Dragon Tears

by Dean Koontz

  When he and Connie got out of the car, Harry noticed a filthy hobo in the shadows at the corner of the restaurant, by an alleyway that ran toward the back of the building. It was not Ticktock, but a smaller, pathetic-looking specimen. He sat between two shrubs, legs drawn up, eating from a bag in his lap, drinking hot coffee from a thermos, and mumbling urgently to himself.

  The guy watched them as they walked toward the entrance to The Green House. His stare was fevered, intense. His bloodshot eyes were like those of many other denizens of the streets these days, hot with paranoid fear. Perhaps he believed himself to be persecuted by evil space aliens who were beaming microwaves at him to muddle his thoughts. Or by the dastardly band of ten thousand and eighty-two conspirators who had really shot John F. Kennedy and who had secretly controlled the world ever since. Or by fiendish Japanese businessmen who were going to buy everything everywhere, turn everyone else into slaves, and serve the raw internal organs of American children as side dishes in Tokyo sushi bars. Recently it seemed that half the sane population—or what passed for sane these days—believed in one demonstrably ridiculous paranoid conspiracy theory or another. And for the most thoroughly stoned street-wanderers like this man, such fantasies were de rigueur.

  To the hobo, Connie said, “Can you hear me, or are you on the moon somewhere?”

  The man glared at her.

  “We’re cops. You got that? Cops. You touch that car while we’re gone, you’ll find yourself in a detox program so fast you won’t know what hit you, no booze or drugs for three months.”

  Forced detoxification was the only threat that worked with some of these squires of the gutter. They were already at the bottom of the swamp, used to being knocked around and chewed up by the bigger animals. They had nothing left to lose—except the chance to stay high on cheap wine or whatever else they could afford.

  “Cops?” the man said.

  “Good,” Connie said. “You heard me. Cops. Three months with not a single hit, it’ll seem like three centuries.”

  Last week, in Santa Ana, a drunken vagrant had taken advantage of their unattended department sedan to make a social protest by leaving his feces on the driver’s seat. Or maybe he mistook them for space aliens to whom a gift of human waste was a sign of welcome and an invitation to intergalactic cooperation. In either case, Connie had wanted to kill the guy, and Harry had needed every bit of his diplomacy and persuasiveness to convince her that forced detox was crueler.

  “You lock the doors?” Connie asked Harry.

  “Yeah.”

  Behind them, as they went into The Green House, the vagrant said thoughtfully: “Cops?”

  4

  Having eaten the cookies and potato chips, Bryan briefly used his Greatest and Most Secret Power to insure total privacy, then stood at the edge of the patio and urinated between railings into the silent sea below. He always got a kick out of doing things like that in public, sometimes right out in the street with people around, knowing that his Greatest and Most Secret Power would insure against discovery. Bladder empty, he started things up again and returned to the house.

  Food alone was seldom sufficient to restore his energy He was, after all, a god Becoming, and according to the Bible, the first god had needed rest himself on the seventh day. Before he could work more miracles, Bryan would still have to nap, perhaps for as much as an hour.

  In the master bedroom, lit only by one bedside lamp, he stood for a while in front of the black-lacquered shelves where eyes of many species and colors floated in preserving fluid. Feeling their unblinking, eternal gazes. Their adoration.

  He unbelted his red robe, shrugged out of it, and let it drop to the floor.

  The eyes loved him. Loved him. He could feel their love, and he accepted it.

  He opened one of the jars. The eyes in it had belonged to a woman who had been thinned from the herd because she was one of those who could vanish from the world without causing much concern. They were blue eyes, once beautiful, the color faded now and the lenses milky.

  Dipping into the pungent fluid, he removed one of the blue eyes and held it in his left hand. It felt like a ripe date—soft but firm, and moist.

