to have been broken. He couldn’t simply have sprung to his feet and
scampered off.
The waking nightmare had displaced reality again. It was time once more
to stalk–and be stalked–by something which enjoyed the regenerative
powers of a monster in a dream, something which said it had come looking
for a life and which seemed fearfully equipped to take it.
Marty stepped through the open door onto the patio.
Renewed fear lifted him to a higher state of awareness in which colors
were more intense, odors were more pungent, and sounds were clearer and
more refined than ever before. The feeling was akin to the
inexpressibly keen sensations of certain childhood and adolescent dreams
especially those in which the dreamer travels the skies as effortlessly
as a bird, or experiences sexual communion with a woman of such
exquisite form that, later, neither her face nor body can be recalled
but only the essential radiance of perfect beauty.
Those special dreams seemed not to be fantasies at all but glimpses of a
greater and more detailed reality beyond the reality of the waking
world. Stepping through the kitchen door, passing out of the warm house
into the cold realm of nature, Marty was strangely reminded of the
ravishing vividness of those long-forgotten visions, for now he
experienced similarly acute sensations, alert to every nuance of what he
saw-heard-smelled-touched.
From the thick thatching of bougainvillea overhead, scores of drips and
drizzles splashed into puddles as black as oil in the fading light.
Upon that liquid blackness floated crimson blossoms in patterns that,
though random, seemed consciously mysterious, as portentous and full of
meaning as the ancient calligraphy of some long-dead Chinese mystic.
Around the perimeter of the backyard–small and walled, as in most
southern California neighborhoods–Indian laurels and clustered eugenias
shivered miserably in the brisk wind. Near the northwest corner,
eucalyptus lashed the air, shedding oblong leaves as smoky-silver as the
wings of dragonflies. In the shadows cast by the trees–and behind
several of the larger shrubs–were places in which a man could hide.
Marty had no intention of searching there. If his quarry had dragged
himself out of the house to cower in a chilly, sodden nest of jasmine
and agapanthus, weak from IQSS of blood–which was most likely the case
finding him was not urgent. It was more important to be sure he was not
at that moment escaping unpursued.
Long adapted to dry conditions and accustomed to only the water provided
by the sprinkler system, choruses of toads sang from their hidden
niches, scores of shrill voices that were usually charming but seemed
eerie and threatening now. Above their aria rose the wail of distant
but approaching sirens.
If the intruder was trying to get away before the police came, the
possible routes of escape were few. He could have climbed one of the
property walls, but that seemed unlikely because, regardless of how
miraculous his recovery, he simply hadn’t had sufficient time to cross
the lawn, push through the shrubs, and clamber into one of the
neighbors’ yards.
Marty turned right and ran out from under the dripping patio cover.
Soaked to the skin in half a dozen steps, he followed the rear walkway
along the house, then hurried past the back of the attached garage.
The downpour had lured snails from moist and shadowy retreats where they
usually remained until well after nightfall. Their pale, jellied bodies
were stretched most of the way out of their shells, thick feelers
questing ahead. Unavoidably, he stepped on a few, smashed them to pulp,
and through his mind flashed the superstitious notion that a cosmic
entity would at any second crush him underfoot with equal callousness.
When he turned the corner onto the service walkway flanked by a garage
wall and eugenia hedge, he expected to see the look-alike limping toward
the front of the property. The walkway was deserted.
The gate at the end stood half open.
The sirens were much louder by the time Marty sprinted into the driveway
in front of the house. He sloshed through a gutter filled with four or
five inches of fast-flowing water as cold as the Styx, stepped into the
street, looked left and right, but as yet no police cars were in sight.