Dean Koontz - Intensity

I am your guardian.

In her obsessive determination to protect herself at all costs, she was always friendly with the other waitresses where she worked, but she never made friends with any of them. Friendships involved commitment, risks. She had learned not to make herself vulnerable to the hurt and betrayal that ensued from commitments.

Over the years, she’d had affairs with only two men. She had liked both and had loved the second, but the first relationship had lasted eleven months and the second only thirteen. Lovers, if they were worthwhile, required more than simple commitment; they needed revelation, sharing, the bond of emotional intimacy. She found it difficult to reveal much about her childhood or her mother, in part because her utter helplessness during those years embarrassed her. More to the point, she had come to the hard realization that her mother had never really loved her, perhaps had never been capable of loving her or anyone. And how could she expect to be cherished by any man who knew that she’d been unloved even by her mother?

She was aware that this attitude was irrational, but awareness didn’t free her. She understood that she was not responsible for what her mother had done to her, but regardless of what so many therapists claimed in their books and on their radio talk shows, understanding alone didn’t lead to healing. Even after a decade beyond her mother’s control, Chyna was at times convinced that all the dark events of all those troubled years could have been avoided if only she, Chyna, had been a better girl, more worthy.

I am your guardian.

She folded her hands on the table again. She leaned forward until her forehead was pressed to the backs of her thumbs, and she closed her eyes.

The only close friend she’d ever had was Laura Templeton. Their relationship was something that she had wanted badly but had never sought, desperately needed but did little to nurture; it was purely a testament to Laura’s vivaciousness, perseverance, and selflessness in the face of Chyna’s caution and reserve, a result of Laura’s dear heart and her singular capacity to love. And now Laura was dead.

I am your guardian.

In Laura’s room, under the dead gaze of Freud, Chyna had knelt beside the bed and whispered to her shackled friend, I’ll get you out of here. God, how it hurt to think of it. I’ll get you out of here. Her stomach knotted excruciatingly with self-disgust. I’ll find a weapon, she had promised. Laura, selfless to the end, had urged her to run, to get out. Don’t die for me, Laura had said. But Chyna had answered, I’ll be back .

Now here came grief again, swooping like a great dark bird into her heart, and she almost let its wings enfold her, too eager for the strange solace of those battering pinions — until she realized that she was using grief to knock humiliation from its perch. Grieving, she would have no room for self-loathing.

I am your guardian.

Although the clerk had never fired the revolver, she should have checked it. She should have known. Somehow. Some way. Though she could not possibly have known what Vess had done with the bullets, she should have known .

Laura had always told her that she was too hard on herself, that she would never heal if she kept inflicting new bruises on the old in endless self-flagellation.

But Laura was dead.

I am your guardian.

Chyna’s humiliation festered into shame.

And if humiliation was a good tool for repressing terror, shame was even better. Steeping in shame, she knew no fear at all, even though she was in shackles in the house of a sadistic murderer, with no one in the world looking for her. Justice seemed served by her being there.

Then she heard footsteps approaching.

She raised her head and opened her eyes.

The killer entered from the laundry room, evidently returning from the girl in the cellar.

Without speaking to Chyna, without glancing at her, as if she didn’t exist, he went to the refrigerator, removed a carton of eggs, and put it on the counter beside the sink. He deftly broke eight eggs into a bowl and threw the shells in the trash. He set the bowl in the refrigerator and proceeded to peel and chop a Bermuda onion.

Chyna hadn’t eaten in more than twelve hours; nonetheless, she was dismayed to discover that she was suddenly ravenous. The onion was the sweetest scent that she had ever known, and her mouth began to water. After so much blood, after losing the only close friend she’d ever had, it seemed heartless to have an appetite so soon.

The killer put the chopped onion into a Tupperware container, snapped the lid tight, and placed it in the refrigerator beside the bowl of eggs. Next he grated half a wedge of cheddar cheese into another Tupperware container.

He was brisk and efficient in the kitchen, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. He kept his work area neat. He also washed his hands thoroughly between each task and dried them on a hand towel, not on the dish towel.

Finally the killer came to the dinette table. He sat across from Chyna, relaxed and self-confident and college-boy casual in his Dockers, braided belt, and soft chambray shirt.

Shame, which had seemed on the verge of consuming her, instead had burned itself out for the time being. A strange combination of smoldering anger and bitter despondency had replaced it.

“Now,” he said, “I’m sure you’re hungry, and as soon as we have a little chat, I’ll make cheese omelets with stacks of toast. But to earn your breakfast, you have to tell me who you are, where you were hiding at that service station, and why you’re here.”

She glared at him.

With a smile, he said, “Don’t think you can hold out on me.”

She would be damned rather than tell him anything.

“Here’s how it is,” he said. “I’ll kill you anyway. I’m not sure how yet. Probably in front of Ariel. She’s seen bodies before, but she’s never been there at the moment itself, to hear that last scream, in the sudden wetness of it all.”

Chyna tried to keep her eyes on him, show no weakness.

He said, “However I choose to do you, I’ll make it a lot harder for you if you don’t talk to me willingly. There are things I enjoy that can be done before or after you’re dead. Cooperate, and I’ll do them after.”

Chyna tried unsuccessfully to see some sign of madness in his eyes. Such a merry shade of blue.

“Well?”

“You’re a sick sonofabitch.”

Smiling again, he said, “The last thing I expected you to be was tedious.”

“I know why you sewed shut his eyes and mouth,” she said.

“Ah, so you found him in the closet.”

“You raped him before you killed him or while you killed him. You sewed his eyes shut because he’d seen, sewed his mouth shut because you’re ashamed of what you did and you’re afraid that, even dead, he might tell someone.”

Unfazed, he said, “Actually, I didn’t have sex with him.”

“Liar.”

“But if I had, I wouldn’t have been embarrassed. You think I’m that unsophisticated? We’re all bisexual, don’t you think? I have the urge for a man, sometimes, and with some of them I’ve indulged it. It’s all sensation. Just sensation.”

“Maggot.”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” he said amiably, clearly amused by her, “but it just won’t work. You’re hoping one insult or another will set me off. As if I’m some hair-trigger psychopath who’ll just explode if you call me the right name, push the right button, maybe insult my mother or say nasty things about the Lord. Then you hope I’ll kill you fast, in a wild rage, and get it over with.”

Chyna realized that he was right, although she had not been consciously aware of her own intentions. Failure, shame, and the helplessness of being shackled had reduced her to a despair that she had preferred not to consider. Now she was sickened less by him than by herself, wondering if she was a quitter and a loser, after all, just like her mother.