Dean Koontz - Sole Survivor

Tuesday morning of this week, Nora went outside to the back of the house and set the camcorder on a patio table. She used two paperback books as shims to tilt the camera to the desired angle, and then she switched it on.

With the videotape rolling, she positioned a vinyl-strap patio chair ten feet from the lens. She revisited the camcorder to peer through the viewfinder, to be sure that the chair was in the centre of the frame.

After returning to the chair and slightly repositioning it, she completely disrobed in view of the camcorder, neither in the manner of a performer nor with any hesitancy but simply as though she were getting ready for a bath. She neatly folded her blouse, her slacks, and her underwear, and she put them aside on the flagstone floor of the patio.

Naked, she walked out of camera range, apparently going into the house, to the kitchen. In forty seconds, when she returned, she was carrying a butcher knife. She sat in the chair, facing the camcorder.

According to the medical examiner’s preliminary report, at approximately ten minutes past eight o’clock, Tuesday morning, Nora Vadance, in good health and previously thought to be of sound mind, having recently rebounded from depression over her husband’s death, took her own life. Gripping the handle of the butcher knife in both hands, with savage force, she drove the blade deep into her abdomen. She extracted it and stabbed herself again. The third time, she pulled the blade left to right, eviscerating herself. Dropping the knife, she slumped in the chair, where she bled to death in less than one minute.

The camcorder continued to record the corpse to the end of the twenty-minute 8mm cassette.

Two hours later, at ten thirty, Takashi Mishima, a sixty-six-year-old Japanese gardener, on his scheduled rounds, discovered the body and immediately called the police.

When Clarise finished, Joe could say nothing only, ‘Jesus.’

Bob added whiskey to their drinks. His hands were shaking, and the bottle rattled against each glass.

Finally Joe said, ‘I gather the police have the tape.’

‘Yeah,’ Bob said. ‘Until the hearing or inquest or whatever it is they have to hold.’

‘So I hope this video is second-hand knowledge to you. I hope neither of you had to see it.’

‘I haven’t,’ Bob said. ‘But Clarise did.’

She was staring into her drink. ‘They told us what was in it but neither Bob nor I could believe it, even though they were the police, even though they had no reason to lie to us. So I went into the station on Thursday morning, before the funeral, and watched it. We had to know. And now we do. When they give us the tape back, I’ll destroy it. Bob should never see it. Never.’

Though Joe’s respect for this woman was already high, she rose dramatically in his esteem.

‘There are some things I’m wondering about,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind some questions.’

‘Go ahead,’ Bob said. ‘We have a lot of questions about it too, a thousand damn questions.’

‘First. it doesn’t sound like there could be any possibility of duress.’

Clarise shook her head. ‘It’s not something you could force anyone to do to herself, is it? Not just with psychological pressure or threats. Besides, there wasn’t anyone else in camera range — and no shadows of anyone. Her eyes didn’t focus on anyone off camera. She was alone.’

‘When you described the tape, Clarise, it sounded as if Nora was going through this like a machine.’

‘That was the way she looked during most of it. No expression, her face just. slack.’

During most of it? So there was a moment she showed emotion?’

‘Twice. After she’d almost completely undressed, she hesitated before taking off… her panties. She was a modest woman, Joe.

One more weird thing about all of this.’

Eyes closed, holding his cold glass of 7-and-7 against his forehead, Bob said, ‘Even if. even if we accept that she was so mentally disturbed she could do this to herself, it’s hard to picture her videotaping herself naked. or wanting to be found that way.’

Clarise said, ‘There’s a high fence around the backyard. Thick bougainvillea on it. The neighbours couldn’t have seen her. But Bob’s right… she wouldn’t want to be found like that. Anyway, as she was about to take off the panties, she hesitated. Finally that dead, slack look dissolved. Just for an instant, this terrible expression came across her face.’

‘Terrible how?’ Joe asked.

Grimacing as she conjured the grisly video in her mind, Clarise described the moment as if she were seeing it again: ‘Her eyes are flat, blank, the lids a little heavy. then all of a sudden they go wide and there’s depth to them, like normal eyes. Her face wrenches. First so expressionless but now torn with emotion. Shock. She looks so shocked, terrified. A lost expression that breaks your heart. But it lasts only a second or two, maybe three seconds, and now she shudders, and the look is gone, gone, and she’s as calm as a machine again. She takes off her panties, folds them, and puts them aside.’

‘Was she on any medication?’ Joe asked. ‘Any reason to believe she might have overdosed on something that induced a fugue state or a severe personality change?’

Clarise said, ‘Her doctor tells us he hadn’t prescribed any medication for her. But because of her demeanour on the video, the police suspect drugs. The medical examiner is running toxicological tests.’

‘Which is ridiculous,’ Bob said forcefully. ‘My mother would never take illegal drugs. She didn’t even like to take aspirin. She was such an innocent person, Joe, as if she wasn’t even aware of all the changes for the worse in the world over the last thirty years, as if she was living decades behind the rest of us and happy to be there.’

‘There was an autopsy,’ Clarise said. ‘No brain tumour, brain lesions, no medical condition that might explain what she did.’

‘You mentioned a second time when she showed some emotion.’

‘Just before she. before she stabbed herself. It was just a flicker, even briefer than the first. Like a spasm. Her whole face wrenched as if she were going to scream. Then it was gone, and she remained expressionless to the end.’

Jolted by a realization he had failed to reach when Clarise had first described the video, Joe said, ‘You mean she never screamed, cried out?’

‘No. Never.’

‘But that’s impossible.’

‘Right at the end, when she drops the knife. there’s a soft sound that may be from her, hardly more than a sigh.’

‘The pain… ‘ Joe couldn’t bring himself to say that Nora Vadance’s pain must have been excruciating.

‘But she never screamed,’ Clarise insisted.

‘Even involuntary response would have—’

‘Silent. She was silent.’

‘The microphone was working?’

‘Built-in, omnidirectional mike,’ Bob said.

‘On the video,’ Clarise said, ‘you can hear other sounds. The scrape of the patio chair on the concrete when she repositions it. Bird songs. One sad-sounding dog barking in the distance. But nothing from her.’

Stepping out of the front door, Joe searched the night, half expecting to see a white van or another suspicious-looking vehicle parked on the street in front of the Vadance place. From the house next door came the faint strains of Beethoven. The air was warm, but a soft breeze had sprung up from the west, bringing with it the fragrance of night-blooming jasmine. As far as Joe could discern, there was nothing menacing in this gracious night.

As Clarise and Bob followed him onto the porch, Joe said, ‘When they found Nora, was the photograph of Tom’s grave with her?’

Bob said, ‘No. It was on the kitchen table. At the very end, she didn’t carry it with her.’