Dean Koontz - One Door Away From Heaven

"Yes."

INSIDE THE RESTAURANT, which must have the capacity to seat at least three hundred, the boy, without dog, glides past the distracted hostess.

Quickly glancing around as he moves, he notices only a few children here and there, all with their families. He'd been hoping for more kids, lots of kids, so he won't be so easy to spot if the wrong people come looking.

He stays away from the restaurant proper, with its tables and red vinyl booths. Instead he goes directly to the lunch counter, where customers occupy fewer than half the stools.

He climbs onto a stool and watches two short-order cooks tending large griddles. They're frying bacon, hamburger patties, eggs, and mounds of crispy hash browns glistening with oil.

As if there's already something of the dog's heart twined with his own, the boy finds his mouth filled with saliva, and he swallows hard to keep from drooling.

"What can I do ya for, big guy?" a counter waitress inquires.

She's a fantastically large person, nearly as round as she is tall: bosoms the size of goose-down pillows, fine hulking shoulders, a neck made to burst restraining collars, and the proud chins of a fattened bull. Her uniform features short sleeves, and her exposed arms are as big as those of a bodybuilder, although without muscle definition— immense, smooth, pink. As if to provide the illusion of height and to balance her spherical body, she boasts a colossal mass of lustrous auburn hair, twisted and braided and flared and folded into an amazing work of architecture, high at the top of which is pinned a little yellow-and-white uniform cap that could be easily mistaken for a resting butterfly.

The boy marvels, wondering what being this woman would be like, whether she always feels as great and powerful as she looks, rhino-powerful, or whether sometimes she feels as weak and frightened as any lesser person. Surely not. She is majestic. She is magnificent, beautiful. She can live by her own rules, do as she wishes, and the world will treat her with awe, with the respect that she deserves.

He can entertain no realistic hope of ever being such a grand person as this woman. With his weak will and unreliable wits, he's barely able to be poor Curtis Hammond. And yet he tries. He says, "My name's Curtis, and my dad sent me in for some grub to go."

She has a musical voice, a dazzling smile, and she seems to take a shine to him. "Well, Curtis, my name's Donella, 'cause my dad was Don and my mom was Ella — and I think what we serve here is a few notches above plain grub."

"It sure smells fantastic." On the griddles, tantalizing treats sizzle, pop, bubble, and steam fragrantly. "Boy, I've never seen a place like this."

"Really? You don't look like you've been raised in a box."

He blinks, thinking furiously, striving to comprehend what she has suggested, but he can't avoid the question: "Were you?"

"Were I what?"

"Raised in a box?"

Donella wrinkles her nose. This is virtually the only part of her face that she can wrinkle, because everything else is gloriously full, round, smooth, and too firmly packed even to dimple. "Curtis, you disappoint me. I thought you were a good boy, a nice boy, not a smart aleck."

Oh, Lord, he's put his foot wrong again, stepped in a pile of doo-doo, figuratively speaking, but he can't understand what he's done to offend and can't imagine how to get himself admitted to her good graces once more. He dare not call undue attention to himself, not with so many murderous hunters looking for someone his size, and he absolutely must obtain food for himself and for Old Yeller, who is depending on him, but Donella controls his access to the grub, or to whatever you call it when it's a few notches above plain grub.

"I am a nice boy," he assures her. "My mother was always proud of me.

Donella's stern expression softens slightly, though she still won't give the enchanting smile with which she first greeted him.

Speaking his heart seems the best way to make amends. "You're so fabulous, so beautiful, so magnificent, Ms. Donella."

Even his compliment fails to pump the air back into her deflated smile. In fact her soft pink features suddenly appear stone-hard, and cold enough to bring an early end to summer across the entire North American continent. "Don't you mock me, Curtis."

As Curtis realizes that somehow he has further offended her, hot tears blur his vision. "I only want you to like me," he pleads.

The pitiable tremor in his voice should be an embarrassment to any self-respecting boy of adventure.

Of course, he isn't adventuring at the moment. He's socializing, which is immeasurably more difficult than engaging in dangerous exploits and heroic deeds.

He's rapidly losing confidence. Lacking adequate self-assurance, no fugitive can maintain a credible deception. Perfect poise is the key to survival. Mom always said so, and Mom knew her stuff.

Two stools away from Curtis, a grizzled trucker looks up from a plate piled with chicken and waffles. "Donella, don't be too hard on the kid. He didn't mean nothing by what he said. Nothing like you think. Can't you see he's not quite right?"

A fly line of panic casts a hook into the boy's heart, and he clutches the edge of the counter to avoid reeling off the stool. He thinks for a moment that they see through him, recognize him as the most-wanted fish for which so many nets have been cast.

"You hush your mouth, Burt Hooper," says the majestic Donella. "A man who wears bib overalls and long Johns instead of proper pants and a shirt isn't a reliable judge of who's not quite right."

Burt Hooper takes this upbraiding without offense, cackles with amusement, and says, "If I got to choose between comfort and being a sex object, I'll choose comfort every time."

"Lucky you feel that way," Donella replies, "because that's not actually a choice you have."

Through a blur of tears, the boy sees the glorious smile once more, a smile as radiant as that of a goddess.

Donella says, "Curtis, I'm sorry I snapped at you."

Trying to regain control of his emotions, but still blubbering a little, he says, "I don't know why I offended you, ma'am. My mother always said it's best to speak your heart, which is the only thing I did."

"I realize that now, sugar. I didn't first see you're. one of those rare folks with a pure soul."

"So then… do you think I'm 'not quite right'?" he asks, fiercely gripping the edge of the counter, still half afraid that they are beginning to recognize him for the fugitive he is.

"No, Curtis. I just think you're too sweet for this world."

Her statement both reassures and strangely disconcerts the boy, so he makes another effort at compliment, speaking with sincerity and emotion that cannot be misconstrued as anything else: "You really are beautiful, Ms. Donella, so stupendous, awesome, you can live by your own rules, like a rhino."

Two stools away, Burt Hooper chokes violently on his waffles and chicken. His fork clatters against his plate as he grabs his glass of Pepsi. Sputtering, with cola foaming from his nostrils, face turning as red and mottled as a boiled lobster, he at last clears his throat of food only to fill it with laughter, making such a spectacle of himself that it's evident he would be a lousy fugitive.

Perhaps the trucker has just now remembered a particularly funny joke. His unrestrained hilarity is nonetheless rude, distracting Curtis and Donella from their mutual apologies.

The divine Donella glares at Burt with the expression of a perturbed rhino, lacking only the threat of a large pointed horn to make the comparison perfect.

In the same way that a clatter of laughter had knocked its way through the last of Burt's choking, so now a rattle of words raps out of him between guffaws: "Oh, damn. I'm splat… in the middle. of Forrest Gump!"