Mr. Murder. By: Dean R. Koontz

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.

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