WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

magazine, took a full magazine from his pocket and slammed that into the gun.

Then he kicked open the ruined door and went into the nursery.

The window stood open, curtains blowing in the wind.

The Outsider was gone.

Einstein was on the floor, against one wall, motionless, covered with blood.

Nora made a wrenching sound of grief when she saw the retriever.

At the window, Travis spotted splashes of blood leading across the porch roof.

Rain was swiftly washing the gore away.

Movement caught his eye, and he looked toward the barn, where The Outsider

disappeared through the big door.

Crouching over the dog, Nora said, “Oh my God, Travis, my God, after all he’s

come through and now he has to die like this.”

“I’m going after the son-of-a-bitching bastard,” Travis said ferociously. “It’s

in the barn.”

She moved toward the door, too, and he said, “No! Call Jim Keene and then stay

with Einstein, stay with Einstein.”

“But you’re the one who needs me. You can’t go after it alone.”

“Einstein needs you.”

“Einstein is dead,” she said through tears.

“Don’t say that!” he screamed at her. He was aware that he was irrational, as if

he believed Einstein would not really be dead until they said he was dead, but

he could not control himself. “Don’t say he’s dead. Stay here with him, damn it.

I’ve already hurt that fucking fugitive from a nightmare, hurt it bad I think,

it’s bleeding, and I can finish it off myself. Call Jim Keene, stay with

Einstein.”

He was also afraid that, in all of this activity, she was going to induce a

miscarriage, if she had not already done so. Then they would have lost not only

Einstein but the baby.

He left the room at a run.

You’re in no condition to go into that barn, he told himself. You’ve got to cool

down first. Telling Nora to call a vet for a dead dog, telling her to stay with

it when, in fact, you could have used her at your side . . . No good. Letting

rage and a thirst for vengeance get the best of you. No good.

But he could not stop. All of his life he had lost people he loved, and except

in Delta Force he’d never had anyone to strike back at because you can’t take

vengeance on fate.. Even in Delta, the enemy was so faceless—the

lumpish mass of maniacs and fanatics who were “international terrorism”— that

vengeance provided little satisfaction. But here was an enemy of unparalleled

evil, an enemy worthy of the name, and he would make it pay for what it had done

to Einstein.

He raced down the hallway, descended the stairs two and three at a time, was hit

by a wave of dizziness and nausea, and nearly fell. He grabbed at the banister

to steady himself. He leaned on the wrong arm, and hot pain flared in his

wounded shoulder. Letting go of the railing, he lost his balance and tumbled

down the last flight, hitting the bottom hard.

He was in worse shape than he had thought.

Clutching the Uzi, he got to his feet and staggered to the back door, onto the

porch, down the steps, into the yard. The cold rain cleared his fuzzy head, and

he stood for a moment on the lawn, letting the storm wash some of the dizziness

out of him.

An image of Einstein’s broken, bloody body flashed through his mind. He thought

of the amusing messages that would never be formed on the pantry floor, and he

thought of Christmases to come without Einstein padding around in his Santa cap,

and he thought of love that would never be given or received, and he thought of

all the genius puppies who would never be born, and the weight of all that loss

nearly crushed him into the ground.

He used his grief to sharpen his rage, honed his fury until it had a razored

edge.

Then he went to the barn.

The place swarmed with shadows. He stood at the open door, letting the rain beat

on his head and back, peering into the barn, squinting at the layered gloom,

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