by Dean Koontz
“Your mother must have been proud of you,” Colin insisted.
“She always said she was, every time that I came in second or third. But I always got the impression she was really very disappointed. When I hadn’t won a first place by the time I was ten, she stopped entering me in the contests. I guess she figured I was a hopeless case.”
“But you did great!”
“You forget that she was No. 1,” Heather said. “She was Miss California. Not No. 3 or No. 2. No. 1.”
He marveled at this lovely girl who didn’t seem to know how truly lovely she was. Her mouth was sensuous; she thought it was merely too wide. Her teeth were straighter and whiter than most kids’ teeth; she thought they were a bit crooked. Her hair was thick and shiny; she thought it was lank and dull. Graceful as a cat, she called herself a klutz. She was a girl who ought to be brimming with self-assurance ; instead, she was plagued by self-doubt. Beneath her sparkling surface she was just as uncertain and worried about life as Colin was; and suddenly he felt very protective toward her.
“If I’d been one of the judges,” he said, “you’d have won all of those contests.”
She blushed again and smiled at him. “You’re sweet.”
A moment later they reached her house and stopped at the end of the front walkway.
“You know what I like about you?” she asked.
“I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to figure out what it could possibly be,” he said.
“Well, for one thing, you don’t talk about the same stuff that all the other boys talk about. They all seem to think that guys aren’t supposed to be interested in anything but football and baseball and cars. All of that stuff bores me. And besides, you don’t just talk—you listen. Almost no one else listens.”
“Well,” he said, “one of the things I like about you is that you don’t care that I’m not much like other boys.”
They stared self-consciously at each other for a moment, and then she said, “Call me tomorrow, okay?”
“I will.”
“You better be getting home. You don’t want to make your mother angry.”
She planted a shy little kiss on the comer of his mouth, turned away, and hurried into the house.
For a few blocks Colin drifted like a sleepwalker, meandering toward home in a pleasant daze. But suddenly he became aware of the darkening sky, the spreading pools of shadow, and the creeping night chill. He was not afraid of violating the curfew, not afraid of his mother. But he was afraid of encountering Roy after dark. He ran the rest of the way home.
33
Thursday morning, Colin returned to the library and continued his search through the microfilm files of the local newspaper. He studied only two parts of each edition: the front page and the list of hospital admissions and discharges. Nevertheless, he needed more than six hours to find what he was looking for.
One year to the day after his baby sister’s death, Roy Borden was admitted to the Santa Leona General Hospital. The one-line notice in the May 1 edition of the News Register didn’t mention the nature of his illness; however, Colin was certain that it had to do with the strange accident that Roy had refused to discuss, the injury that had left such a great deal of terrible scar tissue on his back.
The name immediately below Roy’s on the admissions roster was Helen Borden. His mother. Colin stared at that line for a long time, wondering. Because of the scars he had seen, he had expected to find Roy’s name sooner or later, but the mother’s appearance surprised him. Had she and her son been hurt in the same mishap?
Colin rolled the film back and carefully scanned every page of the April 30 and May 1 editions of the newspaper. He was looking for a story about an automobile wreck, or an explosion, or a fire, some sort of accident in which the Bordens had been involved. He found nothing.
He wound the film forward again, finished that spool and a few more, but uncovered only two additional bits of useful information, the first of which was rather puzzling. Two days after being admitted to Santa Leona General, Mrs. Borden was transferred to a larger hospital, St. Joseph‘s, over at the county seat. Colin wondered why she had been moved, and he could think of only one reason. She must have been so badly injured that she required very special care, something exotic that the smaller Santa Leona General could not provide.
He didn’t discover anything more about Mrs. Borden, but he did learn that Roy had spent exactly three weeks in the local hospital. Whatever the source of the wounds on his back, they clearly had been quite serious.
At a quarter till five, Colin finished with the microfilm and went to Mrs. Larkin’s desk.
“That new Arthur C. Clarke novel was just returned,” she said before Colin could speak. “I’ve already checked it out for you.”
He didn’t really want the novel right now, but he didn’t want to appear ungrateful. He took it, looked at the jacket, front and back. “Thanks a lot, Mrs. Larkin.”
“Let me know what you think of it.”
“I was wondering if you could help me find a couple of books on psychology.”
“What kind of psychology?”
He blinked. “There’s more than one kind?”
“Well,” she said, “under the general topic, we’ve got books on animal psychology, educational psychology, popular psychology, industrial psychology, political psychology, the psychology of the aged, of the young, Freudian psychology, Jungian psychology, general psychology, abnormal psychology—”
“Abnormal psychology,” Colin said. “Yeah. That’s what I’ve got to learn all about. But I also want a couple of general books that tell me how the mind works. I mean, I want to know why people do the things they do. I want something that covers the basics. Something easy, for beginners.”
“I think we can find what you need,” she said.
“I’d really appreciate it.”
As he followed her toward the stacks at the far end of the room, she said, “Is this another idea for school?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t abnormal psychology a rather heavy subject for a tenth-grade project?”
“It sure is,” he said.
34
Colin ate supper alone, in his room.
