Dean Koontz - Intensity

As the woman passes under the light near the foot of the stairs, Mr. Vess gets a better look at her revolver. It is indeed a Smith & Wesson.38 Chief’s Special, as he had thought earlier, when he had seen it from the second-floor bedroom window, but suddenly the make and model of the weapon have electrifying meaning for him.

He smells a Slim Jim sausage. He remembers liquid-night eyes widening in shock, terror, and despair.

He has seen two of these guns in the past several hours. The first belonged to the young Asian gentleman at the service station, who drew it from under the counter in self-defense but never had the opportunity to fire.

Although the Chief’s Special is a popular revolver, it is not so universally admired that one sees it everywhere in use. Edgler Vess knows, with the certainty of a fox on the scent of a rabbit in the weeds, that this is the same gun.

Although there are still many mysteries about the woman on the stairs below him, though her presence here is no less astonishing to him than it was before, there is nothing supernatural about her. She knows the name Ariel not because she has been watching from some world beyond this one, not because she is in the dutiful service of some higher force, but simply because she must have been there, in the service station, when Vess was chatting up the two clerks and when, moments later, he killed them.

Where she could have been hiding, how he could have overlooked her, why she would feel the need to pursue him, where she got all the courage for this reckless adventure — these are things he can’t discern through intuition alone. But now he will have the opportunity to put these questions to her.

Lowering his pistol, he steps back into the laundry room, lest she glance up the stairs and see him.

His uncharacteristic fear, his eerie perception of oppressive supernatural forces, lifts like a fog from him, and he is amazed by his own brief spasm of gullibility. He, who has no illusions about the nature of existence. He, who is so clear-seeing. He, who knows the primacy of pure sensation. Even he, the most rational of all men, has spooked.

He almost laughs at his foolishness — and at once puts it out of his mind.

The woman must be to the bottom of the stairs by now.

He will allow her to explore. After all, for whatever bizarre reasons, this is what she has come here to do, and Vess is curious about her reactions to the things that she discovers.

He is having fun again.

Once more, the game is on.

Chyna reached the bottom of the stairs.

The outer wall of mortared stone was to her right. There was nowhere to go in that direction.

To her left was a chamber about ten feet from front to back, and as wide as the house. She moved away from the foot of the stairs, into this new space.

At one end stood an oil-fired furnace and a large electric water heater. At the other end were tall metal storage cabinets with vent slits in the doors, a workbench, and a tool chest on wheels.

Directly ahead, in a concrete-block wall, a strange door waited.

Click-whoosh.

Chyna swung to the right and almost squeezed off a shot before she realized that the sound had come from the furnace: the electric pilot light clicking on, fuel taking flame.

Over the sound of the furnace, she was still able to hear the vibrating pipe. Tatta-tatta-tatta. It was fainter here than on the stairs, but still audible.

She could barely make out the music from the second-floor bathroom, an inconstant thread of melody, primarily the passages in brass or wailing clarinet.

Evidently for soundproofing, the door in the back wall was padded like a theater door, in leather-grain maroon vinyl divided into quiltlike squares by eight upholstery nails with large round heads covered in matching vinyl. The frame was upholstered in the same material.

No lock, not even a spring latch, prevented her from proceeding.

Putting her hand on the vinyl, Chyna discovered that the padding was even more plush than it appeared to be. As much as two inches of foam covered the underlying wood.

She gripped the long stainless-steel, U-shaped handle. When she pulled, the vinyl-encased door softly scraped and squeaked across the upholstery on the jamb. The fit was snug: When the door swung all the way free of the jamb and the seal was broken, there was a faint sound similar to that made when one opened a jar of vacuum-packed peanuts.

The door was upholstered on the inside as well. The overall thickness was in excess of five inches.

Beyond this new threshold lay a six-foot-square chamber with a low ceiling, which reminded her of an elevator, except that every surface other than the floor was upholstered. The floor was covered with a rubber mat of the kind used in many restaurant kitchens for the comfort of cooks who worked on their feet for hours at a time. In the dim light from the recessed overhead bulb, she saw that the fabric here wasn’t vinyl but gray cotton with a nubbly texture.

The strangeness of the place sharpened her fear, yet at the same time she was so sure she understood the purpose of the padded vestibule that her stomach rolled with faint nausea.

Directly opposite the door that Chyna held open was one more door. It was also padded and set in an upholstered frame.

Finally, here were locks. The gray upholstery plumped around two heavy-duty brass lock cylinders. She couldn’t proceed without keys.

Then she noticed a small padded panel overlying the door itself — at eye level, perhaps six by ten inches with a knob attached. It was like the sliding panel over the view port in the solid door of a maximum-security prison cell.

Tatta-tatta-tatta…

The killer seemed to be taking an unusually long shower. On the other hand, Chyna hadn’t been in the house more than three minutes; it just seemed longer. If he was having a leisurely scrub, he might not be half done.

Tatta-tatta…

She would have preferred to hold open the outer door while she stepped into the vestibule and slid aside the panel on the inner view port, but the distance was too great. She had to let the door fall shut behind her.

The moment that the upholstered door met the upholstered jamb with a whisper-squeak of softly abraded vinyl, Chyna could no longer hear the vibrating water pipe. The quiet was so profound that even her ragged breathing was barely audible. Under the padding, the walls must have been covered with layers of sound-attenuating insulation.

Or perhaps the killer had shut off the shower just as the door had fallen shut. And was now toweling dry. Or pulling on a robe without bothering to towel off. On his way downstairs.

Fearful, unable to breathe, she opened the door again.

Tatta-tatta-tatta and the rush of water moving at high velocity, under pressure.

She exhaled explosively with relief.

She was still safe.

All right, okay, be cool, keep moving, find out if the girl is here and then do what has to be done.

Reluctantly she allowed the door to fall shut. The rattling of the pipe was again sealed out.

She felt as though she was suffocating. Perhaps ventilation in the vestibule was inadequate, but it was the sound-deadening effect of the padded walls, at least as much as poor airflow, that made the atmosphere seem as thick as smoke and unbreathable.

Chyna slid aside the padded panel on the inner door.

Beyond was rose-colored light.

The port was fitted with a sturdy screen to protect the viewer from assault by whoever or whatever was within.

Chyna put her face to the port and saw a large chamber nearly the size of the living room under which it was situated. In portions of the space, shadows were pooled deep, and the only light came from three lamps with fringed fabric shades and pink bulbs that were each putting out about forty watts.