Dean Koontz - The Door To December

'Except that she continued seeing Hoffritz.'

'What?'

'Amazing, huh?'

'She went on seeing him after he put her in hospital?'

'That's right. Worse, Regine wrote a letter to me, in my capacity as department head, defending Hoffritz.'

'Good God.'

'She wrote letters to the university president and to a few other faculty members on the review board. She did everything in her power to keep Willy Hoffritz from losing his job.'

A creepy feeling settled over Dan again. He was not, by nature, given to melodramatic action or thought, but somehow just talking about Hoffritz was beginning to make his blood run cold. If Hoffritz was able to acquire such control of Regine, what breakthroughs might he and Dylan McCaffrey have achieved once they had combined their demonic talents? For what purpose had they turned Melanie into a near vegetable?

Dan could no longer sit still. He got up. But it was a small office, and he was a big man, and there wasn't much of anywhere to pace. He just stood there by his chair, hands in his pockets, and said, 'You would think, after he beat Regine, she would have been able to break his hold on her.'

Marge shook her head. 'After Willy Hoffritz was booted off the faculty, Regine actually brought him to a number of campus functions as her escort.'

Dan gaped at her.

Marge said, 'And he was her only guest at graduation.'

'Good Lord.'

'Both of them enjoyed rubbing our faces in it.'

'The girl needed psychiatric help.'

'Yes.'

'Deprogramming.'

A sadness had taken possession of the psychologist's kind face. She took off her glasses as if they were suddenly much heavier than they had been heretofore, an unbearable weight. She rubbed her weary eyes.

Dan had a good idea how the woman felt. She was dedicated to her profession, and she was good at what she did, and she maintained high personal standards. She had scruples and ideals. With her well-developed conscience, she must believe that a man like Hoffritz was a discredit not only to the profession but to all of those who were his associates.

She said, 'We tried to see that Regine got the help she needed. But she refused it.'

Outside, sodium-vapor lights had come on, but they could not hold back the night.

Dan said, 'Evidently, then, the reason Regine didn't turn against Hoffritz was because she liked the beating he'd given her.'

'Evidently.'

'He had programmed her to like it.'

'Evidently.'

'He'd learned from those first four girls.'

'Yes.'

'He'd lost control of them, but he'd learned from his mistakes. By the time he'd gotten to Regine, he'd learned how to keep an iron grip.' Dan had to move, work off some energy. He took five steps to the bookshelves, returned to his chair and put his hands on the back of it. 'I'll never be able to hear the words "behavior modification" without getting sick to my stomach.'

Defensively, Marge said, 'It's a justifiable area of research, a reputable branch of psychology. Behavior modification can help us find ways to teach children more easily and make them retain what they learn far longer than they do now. It can help us reduce the crime rate, heal the sick, and perhaps even create a more peaceful world.'

As Dan grew increasingly eager for action, Marge seemed, by contrast, to seek relief in lethargy. She slumped down even farther in her chair. She was a take-charge kind of person, the sturdy type who was confident of dealing with anything, but she could not deal with inexplicably monstrous men like Hoffritz. And when she was confronted with something that she could not grasp and control, she looked less like a career WAC and more like a grandmother in need of a rocking chair and a cup of tea and honey. Dan liked her even more because of that vulnerability.

Her voice was tired: 'Behavior modification and brainwashing aren't the same thing at all. Brainwashing is a bastard offshoot of behavior modification, a twisted perversion of it, just as Hoffritz was not an ordinary man or an ordinary scientist but a perversion of both.'

'Was Regine still with him?'

'I don't know. The last I saw of her was more than two years ago, and she was with him then.'

'If she wouldn't drop him after the beating, then I suppose nothing he did would cause her to leave. So she's probably still been seeing him.'

'Unless he got tired of her,' Marge said.

'From what I've heard of him, he'd never get tired of someone he could dominate and terrify.'

Marge nodded grimly.

Checking his watch, anxious to get away now, Dan said, 'You told me Dylan McCaffrey was brilliant, a genius. Would you say the same of Hoffritz?'

'Probably. In fact, yes. But his genius was a darker variety, twisted, bent.'

'So was McCaffrey's.'

'Not half as twisted as Hoffritz,' she said.

'But if they started working together, with substantial — maybe even unlimited — funding, with a human subject, with absolutely no legal or moral restrictions, they would be a dangerous combination, wouldn't they?'

'Yes,' she said. A pause. 'Unholy.'

The word—'unholy'—seemed like uncharacteristic hyperbole, coming from Marge, but Dan was sure that she had chosen it carefully.

'Unholy,' she repeated, leaving him without a doubt as to the depth of her concern.

* * *

In the hall bathroom, with some iodine and a Big Patch Band-Aid, Laura was able to take care of the small wound on Earl Benton's hand, where Melanie had bitten him during their struggle.

'It's nothing,' he assured Laura. 'Don't worry about it.'

Melanie was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, staring at the green-tiled wall. She couldn't have been more unlike the hellion who had lashed out at them in the bedroom a few minutes ago.

'A human bite is more likely to become infected than that from a dog or cat or virtually any other animal,' Laura said.

'You soaked it good with the iodine, and there's hardly any bleeding. Just a shallow bite. Doesn't even hurt,' he said, though she knew it must sting at least slightly.

'Had a tetanus shot lately?' Laura asked.

'Yeah. I was doing skip-tracing work last month. One of the guys I tracked down took exception to being found, pulled a knife on me. He didn't do much damage. Took about seven stitches to close it. That's when I had the tetanus booster. Real recent.'

'I'm so sorry about this.'

'You already said.'

'Well, I am.'

'Listen, I know the girl didn't mean it. Besides, it's part of the job.'

Laura crouched in front of Melanie and examined the redness on the child's left cheek. It marked the spot where she had punched herself in the midst of her frenzy. It would develop into a bruise, given time. At the open neck of her blouse, scratches showed on her throat and chest, where she had clawed herself. Her lip was still puffy and sore-looking, where she'd bitten it this afternoon at the end of their hypnotic-therapy session.

Dry-mouthed with fear and worry Laura said to Earl, 'How can we possibly protect her? It's not just some faceless enemy out there that wants to get at her. It's not just government agents or Russian spies. She wants to hurt herself too. How can we protect her from herself?'

'Somebody's got to stay with her, watch her every minute.'

Laura put a hand under her daughter's chin, turned her head so their eyes met. 'This is too much, baby. Mommy can try to deal with the bad men out there who want to get their hands on you. And Mommy can try to deal with your condition, help you come out of this. But now… this is just too much. Why do you want to hurt yourself, baby? Why?'

Melanie stirred, as if she desperately wanted to answer but as if someone were restraining her. Her stricken mouth twisted, worked, but soundlessly. She shuddered, shook her head, groaned softly.