Dragon Tears

by Dean R. Koontz

  The golem reached the bottom of the stairs.

  Connie was exhausted. Freezing.

  She heard Harry cursing the cold and the resisting air.

  The pleasant dream of flying had become the most classic of all nightmares, in which the dreamer could flee only in slow motion, while the monster pursued with terrifying speed and agility.

  Concentrating on the floor below, seven feet from it now, Connie nevertheless saw movement from the corner of her left eye and heard Harry cry out. A golem had reached him.

  A darker shadow fell across the shadow-layered floor directly below her. Reluctantly, she turned her head to the right.

  Suspended in midair, with her feet above and behind her, like an angel swooping down to do battle with a demon, she found herself face to face with the other golem. Regrettably, unlike an angel, she was not armed with a fiery sword, a bolt of lightning, or an amulet blessed by God and capable of knocking demons back into the fires and boiling tar of the Pit.

  Grinning, Ticktock gripped her throat. The golem’s hand was so enormous that the thick fingers overlapped the fat thumb where they met at the back of her head, completely encircling her neck, though it did not immediately crush her windpipe and cut off her breath.

  She remembered how Ricky Estefan’s head had been turned backward on his shoulders, and how the raven-haired dancer’s slender arm had been ripped so effortlessly from her body.

  A flash of rage burned away her terror, and she spat in the huge and terrible face. “Let go of me, shithead.”

  A foul exhalation washed over her, making her grimace, and the scar-faced golem-vagrant said, “Congratulations, bitch. Time’s up.”

  The blue-flame eyes burned brighter for an instant, then winked out, leaving deep black sockets beyond which it seemed that Connie could see to the end of eternity. The vagrant’s hideous face, writ large on this oversize golem, was abruptly transformed from flesh and hair into a highly detailed monochromatic brown countenance that appeared to have been sculpted from clay or mud. An elaborate web of hairline cracks formed from the bridge of his nose, swiftly spinning in a spiral pattern across his face, and in a wink his features crumbled.

  The giant vagrant’s entire body dissolved, and with a shattering detonation of techno music that resumed full-blast in mid-note, the world started up again. No longer suspended in the air, Connie fell the last seven feet to the warehouse floor, face-first into the moist mound of dirt and sand and grass and rotting leaves and bugs that had been the golem’s body, cushioned from injury by the now-lifeless mass but gagging and spitting in disgust.

  Around her, even above the pounding music, she heard screams of shock, terror, and pain.

  5

  “Game’s over — for now,” the golem-vagrant said, then obligingly dissolved. Harry dropped out of the air. He sprawled on his stomach in the remains, which smelled strongly of nothing more than rich damp earth.

  In front of his face was a hand formed entirely of dirt, similar to— but larger than — the one they had seen in Ricky’s bungalow. Two fingers twitched with a residue of supernatural energy and seemed to reach toward his nose. He slammed one fist into that disembodied monstrosity, pulverizing it.

  Screaming dancers stumbled into him and collapsed across his back and legs. He scrambled out from under the falling bodies, onto his feet.

  An angry boy in a Batman T-shirt rushed forward and took a swing at him. Harry ducked, threw a right into the kid’s stomach, planted a left uppercut under his chin, stepped over him when he fell, and looked around for Connie.

  She was nearby, dropping a tough-looking teenage girl with a karate kick, and then swiveling on one foot to drive her elbow into the solar plexus of a muscle-bound youth who looked surprised as he went down. He obviously thought he was going to polish his shoes with her and throw her away.

  If she felt as rotten as Harry did, she might not be able to hold her own. His joints still ached with the cold that had seeped into them during the Pause, and he felt tired, as if he had carried a great weight on a journey of many miles.

  Joining up with her, screaming to be heard above the music and other noise, Harry said, “We’re too old for this crap! Come on, let’s get out of here!”

  For the most part, on every side, the dancing had given way to fighting, or at least to vigorous pushing and shoving, thanks to the tricks that Ticktock had played earlier on his way through the Paused crowd. However, not all of the partiers seemed to understand that the rave had devolved into a dangerous brawl, because some of the pushers and shovers were laughing as if they believed they had merely been caught up in a boisterous, relatively good-natured slam dance.

  Harry and Connie were too far from the front of the building to make it out that way before an understanding of the true nature of the situation swept the crowd. Though there was nothing as immediately threatening as a fire, the tendency of a panicked crowd would be to react to the violence as if flames had been seen. Some of them would even believe they had seen fire.

  Harry grabbed Connie’s hand to keep them from being separated in the turmoil, and led her toward the nearer rear wall, where he was sure there would have to be other doors.

  In that chaotic atmosphere, it was easy to understand why the revelers would confuse real violence for make-believe, even if they hadn’t been on drugs. Spotlights swung back and forth and swooped across the metal ceiling, intensely colored laser beams slashed complex patterns across the room, strobes flashed, phantasmagoric shadows leaped-twisted-twirled through the energetic crowd, young faces were strange and mysterious behind ever-changing carnival masks of reflected light, psychedelic film images pulsed and writhed over two big walls, the disc jockey pumped up the volume on the manic music, and the crowd noise alone was loud enough to be disorienting. The senses were overloaded and apt to mistake a glimpse of violent confrontation for an exhibition of high good spirits or something even more benign.