  Trapping the eye between his palm and chest, he rolled it gently across his body from nipple to nipple, back and forth, not pressing too hard, careful to avoid damaging it, but eager for the dead woman to see him in all his Becoming glory, every smooth plane and curve and pore of him. The small sphere was cool against his warm flesh, and left a trail of moisture on his skin. He shivered deliciously. He eased the slick orb down his flat belly, describing circles there, then held it for a moment in the hollow of his navel.

  From the open jar, he extracted the second blue eye. He trapped it under his right hand and allowed both eyes to explore his body: chest and flanks and thighs, up across his belly and chest again, along the sides of his neck, his face, gently rotating the moist and spongy spheres on his cheeks, around, around, around. So satisfying to be the object of adoration. So supremely glorious for the dead woman to be granted this intimate moment with the Becoming god who had judged and condemned her.

  Winding tracks of preserving fluid marked each eye’s journey over his body. As the fluid evaporated, it was easy to believe that the tracery of coolness was actually a lace of tears upon his skin, shed by the dead woman who rejoiced in this sacrosanct contact.

  The other eyes upon the shelves, watching from their separate glass-walled liquid universes, seemed envious of the blue eyes to which he had granted communion.

  Bryan wished that he could bring his mother here and show her all the eyes that adored and cherished him, revered him, and found no aspect of him from which they wished to turn their gazes.

  But, of course, she would not look, could not see. The stubborn, withered hag would persist in fearing him. She regarded him as an abomination, though it should be obvious even to her that he was Becoming a figure of transcendent spiritual power, the sword of judgment, instigator of Armageddon, savior of a world infested with an abundance of humanity.

  He returned the pair of blue eyes to the open jar, and screwed the lid shut.

  He had satisfied one hunger with cookies and chips, satisfied another by revealing his glory to the congregation in the jars and by seeing that they were in awe of him. Now it was time to sleep for a short while and recharge his batteries; dawn was nearer, and he had promises to keep.

  As he settled upon the disarranged bed sheets, he reached for the switch on the nightstand lamp, but then decided not to turn it off. The disembodied communicants in the jars would be able to see him better if the room was not entirely dark. It pleased him to think that he would be admired and venerated even while he slept.

  Bryan Drackman closed his eyes, yawned, and as always sleep came to him without delay. Dreams: great cities falling, houses burning, monuments collapsing, mass graves of broken concrete and twisted steel stretching to the horizon and attended by flocks of feeding vultures so numerous that, in flight, they blackened the sky.

  5

  He sprints, trots, slows to a walk, and finally creeps warily from shadow to shadow as he draws nearer to the thing-that-will-kill-you. The smell of it is ripe, strong, foul. Not filthy like the stinky man. Different. In its own way, worse. Interesting.

  He is not afraid. He is not afraid. Not afraid. He is a dog. He has sharp teeth and claws. Strong and quick. In his blood is the need to track and hunt. He is a dog, cunning and fierce, and he runs from nothing. He was born to chase, not be chased, and he fearlessly pursues anything he wants, even cats. Though cats have clawed his nose, bitten and humiliated him, still he chases them, unafraid, for he is a dog, maybe not as smart as some cats, but a dog.

  Padding along beside a row of thick oleander. Pretty flowers. Berries. Don’t eat the berries. Sick-making. You can tell from the smell. Also the leaves. Also the flowers.

  Never eat any kind of flowers. He tried to eat one once. There was a bee in the flower, then in his mouth, buzzing in his mouth,
stinging his tongue. A very bad day, worse than cats.

  He creeps onward. Not afraid. Not. Not. He is a dog.

  People place. High white walls. Windows dark. Near the top, one square of pale light.

  He slinks along the side of the place.

  The smell of the bad thing is strong here, and getting stronger. Almost burns in the snout. Like ammonia but not like. A cold smell and dark, colder than ice and darker than night.

  Halfway along the high white wall, he stops. Listens. Sniffs.

  He is not afraid. He is not afraid.

  Something overhead goes Whooooooooooo.

  He is afraid. Whipping around, he starts to run back the way he came.

