Midnight by Dean R. Koontz

She finally saw a suitable tree—but an instant later noticed a gate in the wall at the southwest corner. She hadn’t seen it sooner because it had been screened from her by some shrubbery that she had just passed.

Gasping for air, she put her head down, tucked her arms against her sides, and ran to the gate. She hit the bar latch with her hand, popping it out of the slot in which it had been cradled, and burst through into the alley. Turning left, away from Ocean Avenue toward Jacobi Street, she ran through deep puddles nearly to the end of the block before risking a glance behind her.

Nothing had followed her out of the rectory gate.

Twice she had been in the hands of the aliens, and twice she had escaped. She knew she would not be so lucky if she were captured a third time.

10

Shortly before nine o’clock, after less than four hours of sleep altogether, Sam Booker woke to the quiet clink and clatter of someone at work in the kitchen. He sat up on the living-room sofa, wiped at his matted eyes, put on his shoes and shoulder holster, and went down the hall.

Tessa Lockland was humming softly as she lined up pans, bowls, and food on the wheelchair-low counter near the stove, preparing to make breakfast.

“Good morning,” she said brightly when Sam came into the kitchen.

“What’s good about it?” he asked.

“Just listen to that rain,” she said. “Rain always makes me feel clean and fresh.”

“Always depresses me.”

“And it’s nice to be in a warm, dry kitchen, listening to the storm but cozy.”

He scratched at the stubble of beard on his unshaven cheeks. “Seems a little stuffy in here to me.”

“Well, anyway, we’re still alive, and that’s good.”

“I guess so.”

“God in heaven!” She banged an empty frying pan down on the stove and scowled at him. “Are all FBI agents like you”

“In what way?”

“Are they all sourpusses?”

“I’m not a sourpuss.”

“You’re a classic Gloomy Gus.”

“Well, life isn’t a carnival.”

“It isn’t?”

“Life is hard and mean.”

“Maybe. But isn’t it a carnival too?”

“Are all documentary filmmakers like you?”

“In what way?”

“Pollyannas?”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m no Pollyanna.”

“Oh, no?”

“No.”

“Here we are trapped in a town where reality seems to have been temporarily suspended, where people are being torn apart by species unknown, where Boogeymen roam the streets at night, where some mad computer genius seems to have turned human biology inside out, where we’re all likely to be killed or ‘converted’ before midnight tonight, and when I come in here you’re grinning and sprightly and humming a Beatles tune.”

“It wasn’t the Beatles.”

“Huh?”

“Rolling Stones.”

“And that makes a difference?”

She sighed. “Listen, if you’re going to help eat this breakfast, you’re going to help make it, so don’t just stand there glowering.”

“All right, okay, what can I do?”

“First, get on the intercom there and call Harry, make sure he’s awake. Tell him breakfast in … ummmm … forty minutes. Pancakes and eggs and shaved, fried ham.”

Sam pressed the intercom button and said, “Hello, Harry,” and Harry answered at once, already awake. He said he’d be down in about half an hour.

“Now what?” Sam asked Tessa.

“Get the eggs and milk from the refrigerator—but for God’s sake don’t look in the cartons.”

“Why not?”

She grinned. “You’ll spoil the eggs and curdle the milk.”

“Very funny.”

“I thought so.”

While making pancake mix from scratch, cracking six eggs into glass dishes and preparing them so they could be quickly slipped into the frying pans when she needed them, directing Sam to set the table and help her with other small chores, chopping onions, and shaving ham, Tessa alternately hummed and sang songs by Patti La Belle and the Pointer Sisters. Sam knew whose music it was because she told him, announcing each song as if she were a disc jockey or as if she hoped to educate him and loosen him up. While she worked and sang, she danced in place, shaking her bottom, swiveling her hips, rolling her shoulders, sometimes snapping her fingers, really getting into it.