  Far behind Harry a scream rose unlike any of the others, so shrill and hysterical that it pierced the background roar and called attention to itself even in that cacophony. No more than a minute had passed since the Pause had ended, if that long. Harry figured the new screamer was either the black-haired girl coming out of shock and discovering that her shoulder ended in a gory stump — or the person who had suddenly found himself confronted by the grisly detached arm.

  Even if that heart-stopping wail didn’t draw attention, the crowd would not party on in ignorance much longer. There was nothing like a punch in the face to dislodge fantasy and snap reality into place. When the change in the mood penetrated to a majority of the ravers, the rush to the exits would be potentially deadly, even though there was no fire.

  A sense of duty and a policeman’s conscience encouraged Harry to turn back, find the girl who had lost an arm, and try to administer first aid. But he knew that he would probably not be able to find her in the churning throng, and that he wouldn’t have a chance to help even if he did manage to locate her, not in that growing human maelstrom, which already seemed to have reached the equivalent of hurricane force.

  Holding tight to Connie’s hand, Harry pushed out of the dancers and through the now-clamorous onlookers with their bottles of beer and balloons of nitrous oxide, all the way to the back wall of the warehouse, which was deep under the loft. Beyond the reach of the party lights. Darkest place in the building.

  He looked left, right. Couldn’t see a door.

  That wasn’t surprising, considering a rave was essentially an illegal drug party staged in a deserted warehouse, not a chaperoned prom in a hotel ballroom where there would be well-lit red exit signs. But, Jesus, it would be so pointless and stupid to survive the Pause and the golems, only to be trampled to death by hundreds of doped-up kids frantically trying to squeeze through a doorway all at once.

  Harry decided to go right, for no better reason than that he had to go one way or the other. Unconscious kids were lying on the floor, recovering from long hits of laughing gas. Har
ry tried not to step on anyone, but the light under the loft was so poor that he didn’t see some of those in darker clothes until he’d stumbled over them.

  A door. He almost passed by without spotting it.

  In the warehouse behind him, the music continued to thump as ever, but a sudden change occurred in the quality of the crowd noise. It became a less celebratory roar, darkened into an uglier rumble shot through with panicky shrieks.

  Connie was gripping Harry’s hand so tightly, she was grinding his knuckles together.

  In the gloom Harry pushed against the door. Pushed with his shoulders. Wouldn’t budge. No. Must be an outside door. Pull inward. But that didn’t work either.

  The crowd broke toward the outer walls. A wave of screaming swelled, and Harry could actually feel the heat and terror of the oncoming mob that was surging even toward the back wall. They were probably too disoriented to remember where the main entrances were.

  He fumbled for the door handle, knob, push-bar, whatever, and prayed it wasn’t locked. He found a vertical handle with a thumb latch, pressed down, felt something click.

  The first of the escaping crowd rammed into them from behind, Connie cried out, Harry shoved back at them, trying to keep them out of the way so he could pull the door open—please God don’t let it be a restroom or closet well be crushed smothered—kept his thumb down hard on the latch, the door popped, he pulled it inward, shouting at the crowd behind him to wait, wait, for God’s sake, and then the door was torn out of his grasp and slammed all the way open, and he and Connie were carried outside into the cool night air by the desperate tide of people behind them.

  More than a dozen ravers were in a parking area, gathered around the back of a white Ford van. The van was draped with two sets of green and red Christmas-tree lights, which operated off its battery and provided the only illumination in the deep night between the back of the building and the scrub-covered canyon wall. One long-haired man was filling balloons from a pressure tank of nitrous oxide that was strapped to a handtruck behind the van, and a totally bald guy was collecting five-dollar bills. All of them, both merchants and customers, looked up in amazement as screaming and shouting people erupted through the back door of the warehouse.

  Harry and Connie separated, bypassing everyone behind the van. She went around to the passenger-side door, and Harry went to the driver’s side.

  He jerked open the door and started to climb in behind the steering wheel.

  The guy with the shaved head grabbed his arm, stopped him and pulled him out. “Hey, man, what do you think you’re doing?”

  As he was being dragged backward out of the van, Harry reached under his coat and drew his revolver. Turning, he jammed the muzzle against his adversary’s lips. “You want me to blow your teeth out the back of your head?”

  The bald man’s eyes went wide, and he backed up fast, raising both hands to show he was harmless. “No, hey, no man, cool it, take the van, she’s yours, have fun, enjoy.”

  Distasteful as Connie’s methods might be, Harry had to admit there was a certain time-saving efficiency when you handled problems her way.

  He climbed behind the steering wheel again, pulled the door shut, and holstered his revolver.

  Connie was already in the passenger seat.

  The keys were in the ignition, and the engine was running to keep the battery charged up for the Christmas lights. Christmas lights, for God’s sake. Festive bunch, these NO dealers.

