Midnight by Dean R. Koontz

But he no longer cared. His fear of death was outweighed by his fear of living, especially if he had to live either as a regressive or as that more hideous thing that Denny had become.

In his mind he could see himself in that wretched condition gleaming mercurial eyes, a wormlike probe bursting bloodlessly from his forehead to seek obscene conjugation with the computer. If skin actually could crawl, his own would have crept off his body.

When he could not find Shaddack at home, he set out for New Wave, where the maker of the new world was no doubt in his office busily designing neighborhoods for this hell that he called Paradise.

23

Shortly after eleven o’clock, as Sam was leaving, Tessa stepped out onto the back porch with him and closed the door, leaving Harry and Chrissie in the kitchen. The trees at the rear of the property were just tall enough to prevent neighbors, even those uphill, from looking into the yard. She was sure they could not be seen in the deeper shadows of the porch.

“Listen,” she said, “it makes no sense for you to go alone.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

The air was chilly and damp. She hugged herself.

She said, “I could ring the front doorbell, distract anyone inside, while you went in the back.”

“I don’t want to have to worry about you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah, I believe you can,” he said.

“Well?”

“But I work alone.”

“You seem to do everything alone.”

He smiled thinly. “Are we going to get into another arguments about whether life is a tea party or hell on earth?”

“That wasn’t an argument we had. It was a discussion.”

“Well, anyway, I’ve shifted to undercover assignments for the ve very reason that I can pretty much work alone. I don’t want a partner any more, Tessa, because I don’t want to see any more of them die.”

She knew he was referring not only to the other agents who had been killed in the line of duty with him but also to his late wife.

“Stay with the girl,” he said. “Take care of her if anything happens. She’s like you, after all.”

“What?”

“She’s one of those who knows how to love life. How to deeply love it, no matter what happens. It’s a rare and precious talent.”

“You know too,” she said.

“No. I’ve never known.”

“Dammit, everyone is born with a love of life. You still have it, Sam. You’ve just lost touch with it, but you can find it again.”

“Take care of her,” he said, turning away and descending the porch steps into the rain.

“You better come back, damn you. You promised to tell me what you saw at the other end of that tunnel, on the Other Side. You just better come back.”

Sam departed through silver rain and thin patches of gray fog.

As she watched him go, Tessa realized that even if he never told her about the Other Side, she wanted him to come back for many other reasons both complex and surprising.

24

The Coltrane house was two doors south of the Talbot place, on Conquistador. Two stories. Weathered cedar siding. A covered patio instead of a rear porch.

Moving quickly along the back of the house, where rain drizzled off the patio cover with a sound exactly like crackling fire, Sam peered through sliding glass doors into a gloomy family room and then through French windows into an unlighted kitchen. When he reached the kitchen door, he withdrew his revolver from the holster under his leather jacket and held it down at his side, against his thigh.

He could have walked around front and rung the bell, which Might have seemed less suspicious to the people inside. But that would mean going out to the street, where he was more likely to be seen not only by neighbors but by the men Chrissie said were patrolling the town.

He knocked on the door, four quick raps. When no one responded, he knocked again, louder, and then a third time, louder still. If anyone was home, the knock would have been answered.