He called Heather, and they made a date to go to the beach on Saturday. He wanted to tell her about Roy’s madness, but he was afraid she wouldn’t believe him. Besides, he still didn’t feel confident enough about their relationship to tell her that he and Roy were now enemies. Initially, she had seemed attracted to him because he and Roy were friends. Would she lose interest when she discovered he was no longer Roy’s buddy? He wasn’t sure, and he didn’t want to risk losing her.
Later, he read the psychology books that Mrs. Larkin had chosen for him. He finished both volumes by two in the morning. For a while he sat in bed, staring and thinking. Then, mentally exhausted, he slept without nightmares—and without a single thought for the monsters in the attic.
Friday morning, before Weezy woke, he went to the library, returned the psychology books, and checked out three more.
“Is the science-fiction novel good?” Mrs. Larkin asked.
“Haven’t started it yet,” Colin said. “Maybe tonight.”
From the library he went down to the harbor. He didn’t want to go home while Weezy was still there; he wasn’t ready to endure another interrogation. He ate breakfast at the counter in a waterfront coffee shop. Later, he strolled to the southern end of the boardwalk, leaned against the railing, and watched the dozens of crabs that were sunning on the rocks a few feet below.
At eleven o‘clock he went home. He let himself into the house with the spare key that was kept in the redwood planter near the front door. Weezy was long gone; the coffee in the pot was cold.
He got a Pepsi from the refrigerator and went upstairs with the three psychology books. In his room, sitting on the bed, he took only one swallow of the soda and read only one paragraph of the first book before he sensed that he was not alone.
He he
ard a muffled, scraping sound.
Something was in the closet.
—Ridiculous.
I heard it.
—You imagined it.
He had read two books on psychology, and he knew that he was probably guilty of transference. That’s what the psychologists called it: transference. He couldn’t face up to the people and things he was really afraid of, couldn’t admit those fears to himself, so he transferred the anxiety to other things, to simple things—even simple-minded things—like werewolves and vampires and imaginary monsters that hid in the closet. That’s what he had been doing all of his life.
Yeah, maybe that’s true, he thought. But I’m sure I heard something move in the closet.
He leaned away from the headboard. He held his breath and listened intently.
Nothing. Silence.
The closet door was shut tight. He couldn’t remember if he had left it that way.
There! Again. A soft, scraping sound.
He slid silently off the bed and took a few steps toward the hall door, away from the closet.
The closet doorknob began to turn. The door eased open an inch.
Colin stopped. He desperately wanted to keep moving, but he was frozen in place as if a spell had been cast upon him. He felt as if he had been transformed into a specimen fly trapped in air that, through sorcery, had been turned to solid amber. From within that magic prison, he was watching a nightmare come to life; he stared at the closet, transfixed.
The door suddenly opened wide. There was no monster hiding among the clothes, no werewolf, no vampire, no hideous beast-god out of H. P. Lovecraft. Just Roy.
Roy looked surprised. He had started toward the bed, thinking his prey was there. Now he saw that Colin had anticipated him and was only a few steps from the open door that led to the second-floor hall. Roy stopped, and for an instant they stared at each other.
Then Roy grinned and raised his hands so that Colin could see what he held.
“No,” Colin said softly.
In Roy’s right hand: a cigarette lighter.
“No.”
In his left hand: a can of lighter fluid.
“No, no, no! Get out of here!”
Roy took a step toward him. Then another.
“No,” Colin said. But he couldn’t move.
Roy pointed the squeeze can and pressed on it. A jet of clear liquid arced through the air.
Colin ducked to the left, and the lighter fluid missed him, and he ran.
“Bastard!” Roy said.
Colin dashed through the open door and slammed it.
Even as the door was being drawn shut, Roy crashed into the other side.
Colin sprinted for the stairs.
Roy jerked open the door and rushed out of the bedroom. “Hey!”
Colin descended two steps at a time, but he had gone only halfway when he heard Roy thundering down after him. He plunged on. He jumped the last four steps, into the first-floor hall, and ran to the front door.
“Got ya!” Roy shouted triumphantly behind him. “Got ya, damnit!”
Before Colin could throw off the two locks on the door, he felt something cold and wet pouring down his back. He gasped in surprise and turned to Roy.
Lighter fluid!
Roy squirted him again, drenched the front of his thin cotton shirt.
Colin shielded his eyes with his hands. He was just in time.
Flammable liquid splashed over his forehead, over his fingers, nose, and chin.
Roy laughed.
Colin couldn’t breathe. The fumes choked him.
“What a popper!”
Finally the can of lighter fluid was empty. Roy threw it aside, and it clattered along the hardwood floor of the hallway.
Coughing, wheezing, Colin took his hands from his face and tried to see what was happening. The fumes stung his eyes; he closed them again. Tears oozed from beneath his eyelids. Though darkness had always terrified him, it had never been so awful as it was now.
“You stinking bastard,” Roy said. “Now you’ll pay for turning on me. Now you’ll pay. You’re gonna burn.”
