Read Koontz, Dean R. - Mr. Murder Page 8


  entertain them, and prevent them from getting cranky for an entire busy

  day unless he was in extraordinarily good health. Speaking as the other

  half of the Fabulous Stillwater Parenting Machine, Paige was exhausted.

  Curiously, after putting away the popcorn, she found herself checking

  window and door locks.

  Last night Marty had been unable to explain his own heightened sense of

  a need for security. His trouble, after all, was internal.

  Paige figured it had been simple psychological transference. He had

  been reluctant to dwell on the possibility of brain tumors and cerebral

  hemorrhages because those things were utterly beyond his control, so he

  had turned outward to seek enemies against which he might be able to

  take concrete action.

  On the other hand, perhaps he had been reacting on instinct to a real

  threat beyond conscious perception. As one who incorporated some

  Jungian theory into her personal and professional worldview, Paige had

  room for such concepts as the collective unconscious, synchronicity, and

  intuition.

  Standing at the French doors in the family room, staring across the

  patio to the dark yard, she wondered what threat Marty might have sensed

  out there in a world that, throughout her lifetime, had become

  increasingly fraught with danger.

  His attention deviates from the road ahead only for quick glances at the

  strange shapes that loom out of the darkness and the rain on both sides

  of the highway. Broken teeth of rock thrust from the sand and scree as

  if a behemoth just beneath the earth is opening its mouth to swallow

  whatever hapless animals happen to be on the surface.

  Widely spaced clusters of stunted trees struggle to stay alive in a

  stark land where storms are rare and drenching downpours rarer still,

  gnarled branches bristle out of the mist, as jagged and chitinous as the

  spiky limbs of insects, briefly illuminated by headlights, thrashing in

  the wind for an instant but then gone.

  Although the Honda has a radio, the killer does not switch it on because

  he wants no distraction from the mysterious power which pulls him

  westward and with which he seeks communion. Mile by dreary mile, the

  magnetic attraction increases, and it is all that he cares about, he

  could no more turn away from it than the earth could reverse its

  rotation and bring tomorrow's sunrise in the west.

  He leaves the rain behind and eventually passes from under the ragged

  clouds into a clear night with stars beyond counting. Along part of the

  horizon, luminous peaks and ridges can be seen dimly, so distant they

  might define the edge of the world, like alabaster ramparts protecting a

  fairy-tale kingdom, the walls of Shangri-la in which the light of last

  month's moon still glimmers.

  Into the vastness of the Southwest he goes, past necklaces of light that

  are the desert towns of Tucumcari, Montoya, Cuervo, and then across the

  Pecos River.

  Between Amarillo and Albuquerque, when he stops for oil and gasoline, he

  uses a service-station restroom reeking of insecticide, where two dead

  cockroaches lie in a corner. The yellow light and dirty mirror reveal a

  reflection recognizably his but somehow different. His blue eyes seem

  darker and more fierce than he has ever seen them, and the lines of his

  usually open and friendly face have hardened.

  "I'm going to become someone," he says to the mirror, and the man in the

  mirror mouths the words in concert with him.

  At eleven-thirty Sunday night, when he reaches Albuquerque, he fuels the

  Honda at another truckstop and orders two cheeseburgers to go.

  Then he is off on the next leg of his journey--three hundred and

  twenty-five miles to Flagstaff, Arizona eating the sandwiches out of the

  white paper bags in which they came and into which drips fragrant

  grease, onions, and mustard.

  This will be his second night without rest, yet he isn't sleepy. He is

  blessed with exceptional stamina. On other occasions he has gone

  seventy-two hours without sleep, yet has remained clear-headed.

  From movies he has watched on lonely nights in strange towns, he knows

  that sleep is the one unconquerable enemy of soldiers desperate to win a

  tough battle. Of policemen on stakeout. Of those who must valiantly

  stand guard against vampires until dawn brings the sun and salvation.

  His ability to call a truce with sleep whenever he wishes is so unusual

  that he shies away from thinking about it. He senses there are things

  about himself that he is better off not knowing, and this is one of

  them.

  Another lesson he has learned from movies is that every man has secrets,

  even those he keeps from himself. Therefore, secrets merely make him

  like all other men. Which is precisely the condition he most desires.

  To be like other men.

  In the dream, Marty stood in a cold and windswept place, in the grip of

  terror. He was aware that he was on a plain as featureless and flat as

  one of those vast valley floors out in the Mojave Desert on the drive to

  Las Vegas, but he couldn't actually see the landscape because the

  darkness was as deep as death. He knew something was rushing toward him

  through the gloom, something inconceivably strange and hostile, immense

  and deadly yet utterly silent, knew in his bones that it was coming,

  dear God, yet had no idea of the direction of its approach.