  He released the handbrake, switched on the headlights, threw the van in gear, and tramped hard on the accelerator. For a moment the tires spun and smoked, squealing like angry pigs on the blacktop, and all the ravers scattered. Then the rubber bit in, the van shot toward the back corner of the warehouse, and Harry hammered the horn to keep people out of his way.

  “The road out of here’s going to jam tight in two minutes,”

  Connie said, bracing herself against the dashboard as they rounded the corner of the warehouse not quite on two wheels.

  “Yeah,” he said, “everyone trying to get away before the cops show up.”

  “Cops are such party poopers.”

  “Such numbnuts.”

  “Never any fun.”

  “Prudes.”

  They rocketed down the wide driveway alongside the warehouse, where there was no exit door and therefore no panicked people to worry about. The van handled well, real power and a good suspension. He supposed it had been modified for quick escapes when the police showed up.

  Out in front of the warehouse, the situation was different, and he had to use the brake and the horn, weaving wildly to avoid fleeing partiers. More people had escaped the building more quickly than he had imagined possible.

  “Promoters were smart enough to roll up one of the big truck doors to let people out,” Connie said, turning in her seat to look out the side window as they went past the place.

  “Surprised it even works,” Harry said. “God knows how long the place has stood empty.”

  With the pressure inside so quickly relieved, the death toll — if there was one — would be substantially smaller.

  Hanging a hard left into the street, Harry clipped a parked car with the rear bumper of the van but kept going, blowing the horn at the few ravers who had made it that far and were running down the middle of the street like terrified people in one of those Godzilla movies fleeing from the giant thunderlizard.

  Connie said, “You pulled your gun on that bald guy.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hear you tell him you’d blow his head off?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Didn’t show him your badge?”

  “Figured he’d have respect for a gun, none at all for a badge.”

  She said, “I could get to like you, Harry Lyon.”

  “No future in it — unless we get past dawn.”

  In seconds they were past all of the partiers who had left the warehouse on foot, and Harry tramped the accelerator all the way to the floor. They shot by the nursery, body shops, and recreational-vehicle storage lot that they had passed on the way in, and were soon beyond the partiers’ parked cars.

  He wanted to be long gone from the area when the Laguna Beach Police arrived, which they would — and soon. Being caught in the aftermath of the rave debacle would tie them up too long, maybe just long enough so they would lose their one and only chance at getting the drop on Ticktock.

  “Where you going?” Connie asked.

  “The Green House.”

  “Yeah. Maybe Sammy’s still there.”

  “Sammy?”

  “The bum. That was his name.”

  “Oh, yeah. And the talking dog.”

  “Talking dog?” she said.

  “Well, maybe he doesn’t talk, but he’s got something to tell us we need to know, that’s for damn sure, and maybe he does talk, what the hell, who knows any more, it’s a crazy world, a crazy damn night. There are talking animals in fairy tales, why not a talking dog in Laguna Beach?”

  Harry realized he was babbling, but he was driving so fast and recklessly that he didn’t want to take his eyes off the road even to glance at Connie and see if she was giving him a skeptical look.

  She didn’t sound worried about his sanity when she said, “What’s the plan?”

  “I think we’ve got a narrow window of opportunity.”

  “Because he has to rest now and then. Like he told you on the car radio.”

  “Yeah. Especially after something like this. So far there’s always been an hour or more between his… appearances.”

  “Manifestations.”

  “Whatever.”

  After a few turns they were back in residential neighborhoods, working through Laguna toward the Pacific Coast Highway.

  A police car and an ambulance, emergency beacons flashing, shot past them on a cross street, almost certainly answering a call to the warehouse.

  “Fast response,” Connie said.

  “Someone with a car phone
must have dialed 911.”

  Maybe help would arrive in time to save the girl who had lost an arm. Maybe the arm could even be saved, sewn back on. Yeah, and maybe Mother Goose was real.

  Harry had been buoyant because they had escaped the Pause and the rave. But his adrenaline high faded swiftly as he recalled, too vividly, how savagely the golem had torn off the young woman’s slender arm.

  Despair crept back in at the edges of his thoughts.

  “If there’s a window of opportunity while he rests or even sleeps,” Connie said, “how can we possibly find him fast enough?”

  “Not with one of Nancy Quan’s portraits, that’s for sure. No time for that approach any more.”

  She said, “I think next time he manifests, he’ll kill us, no more playing around.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “Or at least kill me. Then you the time after that.”

  “By dawn. That’s one promise our little boy will keep.”

  They were both silent for a moment, somber.

  “So where does that leave us?” she asked.

  “Maybe the bum in front of The Green House—”

  “Sammy.”

  “—maybe he knows something that will help us. Or if not… then… hell, I don’t know. It looks hopeless, doesn’t it?”

  “No,” she said sharply. “Nothing’s hopeless. Where there’s life, there’s hope. Where there’s hope, it’s always worth trying, worth going on.”

  He wheeled around another corner from one street full of dark houses to another, straightened out the van, let up on the accelerator a little, and looked at her in astonishment. “Nothing’s hopeless? What’s happened to you?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s still happening.”

  6