Dean Koontz - Tick Tock

‘-I’m good enough to put together a stage act and make a living with it in Vegas or even the circus, if I ever had to,’ Del continued in a murmur as she unzipped another pocket and took from it a handful of cartridges for the Desert Eagle. ‘Unfortunately, I’m not half as good at fencing as I’d like to be, though I’ll admit to being first-rate with a crossbow.’

‘He died when you were ten,’ Tommy said. ‘So he taught you all this when you were just a little kid?’

‘Yeah. We’d go out in the desert near Vegas and blow the crap out of empty soda bottles, tin cans, posters of old movie monsters like Dracula and the creature from the Black Lagoon. It was a lot of fun.’

‘What in the name of God was he preparing you for?’

‘Dating.’

‘Dating?’

‘That was his joke. Actually he was preparing me for the unusual life he knew I was going to have.’

‘How could he know?’

Rather than answer the question, Del said, ‘But the truth is, because of the training Daddy gave me, I’ve never been on a date with any guy who intimidated me, never had a problem.’

‘I guess not. I think you’d have to be dating Hannibal Lecter before you’d feel uneasy.’

Pressing the last two rounds into the.44 magazine, she said, ‘I still miss Daddy. He truly understood me - and not many people ever do.’

‘I’m trying,’ Tommy assured her.

Passing by on his sentry duties, Scootie came to Del, put his head in her lap, and whimpered as though he had heard the regret and the sense of loss in her voice.

Tommy said, ‘How could a little girl hold and fire a gun like that? The recoil-’

‘Oh, of course, we started with an air rifle, an air pistol, and then a.22,’ she said, slamming the loaded magazine into the Israeli pistol. ‘When we practiced with rifles or shotguns, Daddy padded my shoulders, crouched behind to brace me, and held the gun with me. He was only familiarizing me with the more powerful weapons, so I’d feel comfortable with them from an early age, wouldn’t be afraid of them when the time came to actually handle them. He died before I really got good with the bigger stuff, and then Mom continued the lessons.’

‘Too bad he never got around to teaching you how to make bombs,’ Tommy said with mock dismay.

‘I’m comfortable with dynamite and most plastic explosives, but they really aren’t particularly useful for self-defence.’

‘Was your father a terrorist?’

‘Furthest thing from it. He thought all politics were stupid. He was a gentle man.’

‘But he just usually had some dynamite laying around to practice making bombs.’

‘Not usually.’

‘Just at Christmas, huh?’

‘Basically, I learned explosives not to make bombs but to disarm them if I had to.’

‘A task we’re all faced with every month or so.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I’ve only had to do it twice.’ Tommy wanted to believe that she was kidding, but he decided not to ask. His brain was overloaded with new discoveries about her, and in his current weariness, he did not have the energy or the mental capacity to contemplate more of her disconcerting revelations. ‘And I thought my family was strange.’

‘Everyone thinks his family is strange,’ Del said, scratching Scootie behind the ears, ‘but it’s just that, because we’re closer to the people we love, we tend to see them through a magnifying glass, through a thicker lens of emotion, and we exaggerate their eccentricities.’

‘Not in the case of your family,’ he said. ‘Magnifying glass or no magnifying glass, it’s a strange clan.’

Scootie returned to his patrol, padding quietly away through the motionless stampede of wooden horses.

As Del zipped shut the pocket from which she had taken the ammunition, she said, ‘The way I see it, your family might have a prejudice against blondes, but when they see how much I’ve got to offer, they’ll learn to like me.’

Grateful that she couldn’t see him blush in this gloom, Tommy said, ‘Never mind expertise with guns. Can you cook? That’s a big deal in my family.’

‘Ah, yes, the family of fighting bakers. Well, I’ve picked up a lot from my folks. Daddy won several prizes in chilli-cooking contests all across Texas and the Southwest, and Mom graduated from Cordon Bleu.’

‘Was that while she was a ballerina?’

‘Right after.’

He checked his watch - 2:37. ‘Maybe we better get moving again.’

Another siren rose in the distance.

Del listened long enough to be sure that the siren was drawing nearer rather than receding. ‘Let’s wait a while. We’re going to have to find new wheels and hit the road again, but I don’t want to be hot-wiring a car when the streets around here are crawling with cops.’

‘If we stay too long in one place-’

‘We’re okay for a while. You sleepy?’

‘Couldn’t sleep if I tried.’

‘Eyes itchy and burning?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be okay.’

‘Your neck aches so bad you can hardly hold up your head,’ she said, as if she could feel his discomfort.

‘I’m alert enough. Don’t worry about me,’ he said, and with one hand he squeezed the nape of his neck as if he could pull the pain out of his flesh.

She said, ‘You’re weary to the bone, poor baby. Turn away from me a little. Let me work on you.’

‘Work on me?’

‘Move your butt a little, tofu boy, come on,’ she said, nudging him with her hip.

The chariot was narrow, but he was able to turn enough to allow her to massage his shoulders and the back of his neck. Her slender hands were surprisingly strong, but though she pressed hard at times, she relieved rather than caused pain.

Sighing, he said, ‘Who taught you this?’

‘It’s just a thing I know. Like my painting.’

They were both quiet for minute, except for Tommy’s occasional groan as Del’s fingers found another coil of tension and slowly unwound it.

The diligent Scootie passed, out at the edge of the platform, as black as the night itself and as silent as a spirit.

As she worked her thumbs up and down the nape of Tommy’s neck, Del said, ‘Have you ever been abducted by aliens?’

‘Oh, boy.’

‘What?’

‘Here we go again.’

‘You mean you have?’

‘Been abducted? Of course not. I mean, here you go again, getting weird.’

‘You don’t believe in extraterrestrial intelligences?’

‘I believe the universe is so big that there’s got to be lots of other intelligent species in it.’

‘So what’s weird?’

‘But I don’t believe they come all the way across the galaxy to kidnap people and take them up in flying saucers and examine their genitals.’

‘They don’t just examine the genitals.’

‘I know, I know. Sometimes they take the abductee to Chicago for beer and pizza.’

She lightly, chastisingly slapped the back of his head. ‘You’re being sarcastic.’

‘A little.’

‘It’s not becoming to you.’

‘Listen, an alien species, vastly more intelligent than we are, creatures millions of years more evolved than we are, probably wouldn’t have any interest in us at all - and certainly wouldn’t be interested enough to spend so much manpower harassing a bunch of ordinary citizens.’

Massaging his scalp now, Del said, ‘Personally, I believe in alien abductions.’

‘I am not surprised.’

‘I believe they’re worried about us.’

‘The aliens?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Why would they be worried about us?’

‘We’re such a troubled species, so confused, self-destructive. I think the aliens want to help us achieve enlightenment.’

‘By examining our genitals? Then those guys sitting ringside at nude-dancing clubs only want to help the girls on the stage to achieve enlightenment.’