears, I felt quite manly, like one of those stouthearted and rock-ribbed sheriffs in old cowboy movies, who with a smile sets the minds of the ladyfolk at ease and sweeps legions of gunfighters off the streets of Dodge City without smudging his white hat.
I was the worst kind of fool. When I look back on that August night, changed forever by all my wounds and all my suffering, that undamaged Odd Thomas seems like a different human being from me, immeasurably more confident than I am now, still able to hope, but not as wise, and I mourn for him.
I am told not to let the tone of this narrative become too dark. A certain 400-pound muse will park his 150-pound ass on me by way of editorial comment, and there is always the threat of his urine-filled cat.
CHAPTER 28
When we got out of the Mustang, the familiar alleyway dwindled north and south into deeper gloom than I recalled from other nights, little-revealed by moonlight, obscured by moonshadows.
Above the back entrance to the restaurant kitchen, a security lamp glowed. Yet the darkness seemed to press toward it rather than to shrink away.
Uncovered stairs led to a second-floor landing and the doo
r to Terri Stambaugh’s apartment. Light shone behind the curtains.
At the top of the steps, Stormy pointed at the northern sky. “Cassiopeia.”
Star by star, I identified the points of the constellation.
In classic mythology, Cassiopeia was the mother of Andromeda. Andromeda was saved from a sea monster by the hero Perseus, who also slew the Gorgon Medusa.
No less than the fabled Andromeda, Stormy Llewellyn, daughter of another Cassiopeia, is stellar enough to deserve a constellation named for her. I have slain no Gorgons, however, and I am no Perseus.
Terri answered the door when I knocked, accepted the car keys, and insisted that we come in for coffee or a nightcap.
Light from two candles throbbed pleasantly over the kitchen walls as cool drafts of conditioned air teased the flames. Terri had been sitting at the table when I knocked. A small glass of peach brandy stood on the red-and-white-checkered oilcloth.
As always, the background music of her life was Elvis: this time, “Wear My Ring Around Your Neck.”
We had known that she would expect us to visit for a while, which is why Stormy hadn’t waited at the bottom of the stairs.
Terri sometimes suffers from insomnia. Even if sleep slips upon her with ease, the nights are long.
When the CLOSED sign is hung on the front door of the Grille at nine o’clock and after the last customer leaves between nine and ten, whether Terri is drinking decaf coffee or something stronger, she opens as well a bottle of loneliness.
Her husband, Kelsey, her high-school sweetheart, has been dead for nine years. His cancer had been relentless, but being a fighter of uncommon determination, he had taken three years to die.
When his malignancy was diagnosed, he swore that he would not leave Terri alone. He possessed the will but not the power to keep that oath.
In his final years, because of the unfailing good humor and the quiet courage with which Kelsey waged his long mortal battle, Terri’s love and respect for him, always deep, had grown profound.
In a way, Kelsey had kept his promise never to leave her. His ghost does not linger around the Grille or anywhere else in Pico Mundo. He lives vividly in her recollections, however, and his memory is etched on her soul.