Gasping for breath, barely able to get any air at all, temporarily blinded, hysterical, Colin threw himself toward the sound of the other boy’s voice. He collided with Roy, clutched him, and held on.
Roy staggered backward and tried to shake loose, as if he were a cornered fox wrestling free of a determined terrier. He put his hands against Colin’s chin, tried to force his head up and back, then grabbed him by the throat and attempted to strangle him. But they were face to face, and much too close for Roy to get sufficient leverage to be effective.
“Do it now,” Colin wheezed through the acrid fumes that filled his nose and mouth and lungs. “Do it... and we’ll ... bum together.”
Roy tried again to throw him off. In the process, he stumbled and fell.
Colin went down with him. He held tightly to Roy; his life depended on it.
Cursing, Roy punched him, pummeled his back, slapped him alongside the head, pulled his hair. He even twisted Colin’s ears until it seemed that they would come out by the roots.
Colin howled in pain and tried to fight back. But the moment he let go of Roy in order to hit him, Roy rolled away. Colin grabbed for him and missed.
Roy scrambled to his feet. He backed up against the wall.
Even through the veil of stinging tears brought on by the fumes, Colin could see that the lighter was still in Roy’s right hand.
Roy snapped the flint wheel with his thumb. It didn’t spark, but it surely would the next time or the time after that.
Frantic, Colin launched himself at the other boy, slammed into him, and knocked the lighter out of his hand. It flew through the open archway, into the living room, where it banged against a piece of furniture.
“You creep!” Roy shoved him out of the way and ran after the lighter.
Having imbibed nothing more than the reeky air around him, Colin staggered drunkenly to the front door. He threw off the deadbolt lock with no difficulty, but then he fumbled with the stubborn security chain for what seemed like hours. Seemed. But of course couldn’t be. Probably only a few seconds. Or maybe even just fractions of a single second. He had no real sense of time. He was spinning. Floating. High on the fumes. He was getting just enough air to keep from passing out but not one whiff more. That’s why he was having so much trouble with the security chain. He was dizzy. The security chain seemed to be evaporating in his fingers, just as the lighter fluid was evaporating from his clothes and hands and face. His ears were ringing. The security chain. Concentrate on the security chain. Second by second, his coordination was deteriorating. Getting sloppy. The damned security chain. Sloppier and sloppier. Sick and burning. Going to bum. Like a torch. The goddamned, fucking security chain! At last, in a burst of concentrated effort, he tore the chain out of its slot and opened the door wide. Expecting flames to explode along his back at any second, he ran from the house, down the walk, across the street, and stopped at the edge of the small park. A wonderfully sweet wind washed over him and began to scour the fumes away. He drew several deep breaths, trying to regain a measure of sobriety.
On the far side of the street, Roy Borden came out of the house. He spotted his prey at once and loped to the end of the walk, but he didn’t cross the roadway. He stood over there, hands on his hips, staring at Colin.
Colin stared back at him. He was still dizzy. He still had difficulty drawing his breath. But he was ready to scream for help and run like hell the instant that Roy stepped off the curb.
Realizing that the game was lost, Roy walked away. In the first block, he looked back half a dozen times. In the second block, he glanced over his shoulder only twice. In the third block, he didn’t look back at all, and then he turned the corner and was gone.
On the way into the house, angry with himself, Colin stopped at the redwood planter and took the key from its place under the ivy. He was amazed that he had been so unthinking, so stupid. H
e had brought Roy to the house half a dozen times during the past month. Roy had known where the spare key was kept, and Colin had been careless enough to leave it there. From now on, he would carry it with him; and hereafter, he would maintain his defenses with considerably more diligence than he had shown to date.
He was at war.
Nothing less.
He went inside and locked the door.
In the powder room at the end of the hall, he stripped out of his saturated shirt and threw it on the floor. He scrubbed his hands vigorously, using lots of perfumed soap and hot water. Then he washed his face several times. Although he could still detect the fumes, the worst of the stench was gone. His eyes stopped tearing, and he was able to breathe normally once again.
In the kitchen he went directly to the telephone, but he hesitated with his hand on the receiver. He couldn’t call Weezy. The only proof he had that Roy attacked him was the soaked shirt, and that was really no proof at all. Besides, by the time she got home, most of the lighter fluid would have evaporated, leaving no stains. The empty can was on the floor in the hallway, and Roy’s fingerprints probably were all over it. But, of course, only the police had the equipment and expertise to test for prints and to prove whose they were, and the police would never take his story seriously. Weezy would think he had popped pills and hallucinated the whole thing, and he would be in trouble again.
If he explained the situation to his father and asked for help, the old man would call Weezy and demand to know what was happening. Pressed for an explanation, she would tell him a lot of silly stories about pills and pot and all-night drug parties. In spite of the fact that everything she would have to say would be clearly absurd, she would convince Frank because that was the kind of thing he would want to hear. The old man would accuse her of neglecting her duties as a parent. He’d be very self-righteous. He’d use her failure as an excuse to bring in his pack of hungry attorneys. A telephone call to Frank Jacobs would lead inevitably to another custody battle, and that was the last thing Colin wanted.