WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

which meant much simpler procedures by which the NSA could assume authority in

the investigation.

Cliff Soames was still turning the fragment of mirror over and over in his hand,

staring at it thoughtfully.

Looking around the eerie chamber one last time, Lem Johnson made a promise to

himself and to his dangerous quarry: When I find you, I won’t consider trying to

take you alive; no net or tranquilizer guns, as the scientists and the military

types would prefer; instead, I’ll shoot you quick and clean, take you down fast.

That was not only the safest plan. It would also be an act of compassion and

mercy.

4

By the first of August, Nora sold all of Aunt Violet’s furniture and other

possessions. She had phoned a man who dealt in antiques and secondhand

furniture, and he had given her one price for everything, and she had accepted

it happily. Now—except for dishes, silverware, and the furniture in the bedroom

that she had made her own—the rooms were empty from wall to wall. The house

seemed cleansed, purified, exorcised. All evil spirits had been driven out, and

she knew she now had the will to redecorate entirely. But she no longer wanted

the place, so she telephoned a real-estate agent and put it on the market.

Her old clothes were gone, too, all of them, and she had an entirely new

wardrobe with slacks and skirts and blouses and jeans and dresses like any woman

might have. Occasionally, she felt too conspicuous in bright colors, but she

always resisted the urge to change into something dark and drab.

She still had not found the courage to put her artistic talent on the market and

see if her work was worth anything. Travis nudged her about it now and then, in

ways he thought were subtle, but she was not ready to lay her fragile ego on the

anvil and give just anyone a chance to swing a hammer at it. Soon, but not yet.

Sometimes, when she looked at herself in a mirror or noticed her reflection in a

sun-silvered store window, she realized that, indeed, she was pretty. Not

beautiful, perhaps, not gorgeous like some movie star, but moderately pretty.

However, she did not seem to be able to hold on to this breakthrough perception

of her appearance, at least not for long, because every few days she would be

surprised anew by the comeliness of the face looking back at her from the

mirror.

On the fifth of August, late in the afternoon, she and Travis were sitting at

the table in his kitchen, playing Scrabble, and she was feeling pretty. A few

minutes ago, in the bathroom, she’d had another of those revelations when she

had looked in the mirror, and in fact she had liked her looks more than ever

before. Now, back at the Scrabble board, she felt buoyant, happier than she

would have once believed possible—and mischievous. She started using her tiles

to spell nonsense words and then vociferously defended them when Travis

questioned their legitimacy.

‘Dofnup’?” he said, frowning at the board. “There’s no such word as ‘dofnup.’”

“It’s a triangular cap that loggers wear,” she said.

“Loggers?”

“Like Paul Bunyan.”

“Loggers wear knit caps, what you call toboggan caps, or round leather caps with

earflaps.”

“I’m not talking about what they wear to work in the woods,” she explained

patiently. “ ‘Dofnup.’ That’s the name of the cap they wear to bed.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Are you putting me on?”

She kept a straight face. “No. It’s true.”

“Loggers wear a special cap to bed?”

“Yes. The dofnup.”

He was unaccustomed to the very idea that Nora would play a joke on him, so he

fell for it. “Dofnup? Why do they call it that?”

“Beats me,” she said.

Einstein was on the floor, on his belly, reading a novel. Since graduating with

startling swiftness from picture books to children’s literature like The Wind in

the Willows, he had been reading eight and ten hours a day, every day. He

couldn’t get enough books. He’d become a prose junkie. Ten days ago, when the

dog’s obsession with reading had finally outstripped Nora’s patience for holding

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230

Leave a Reply 0

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *