Dean Koontz - False Memory

The security guard fell in beside them as they neared Dusty’s white Ford van. “I’ll have to file a report about this.”

“Yeah? With whom?”

“The executive board of the homeowners’ association. With a copy to the property-management company.”

“They won’t kneecap me with a shotgun, will they?” Dusty asked as he propped Skeet against the van.

“Nah, they never take my recommendation,” the guard said, and Dusty was forced to reevaluate him.

Rising out of his stupor, Skeet warned, “They’ll want your soul, Dusty. I know these bastards.”

From behind a veil of water that drizzled off the visor of his uniform cap, the security guard said, “They might put you on a list of undesirable contractors they’d rather not have in the community. But probably all that’ll happen is they’ll want you never to bring this guy inside the gates again. What’s his full name, anyway?”

Opening the passenger door of the van, Dusty said, “Bruce Wayne.”

“I thought it was Skeet something.”

Helping Skeet into the van, Dusty said, “That’s just his nickname.” Which was truthful yet deceptive.

“I’ll need to see his ID.”

“I’ll bring it later,” Dusty said, slamming the door. “Right now I’ve got to get him to a doctor.”

“He hurt?” the guard asked, following Dusty around the van to the driver’s side.

“He’s a wreck,” Dusty said as he got in behind the wheel and pulled the door shut.

The guard rapped on the window.

Starting the engine with one hand, winding down the window with the other, Dusty said, “Yeah?”

“You can’t go back to strike force, but crew isn’t the right word, either. Better call them your circus or maybe hullabaloo.”

“You’re all right,” Dusty said. “I like you.”

The guard smiled and tipped his sopping hat.

Dusty rolled up the window, switched on the wipers, and drove away from the Sorensons’ house.

Descending the exterior stairs from her third-floor apartment, Susan Jagger stayed close to the house, sliding her right hand along the shingle siding, as though constantly needing to reassure herself that shelter was close by, fiercely clutching Martie’s arm with her left hand. She kept her head down, focusing intently on her feet, taking each ten-inch-high step as cautiously as a rock climber might have negotiated a towering face of sheer granite.

Because of Susan’s raincoat hood and because she was shorter than Martie, her face was concealed, but from rainless days, Martie knew how Susan must look. Shock-white skin. Jaw set, mouth grim. Her green eyes would be haunted, as though she’d glimpsed a ghost however, the only ghost in this matter was her once vital spirit, which had been killed by agoraphobia.

“What’s wrong with the air?” Susan asked shakily.

“Nothing.”

“Hard to breathe,” Susan complained. “Thick. Smells funny.”

“Just humidity. The smell is me. New perfume.”

“You? Perfume?”

“I’ve got my girlish moments.”

“We’re so exposed,” Susan said fearfully.

“It’s not a long way to the car.”

“Anything could happen out here.”

“Nothing will happen.”

“There’s nowhere to hide.”

“There’s nothing to hide from.”

Fifteen-hundred-year-old religious litanies were no less rigidly structured than these twice-a-week conversations on the way to and from therapy sessions.

As they reached the bottom of the steps, the rain fell harder than before, rattling through the leaves of the potted plants on the patio, clicking against the bricks.

Susan was reluctant to let go of the corner of the house.

Martie put an arm around her. “Lean on me if you want.”

Susan leaned. “Everything’s so strange out here, not like it used to be.”

“Nothing’s changed. It’s just the storm.”

“It’s a new world,” Susan disagreed. “And not a good one.”

Huddling together, with Martie bending to match Susan’s stoop, they progressed through this new world, now in a rush as Susan was drawn forward by the prospect of the comparatively enclosed space of the car, but now haltingly as Susan was weighed down and nearly crushed by the infinite emptiness overhead. Whipped by wind and lashed by rain, shielded by their hoods and their billowing coats, they might have been two frightened holy sisters, in full habit, desperately seeking sanctuary in the early moments of Armageddon.

Evidently Martie was affected either by the turbulence of the incoming storm or by her troubled friend, because as they proceeded fitfully along the promenade toward the side street where she had parked her car, she became increasingly aware of a strangeness in the day that was easy to perceive but difficult to define. On the concrete promenade, puddles like black mirrors swarmed with images so shattered by falling rain that their true appearance could not be discerned, yet they disquieted Martie. Thrashing palm trees clawed the air with fronds that had darkened from green to green-black, producing a thrum-hiss-rattle that resonated with a primitive and reckless passion deep inside her. On their right, the sand was smooth and pale, like the skin of some vast sleeping beast, and on their left, each house appeared to be filled with a storm of its own, as colorless images of roiling clouds and wind-tossed trees churned across the large ocean-view windows.

Martie was unsettled by all these odd impressions of unnatural menace in the surrounding landscape, but she was more disturbed by a new strangeness within herself, which the storm seemed to conjure. Her heart quickened with an irrational desire to surrender to the sorcerous energy of this wild weather. Suddenly she was afraid of some dark potential she couldn’t define: afraid of losing control of herself, blacking out, and later coming to her senses, thereupon discovering she had done something terrible…something unspeakable.

Until this morning, such bizarre thoughts had never occurred to her. Now they came in abundance.

She remembered the unusually sour grapefruit juice that she’d drunk at breakfast, and she wondered if it had been tainted. She didn’t have a sick stomach; but maybe she was suffering from a strain of food poisoning that caused mental rather than physical symptoms.

That was another bizarre thought. Tainted juice was no more likely an explanation than the possibility that the CIA was beaming messages into her brain via a microwave transmitter. If she continued down this twisty road of illogic, she’d soon be fashioning elaborate aluminum-foil hats to guard against long-distance brainwashing.

By the time they descended the short flight of concrete steps from the beach promenade to the narrow street where the car was parked, Martie was drawing as much emotional support from Susan as she was giving, although she hoped Susan didn’t sense as much.

Martie opened the curbside door, helped Susan into the red Saturn, and then went around and got in the driver’s seat.

Rain drummed on the roof, a cold and hollow sound that brought hoofbeats to mind, as though the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse — Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death — were approaching at full gallop along the nearby beach.

Martie pulled back her hood. She fished in one coat pocket and then in the other until she found her keys.

In the passenger seat, Susan remained hooded, head bowed, hands fisted against her cheeks, eyes squeezed shut, and face pinched, as if the Saturn were in one of those hydraulic car crushers, about to be squashed into a three-foot cube.

Martie’s attention fixed on the car key, which was the same one she had always used, yet suddenly the point seemed wickedly sharp, as never before. The serrations resembled those on a bread knife, which then reminded her of the mezzaluna in Susan’s kitchen.