WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

She opened the driver’s door and started to get into the truck. The next thing

she knew, the man in the-blue sweater was coming in after her, shoving her

across the seat and clambering behind the wheel. He said, “If you yell, bitch,

I’ll blow your guts out,” and she realized that he was jamming a revolver into

her side.

She almost yelled anyway, involuntarily, almost tried to keep on going across

the front seat and out the door on the passenger’s side. But something in his

voice, brutal and dark, made her hesitate. He sounded as if he would shoot her

in the back rather than let her escape.

He slammed the driver’s door, and now they were alone in the truck, beyond help,

virtually concealed from the world by the rain that streamed down the Windows

and made the glass opaque. It didn’t matter: the doctor’s parking lot was

deserted, and it could not be seen from the street, so even out of the truck she

would have had no one to whom to turn.

He was a very big man, and muscular, but it was not his size that was most

frightening. His broad face was placid, virtually expressionless; that serenity,

completely unsuited to these circumstances, scared Nora. His eyes were worse.

Green eyes—and cold.

“Who are you?” she demanded, trying to conceal her fear, sure that visible

terror would excite him. He seemed to be balanced on a thin line. “What do you

want with me?”

“I want the dog.”

She had thought: robber. She had thought: rapist. She had thought: psychopathic

thrill killer. But she had not for a moment thought that he might be a

government agent. Yet who else would be looking for Einstein? No one else even

knew the dog existed.

“What’re you talking about?” she said.

He pushed the muzzle of the revolver deeper into her side, until it hurt.

She thought of the baby growing within her. “All right, okay, obviously you know

about the dog, so there’s no point playing games.”

“No point.” He spoke so quietly that she could hardly hear him above the roar of

the rain that drummed on the roof of the cab and snapped against the windshield.

He reached over and pulled down the hood of her jacket, opened the zipper, and

slid his hand down her breasts, over her belly. For a moment she was terrified

that he was, after all, intent on rape.

Instead, he said, “This Weingold is a gynecologist-obstetrician. So what’s your

problem? You have some damn social disease or are you pregnant?” He almost spit

out the words “social disease,” as if merely pronouncing those syllables made

him sick with disgust.

“You’re no government agent.” She spoke entirely from instinct.

“I asked you a question, bitch,” he said in a voice barely louder than a

whisper. He leaned close, digging the gun into her side again. The air in the

truck was humid. The all-enveloping sound of rain combined with the stuffiness

to create a claustrophobic atmosphere that was nearly intolerable. He said,

“Which is it? You got herpes, syphilis, clap, some other crotch rot? Or are you

pregnant?”

Thinking that pregnancy might gain her a dispensation from the violence of which

he seemed so capable, she said, “I’m going to have a baby. I’m three months

pregnant.”

Something happened in his eyes. A shifting. Like movement in a subtle

kaleidoscopic pattern that was composed of bits of glass all the same shade of

green.

Nora knew that admitting pregnancy was the worst thing she could have done, but

she did not know why.

She thought about the .38 pistol in the glove compartment. She could not

possibly open the glove box, grab the gun, and shoot him before he pulled the

trigger of the revolver. Still, she’d have to remain constantly on the lookout

for an opportunity, for a laxness on his part, that would give her a chance to

go for her own weapon.

Suddenly he was climbing on top of her, and again she thought he was going to

rape her in broad daylight, in the veiling curtains of rain but still daylight.

Then she realized he was just changing places with her, urging her

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