  Whooooooooooo.

  Wait. He knows that sound. An owl, swooping through the night above, hunting prey of its own.

  He was frightened by an owl. Bad dog. Bad dog. Bad.

  Remember the boy. The woman and the boy. Besides… the smell, the place, the moment are interesting.

  Turning once again, he continues to creep along the side of the people place, white walls, one pale light high above. He comes to an iron fence. Tight squeeze. Not as tight as the drain pipe where you follow the cat and get stuck and the cat keeps going, and you twist and kick and struggle for a long time inside the pipe, you think you’re never going to get loose, and then you wonder if maybe the cat is coming back toward you through the darkness of the pipe, is going to claw your nose while you’re stuck and can’t move. Tight, but not that tight. He shakes his rear end, kicks, and gets through.

  He comes to the end of the place, starts around the corner, and sees the thing-that-will-kill-you. His vision is not nearly as keen as his smell, but he is able to make out a man, young, and he knows it is the bad thing because it reeks of that strange dark cold smell. Before, it looked different, never a young man, but the smell is the same. This is the thing, for sure.

  He freezes.

  He is not afraid. He is not afraid. He is a dog.

  The young-man-bad-thing is on its way into the people place. It is carrying food bags. Chocolate. Marshmallow. Potato chips.

  Interesting.

  Even the bad thing eats. It has been outside, eating, and now it is going in, and maybe some of the food is left. A wag of the tail, a friendly whine, the sitting-up-and-begging trick might get something good, yes yes yes yes.

  No no no no. Bad idea.

  But chocolate.

  No. Forget it. The kind of bad idea that gets your nose scratched. Or worse. Dead like the bee in the puddle, the mouse in the gutter.

  The thing-that-will-kill-you goes inside, closes the door. Its scary smell isn’t so strong now.

  Neither is the chocolate smell. Oh well.

  Whooooooooooo.

  Just an owl. Who would be afraid of an owl? Not a dog.

  He sniffs around behind the people place for a while, some of it grass, some of it dirt, some of it flat stones that people put down. Bushes. Flowers. Busy bugs in the grass, different kinds. A couple of things for people to sit in… and beside one of them, a piece of cookie. Chocolate. Good, good, gone. Sniff around, under, here, there, but no more to be found.

  A little lizard! Zip, so fast, across the stones, get it, get it, get it, get it. This way, that way, this way, between your legs, that way, here it comes, there it goes—now where is it?—over there, zip, don’t let it get away, get it, get it, want it, need it, bang, an iron fence out of nowhere.

  The lizard is gone, but the fence smells of fresh people pee. Interesting.

  It’s the pee of the thing-that-will-kill-you. Not a nice smell. Not a bad smell. Just interesting. The thing-that-will-kill-you looks like people, pees like people, so must be people, even if it’s strange and different.

  He follows the route the bad thing took when it stopped peeing and went into the people place, and in the bottom of the big door he finds a smaller door, more or less his size. He sniffs it. The smaller door smells like another dog. Faint, very faint, but another dog. A long time ago, a dog went in and out this door. Interesting. So long ago, he has to sniff sniff sniff sniff to learn anything. A male dog. Not small, not too big. Interesting. Nervous dog… or maybe sick. Long time ago. Interesting.

  Think about this.

  Door for people. Door for dogs.

  Think.

  So this isn’t just a people place. This is a people and dog place. Interesting.

  He pushes his nose against the little cold metal door, and it swings inward. He sticks his head in, lifting the door just far enough to sniff deep and look around.

  People food place. Hidden away is food, not out where he can see it but where he can still smell it. Strongest of all, the smell of the bad thing, so strong that it leaves him uninterested in food.

  The smell repels and frightens him but also attracts him, and curiosity draws him forward. He squeezes through the opening, the little metal door sliding along his back, along his tail, then falling shut with a faint squeak.

  Inside.

