Midnight by Dean R. Koontz

Tommy seldom remembered what Runningdeer talked about after they ate their cactus candy, but he did recall that the Indian spoke to him with a special intensity. A lot of it had to do with the sign of the moonhawk. “If the great spirits send the sign of the moonhawk, you’ll know you’re to have tremendous power and be invincible. Invincible! But if you do see the moonhawk, it’ll mean the great spirits want something from you in return an act that will truly prove your worthiness.” That much stuck with Tommy, but he remembered little else. Usually, after an hour, he grew weary and went to his room to nap; his dreams then were particularly vivid, more real than waking life, and always involved the Indian. They were simultaneously frightening and comforting dreams.

On a rainy Saturday in November, when Tommy was ten, he sat on a stool by the workbench at one end of the four-car garage, watching as Runningdeer repaired an electric carving knife that the judge always used to slice the turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas. The air was pleasantly cool and unusually humid for Phoenix. Runningdeer and Tommy were talking about the rain, the upcoming holiday, and things that had happened at school recently. They didn’t always talk about signs and destiny, or otherwise Tommy might not have liked the Indian so much; Runningdeer was a great listener.

When the Indian finished repairing the electric knife, he plugged it in and switched it on. The blade shivered back and forth so fast that the cutting edge was a blur.

Tommy applauded.

“You see this?” Runningdeer asked, raising the knife higher and squinting at it in the glow from the fluorescent bulbs overhead.

Bright glints flew from the shuttling blade, as if it were busily slicing up the light itself.

“What?” Tommy asked.

“This knife, Little Chief. It’s a machine. A frivolous machine, not a really important machine like a car or airplane or electric wheelchair. My brother is … crippled … and must get around in an electric wheelchair. Did you know that, Little Chief?”

“No.”

“One of my brothers is dead, the other crippled.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They are my half-brothers, really, but the only ones I have.”

“How did it happen? Why?”

Runningdeer ignored the questions. “Even if this knife’s purpose is just to carve a turkey that could be carved as well by hand, it’s still efficient and clever. Most machines are much more efficient and clever than people.”

The Indian lowered the cutting instrument slightly and turned to face Tommy. He held the purring knife between them and looked past the shimmering blade into Tommy’s eyes.

The boy felt himself slipping into a spell similar to that he’d experienced after eating cactus candy, though they had eaten none.

“The white man puts great faith in machines,” Runningdeer said. “He thinks machines are ever so much more reliable and clever than people. if you want to be truly great in the white man’s world, Little Chief, you must make yourself as much like a machine as you can. You must be efficient. You must be relentless like a machine. You must be determined in your goals, allowing no desires or emotions to distract you.”

He moved the purring blade slowly toward Tommy’s face, until the boy’s eyes crossed in an attempt to focus on the cutting edge.

“With this I could lop away your nose, slice off your lips, carve away your cheeks and ears …”

Tommy wanted to slip off the workbench stool and run.

But he could not move.

He realized that the Indian was holding him by one wrist.

Even if he had not been held, he would have been unable to flee. He was paralyzed. Not entirely by fear, either. There was something seductive about the moment; the potential for violence was in an odd way … exciting.

“… cut off the round bail of your chin, scalp you, lay bare the bone, and you’d bleed to death or die of one cause or another but …”

The blade was no more than two inches from his nose.

“… but the machine would go on …”

One inch.

“… the knife would still purr and slice, purr and slice …”