WATCHERS by Dean R. Koontz

“You’re using one woman’s car to cheat on her with three others?”

Haines nodded and tried to smile, but he winced as the smile sent new waves of

pain through his ruined nose. “I’ve always . . . had this way with the ladies.”

“For God’s sake!” Vince was appalled. “Don’t you realize these aren’t the

sixties or seventies any more? Free love’s dead. It’s got a price now. Steep

price. Haven’t you heard about herpes, AIDS, all that stuff?” Administering the

pentothal, he said, “You must be a carrier for every venereal disease known to

man.”

Blinking stupidly at him, Haines at first looked baffled and then was deep in a

pentothal sleep. Under the drug, he confirmed all that he had already told Vince

about Banodyne and the Francis Project.

When the drug wore off, Vince used the Taser on Haines, just for the fun of it,

until the batteries wore out. The scientist twitched and kicked like a

half-crushed water bug, back bowed, digging at the moss with his heels and head

and hands.

When the Taser was of no further use, Vince beat him unconscious with the

leather sap and killed him by applying the corkscrew to the space between two

ribs, angling it up into the beating heart.

Ssssnap.

Throughout, a sepulchral silence hung over the rain forest, but Vince sensed a

thousand eyes watching, the eyes of wild things. He believed that the hidden

watchers approved of what he had done to Haines because the scientist’s

lifestyle made him an affront to the natural order of things, the natural order

that all the creatures of the jungle obeyed.

He said, “Thank you,” to Haines, but he did not kiss the man. Not on the mouth.

Not even on the forehead. Haines’s life energy was as invigorating and welcome

as anyone’s, but his body and spirit were unclean.

4

Nora went straight home from the park. The mood of adventure and the spirit of

freedom that had colored the morning and the early afternoon could not be

recaptured. Streck had sullied the day.

Closing the front door behind her, she engaged the regular lock, the dead-bolt

lock, and the brass safety chain. She went through the downstairs rooms, drawing

the drapes tightly shut at all the windows to prevent Arthur Streck from seeing

inside if he should come prowling around. But she could not tolerate the

resultant darkness, so she turned on every lamp in every room. In the kitchen,

she closed the shutters and checked the lock on the back door.

Her contact with Streck had not only terrified her but had left her feeling

dirty. More than anything, she wanted a long, hot shower.

But her legs were suddenly shaky and weak, and she was seized by a spell of

dizziness. She had to grab hold of the kitchen table to steady herself. She knew

she would fall if she tried to climb the stairs just then, so she sat down,

folded her arms on the table, put her head in her arms, and waited until she

felt better.

When the worst of the dizziness passed, she remembered the bottle of brandy in

the cupboard by the refrigerator, and she decided a drink might help steady her.

She had bought the brandy—Remy Martin—after Violet had died because Violet had

not approved of any stronger drink than partially fermented apple cider. As an

act of rebellion, Nora had poured a glass of brandy for herself when she had

come home from her aunt’s funeral. She had not enjoyed it and had emptied most

of the contents of the glass down the drain. But now it seemed that a shot of

brandy would stop her shivering.

First she went to the sink and washed her hands repeatedly under the hottest

water she could tolerate, using both soap and then a lot of Ivory dishwashing

liquid, scrubbing away every trace of Streck. When she was done, her hands were

red and looked raw.

She brought the brandy bottle and a glass to the table. She had read books in

which characters had sat down with a fifth of booze and a heavy load of despair,

determined to use the former to wash away the latter. Sometimes it worked for

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