WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

with such tremendous force that he felt as if it would tear loose of him. He was

breathing too fast, hyperventilating.

In the master bathroom, Nora was just stepping out of the shower, naked and

dripping.

Travis’s words ran together in panic: “Get dressed quick we’ve got to get to the

vet now for god’s sake hurry.”

Shocked, she said, “What’s happened?”

“Einstein! Hurry! I think he’s dying.”

He grabbed a blanket off the bed, left Nora to dress, and hurried downstairs to

the bathroom. The retriever’s ragged breathing seemed to have gotten worse in

just the minute that Travis had been away. He folded the blanket twice, to a

fourth of its size, then eased the dog onto it.

Einstein made a pained sound, as if the movement hurt him.

Travis said, “Easy, easy. You’ll be all right.”

At the door, Nora appeared, still buttoning her blouse, which was damp because

she had not taken time to towel off before dressing. Her wet hair hung straight.

In a voice choked with emotion, she said, “Oh, fur face, no, no.” She wanted to

stoop and touch the retriever, but there was no time to delay. Travis said,

“Bring the pickup alongside the house.”

While Nora sprinted to the barn, Travis folded the blanket around Einstein as

best he could, so only the retriever’s head, tail, and hind legs protruded.

Trying unsuccessfully not to elicit another whimper of pain, Travis lifted the

dog in his arms and carried him out of the bathroom, across the kitchen, out of

the house, pulling the door shut behind him but leaving it unlocked, not giving

a damn about security right now.

The air was cold. Yesterday’s calm was gone. Evergreens swayed, shivered, and

there was something ominous in the way their bristling, needled branches pawed

at the air. Other leafless trees raised black, bony arms toward the somber sky.

In the barn, Nora started the pickup. The engine roared. Travis cautiously

descended the porch steps and went out to the driveway,

walking as if he were carrying an armload of fragile antique china. The blustery

wind stood Travis’s hair straight up, flapped the loose ends of the blanket, and

ruffled the fur on Einstein’s exposed head, as if it were a wind with a

malevolent consciousness, as if it wanted to tear the dog away from him.

Nora swung the pickup around, heading out, and stopped where Travis Waited She

would drive.

It was true what they said: sometimes, in certain special moments of crisis, in

times of great emotional tribulation, women are better able to bite the

bullet and do what must be done than men often are. Sitting in the truck’s

passenger seat, cradling the blanket-wrapped dog in his arms, Travis was in no

condition to drive. He was shaking badly, and he realized that he had been

crying from the time he had found Einstein on the bathroom floor. He had seen

difficult military service, and he had never panicked or been paralyzed with

fear while on dangerous Delta Force operations, but this was different, this was

Einstein, this was his child. If he had been required to drive, he’d probably

have run straight into a tree, or off the road into a ditch. There were tears in

Nora’s eyes, too, but she didn’t surrender to them. She bit her lip and drove as

if she had been trained for stunt work in the movies. At the end of the dirt

lane, they turned right, heading north on the twisty Pacific Coast Highway

toward Carmel, where there was sure to be at least one veterinarian.

During the drive, Travis talked to Einstein, trying to soothe and encourage him.

“Everything’s going to be all right, just fine, it’s not as bad as it seems,

you’ll be good as new.”

Einstein whimpered and struggled weakly in Travis’s arms for a moment, and

Travis knew what the dog was thinking. He was afraid that the vet would see the

tattoo in his ear, would know what it meant, and would send him back to

Banodyne.

“Don’t you worry about that, fur face. Nobody’s going to take you away from us.

By God, they aren’t. They’ll have to walk through me first, and they aren’t

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