  Listening. Humming, ticking, a soft clink. Machine sounds. Otherwise, silence.

  Not much light. Just little glowing spots up on some of the machines.

  He is not afraid. Not, not, not.

  He creeps from one dark space to another, squinting into the shadows, listening, sniffing, but he does not find the thing-that-will-kill-you until he comes to the bottom of stairs. He looks up and knows that the thing is in one of the spaces up there somewhere.

  He starts up the stairs, pauses, continues, pauses, looks down to the floor below, looks up, continues, pauses, and he wonders the same thing he always wonders at some point while chasing a cat: what is he doing here? If there is not food, if there is not a female in heat, if there is not anyone here to pet and scratch and play with him, why is he here? He doesn’t really know why. Maybe it is just the nature of a dog to wonder what is around the next corner, over the next hill. Dogs are special. Dogs are curious. Life is strange and interesting, and he has the feeling that each new place or each new day might show him something so different and special that just by seeing and smelling it, he will understand the world better and be happier. He has the feeling that a wonderful thing is waiting to be found, a wonderful thing he can’t imagine, but something even better than food or females in heat, better than petting, scratching, playing, running along a beach with wind in his fur, chasing a cat, or even better than catching a cat if such a thing was possible. Even here, in this scary place, with the smell of the thing-that-will-kill-you so strong he wants to sneeze, he still feels that a wonderfulness might be just around the next corner.

  And don’t forget the woman, the boy. They’re nice. They like him. So maybe he can find a way to keep the bad thing from bothering them any more.

  He continues to the top of the steps into a narrow space. He pads along, sniffing at doors. Soft light behind one of them. And very heavy, bitter: the thing-that-will-kill-you smell.

  Not afraid, not afraid, he is a dog, stalker and hunter, good and brave, good dog, good.

  The door is open a crack. He puts his nose to the gap. He could push it open wider, go into the space beyond it, but he hesitates.

  Nothing wonderful in there. Maybe somewhere else in this people place, maybe around every other corner, but not in there.

  Maybe he can just leave now, go back to the alley, see if the fat man left out more food for him.

  That would be a cat thing to do. Sneaking away. Running. He is not a cat. He is a dog.

  But do cats ever get their noses scratched, cut deep, bleeding, sore for days? Interesting thought. He has never seen a cat with a scratched nose, has never gotten close enough to scratch one.

  But he is a dog, not a cat, so he pushes against the door. It eases open wider. He goes into the space beyond.

  Young-man-bad-thing lying on black cloths, above the floor, not moving at all, making no sound, eyes closed. Dead? Dead bad thing on the black cloths.

  He pads closer, sniffing.

  No. Not de
ad. Sleeping.

  The thing-that-will-kill-you eats, and it pees, and now it sleeps, so it is like people in many ways, like dogs, too, even if it isn’t either people or dog.

  What now?

  He stares at the sleeping bad thing, thinking how he might jump up there with it, bark in its face, wake it up, scare it, so then maybe it won’t come around the woman and boy any more. Maybe even bite it, just a little bite, be a bad dog for once, just to help the woman and the boy, bite its chin. Or its nose.

  It doesn’t look so dangerous, sleeping. Doesn’t look so strong or quick. He can’t remember why it was scary before.

  He looks around the black room and then up, and light glistens in a lot of eyes floating up there in bottles, people eyes without people, animal eyes without animals. Interesting but not good, not good at all.

  Again he wonders what he is doing here. He realizes this place is like a drain pipe where you get stuck, like a hole in the ground where big spiders live that don’t like you sticking your snout in at them. And then he realizes that the young-man-bad-thing on the bed is sort of like those laughing boys, smelling of sand and sun and sea salt, who will pet you and scratch behind your ears and then try to set your fur on fire.

  Stupid dog. Stupid for coming here. Good but stupid.

  The bad thing mumbles in its sleep.

  He backs away from the bed, turns, tucks his tail down, and pads out of the room. He goes down the stairs, getting out of there, not afraid, not afraid, just careful, not afraid, but his heart pounding hard and fast.

  6

  Weekdays, Tanya Delaney was the private nurse on the graveyard shift, from midnight until eight o’clock in the morning. Some nights she would rather have worked in a graveyard. Jennifer Drack-man was spookier than anything Tanya could conceive of encountering in a cemetery.

  Tanya sat in an armchair near the blind woman’s bed, silently reading a Mary Higgins Clark novel. She liked to read, and she was a night person by nature, so the wee-hour shift was perfect for her. Some nights she could finish an entire novel and start another one because Jennifer slept straight through.

  Other times, Jennifer was unable to sleep, raving incoherently and consumed by terror. On those occasions, Tanya knew the poor woman was irrational and that there was nothing to be afraid of, yet the patient’s angst was so intense that it was communicated to the nurse. Tanya’s own skin would prickle with gooseflesh, the back of her neck would tingle, she would glance uneasily at the darkness beyond the window as if something waited in it, and would jump at every unexpected noise.

  At least the pre-dawn hours of that Wednesday were not filled with shouts and tortured cries and strings of words as meaningless as the manic babble of a religious passionary speaking in tongues. Instead, Jennifer slept but not well, harried by bad dreams. From time to time, without waking, she moaned, grasped with her good hand at the bed rail, and tried without success to pull herself up. With bony white fingers hooked around the steel, atrophied muscles barely defined in her fleshless arms, face gaunt and pale, eyelids sewn shut and concave over empty sockets, she seemed not like a sick woman in bed but like a corpse struggling to rise from a coffin. When she talked in her sleep, she didn’t shout but spoke almost in a whisper, with tremendous urgency; her voice seemed to arise from thin air and float through the room with the eeriness of a spirit speaking at a séance: “He’ll kill us all… kill… he’ll kill us all….”

  Tanya shivered and tried to concentrate on the suspense novel, though she felt guilty about ignoring her patient. At the least she should pry the bony hand off the railing, feel Jennifer’s forehead to be sure she was not feverish, murmur soothingly to her, and attempt to guide her through the stormy dream into calmer shoals of sleep. She was a good nurse, and ordinarily she would rush to comfort a patient in the grip of a nightmare. But she stayed in the armchair with her Clark book because she didn’t want to risk waking Jennifer. Once awakened, the woman might slip from the nightmare into one of those frightening fits of shouting, tearless weeping, wailing, and glossolalic shrieking that made Tanya’s blood turn to ice.

  Came the ghostly voice out of sleep: “… the world’s on fire… tides of blood… fire and blood… I’m the mother of Hell… God help me, I’m the mother of Hell….”

  Tanya wanted to turn the thermostat higher, but she knew the room was already a bit too warm. The chill she felt was within her, not without.

  “… such a cold mind… dead heart… beating but dead…”

  Tanya wondered what the poor woman had endured that had left her in such a dismal state. What had she seen? What had she suffered? What memories haunted her?

  7

  The Green House on Pacific Coast Highway included a large and typical California-style restaurant filled with too many ferns and pothos even for Harry’s taste, and a sizable barroom where fern-weary patrons had long ago learned to keep the greenery under control by poisoning the potting soil with a dribble of whiskey every now and then. The restaurant side was closed at that hour.

  The popular bar was open until two o’clock. It had been remodeled in a black-silver-green Art Deco style that was nothing like the adjacent restaurant, a strained attempt to be chic. But they served sandwiches along with the booze.

  Midst stunted and yellowing plants, about thirty customers drank, talked, and listened to jazz played by a four-man combo. The musicians were performing quirky semi-progressive arrangements of famous numbers from the big-band era. Two couples, who didn’t realize the music was better for listening, were gamely dancing to quasi-melodic tunes marked by constant tempo changes and looping extemporaneous passages that would have thwarted Fred Astaire or Baryshnikov.