  Left, right, in front, behind, from the ground beneath his feet or from

  out of the sable-black sky above, it was coming. He could feel it, an

  object of such colossal size and weight that the atmosphere was

  compressed in its path, the air thickening as the unknown danger drew

  nearer. Closing on him so rapidly, faster, faster, and nowhere to hide.

  Then he heard Emily pleading for help somewhere in the unrelenting

  blackness, calling for her daddy, and Charlotte calling, too, but he

  could not get a fix on them. He ran one way, then another, but their

  increasingly frantic voices always seemed to be behind him.

  The unknown threat was closer, closer, the girls frightened and crying,

  Paige shouting his name in a voice so freighted with terror that Marty

  began to weep with frustration at his inability to find them, oh dear

  Jesus, and it was almost on top of him, the thing, whatever it was, as

  unstoppable as a falling moon, worlds colliding, a weight beyond

  measure, a force as primal as the one that had created the universe, as

  destructive as the one that would someday end it, Emily and Charlotte

  screaming, screaming-West of the Painted Desert, outside Flagstaff,

  Arizona, shortly before five o'clock Monday morning, flurries of snow

  swirl out of the predawn sky, and the cold air is a penetrating scalpel

  that scrapes his bones. The brown leather jacket that he took from the

  dead man's closet in the motorhome less than sixteen hours ago in

  Oklahoma is not heavy enough to keep him warm in the early-morning

  bitterness.

  He shivers as he fills the tank of the Honda at a self-service pump.

  On Interstate 40 again, he begins the three-hundred-fifty-mile trip to

  Barstow, Cal
ifornia. His compulsion to keep moving westward is so

  irresistible that he is as helpless in its grip as an asteroid captured

  by the earth's tremendous gravity and pulled inexorably toward a

  cataclysmic impact.

  Terror propelled him out of the dream of darkness and unknown menace,

  Marty Stillwater sat straight up in bed. His first waking breath was so

  explosive, he was sure he had awakened Paige, but she slept on

  undisturbed. He was chilled yet sheathed in sweat.

  Gradually his heart stopped pounding so fearfully. With the glowing

  green numerals on the digital clock, the red cable-box light on top of

  the television, and the ambient light at the windows, the bedroom was

  not nearly as black as the plain in his dream.

  But he could not lie down. The nightmare had been more vivid and

  unnerving than any he'd ever known. Sleep was beyond his reach.

  Slipping out from under the covers, he padded barefoot to the nearest

  window. He studied the sky above the rooftops of the houses across the

  street, as if something in that dark vault would calm him.

  Instead, when he noticed the black sky was brightening to a deep

  gray-blue along the eastern horizon, the approach of dawn filled him

  with the same irrational dread he had felt in his office on Saturday

  afternoon. As color crept into the heavens, Marty began to tremble.

  He tried to control himself, but his shivering grew more violent. It

  was not daylight that he feared, but something the day was bringing with

  it, an unnameable threat. He could feel it reaching for him, seeking

  him--which was crazy, damn it--and he shuddered so viol windowsill to

  steady himself.

  "What's wrong with me?" he whispered desperately. "What's happening,

  what's wrong?"

  Hour after hour, the speedometer needle quivers between 90 and 100 on

  the gauge. The steering wheel vibrates under his palms until his hands

  ache. The Honda shimmies, rattles. The engine issues a thin unwavering

  shriek, unaccustomed to being pushed so hard.

  Rust-red, bone-white, sulfur-yellow, the purple of desiccated veins, as

  dry as ashes, as barren as Mars, pale sand with reptilian spines of

  mottled rock, speckled with withered clumps of mesquite, the cruel

  fastness of the Mojave Desert has a majestic barrenness.

  Inevitably, the killer thinks of old movies about settlers moving west

  in wagon trains. He realizes for the first time how much courage was

  required to make their journey in those rickety vehicles, trusting their

  lives to the health and stamina of dray horses.

  Movies. California. He is in California, home of the movies.

  Move, move, move.

  From time to time, an involuntary mewling escapes him. The sound is

  like that of an animal dying of dehydration but within sight of a

  watering hole, dragging itself toward the pool that offers salvation but

  afraid it will perish before it can slake its burning thirst.

  Paige and Charlotte were already in the garage, getting in the car,

  when they both cried, "Emily, hurry up!"

  As Emily turned away from the breakfast table and started toward the

  open door that connected the kitchen to the garage, Marty caught her by

  the shoulder and turned her to face him. "Wait, wait, wait."

  "Oh," she said, "I forgot," and puckered up for a smooch.

  "That comes second," he said.

  "What's first?"

  "This." He dropped to one knee, bringing himself to her level, and with

  a paper towel he blotted away her milk mustache.

  "Oh, gross," she said.

  "It was cute."

  "More like Charlotte."

  He raised his eyebrows. "Oh?"

  "She's the messy one."

  "Don't be unkind."

  "She knows it, Daddy."

  "Nevertheless."

  From the garage, Paige called again.

  Emily kissed him, and he said, "Don't give your teacher any trouble."

  "No more than she gives me," Emily answered.

  Impulsively he pulled her against him, hugged her fiercely, reluctant to

  let her go. The clean fragrance of Ivory soap and baby shampoo breath.

  He had never smelled anything sweeter, better. Her back was frightfully

  small under the flat of his hand. She was so delicate, he could feel

  the beat of her young heart both through her chest--which pressed

  against him--and through her scapula and spine, against which his hand

  lay. He was overcome with the feeling that something terrible was going

  to happen and that he would never see her again if he allowed her to

  leave the house.

  He had to let her go, of course--or explain his reluctance, which he

  could not do.

  Honey, see, the problem is, something's wrong in Daddy's head, and I

  keep getting these scary thoughts, like I'm going to lose you and

  Charlotte and Mommy. Now, I know nothing's going to happen, not really,

  because the problem is all in my head, like a big tumor or something.

  Can you spell "tumor"? Do you know what it is? Well, I'm going to see

  a doctor and have it cut out, just cut out that bad old tumor, and then

  I won't be so frightened for no reason....

  He dared say nothing of the sort. He would only scare her.

  He kissed her soft, warm cheek and let her go.

  At the door to the garage, she paused and looked back at him.

  "More poem tonight?"

  "You bet."

  She said, "Reindeer salad . .."

  ". . . reindeer soup . .."

  ". . . all sorts of tasty . .."

  ". . . reindeer goop," Marty finished.

  "You know what, Daddy?"

  "What?"

  "You're soooo silly."

  Giggling, Emily went into the garage. The ca-chunk of the door closing

  behind her was the most final sound Marty had ever heard.

  He stared at the door, willing himself not to rush to it and jerk it

  open and shout at them to get back into the house.

  He heard the big garage door rolling up.

  The car engine turned over, chugged, caught, raced a little as Paige

  pumped the accelerator before shifting into reverse.

  Marty hurried out of the kitchen, through the dining room, into the

  living room. He went to one of the front windows from which he could

  see the driveway. The plantation shutters were folded away from the

  window, so he stayed a couple of steps from the glass.

  The white BMW backed down the driveway, out of the shadow of the house

  and into the late-November sunshine. Emily was riding up front with her

  mother, and Charlotte was in the rear seat.

  As the car receded along the tree-lined street, Marty stepped so close

  to the living-room window that his forehead pressed against the cool

  glass. He tried to keep his family in view as long as possible, as if

  they were certain to survive anything--even falling airplanes and

  nuclear blasts--if he just did not let them out of his sight.

  His last glimpse of the BMW was through a sudden veil of hot tears that

  he barely managed to repress.

  Disturbed by the intensity of his emotional reaction to his family's

  departure, he turned away from the window and said savagely, "What the

  hell's the matter with me?"

  After all, the girls were mere
ly going to school and Paige to her

  office, where they went more days than not. They were following a

  routine that had never been dangerous before, and he had no logical

  reason to believe it was going to be dangerous today--or ever.

  He looked at his wristwatch. 7,48.

  His appointment with Dr. Guthridge was only slightly more than five

  hours away, but that seemed an interminable length of time.

  Anything could happen in five hours.

  Needles to Ludlow to Daggett.

  Move, move, move.

  9,04 Pacific Standard Time.

  Barstow. Dry bleached town in a hard dry land. Stagecoaches stopped

  here long ago. Railroad yards. Waterless rivers. Cracked stucco,

  peeling paint. Green of trees faded by a perpetual layer of dust on the

  leaves. Motels, fast-food restaurants, more motels.

  A service station. Gasoline. Men's room. Candy bars. Two cans of

  cold Coke.

  Attendant too friendly. Chatty. Slow to make change. Little pig eyes.

  Fat cheeks. Hate him. Shut up, shut up, shut up.

  Should shoot him. Should blow his head off. Satisfying. Can't risk

  it. Too many people around.

  On the road again. Interstate 15. West. Candy bars and Coke at eighty