Dean Koontz - Tick Tock

‘Excuse please?’ said Mrs. Dai.

Glowering at Tommy, his mother said, ‘Be respect-ful.’

When Tommy declined to repeat himself, Del said, ‘Mrs. Dai, when you were a girl, did you ever notice anything strange in the skies over the Xan River?’

‘Strange?’

‘Strange objects.’

‘In skies?’

‘Disc-shaped craft, perhaps.’

Perplexed, Mrs. Dai said, ‘Dishes in sky?’

Tommy thought he heard something outside. It might have been a truck door closing.

Changing tack slightly, Del said, ‘In the village where you were raised, Mrs. Dai, were there any legends of short humanoid creatures living in the jungle?’

‘Short what?’ asked Mrs. Dai.

‘About four feet tall, grey skin, bulbous heads, enor-mous eyes, really mesmerizing eyes.’

Quy Trang Dai looked at Mother Phan for help. ‘She crazy person,’ Mother Phan explained. ‘Eerie lights in the night,’ Del said, ‘pulsating lights with an irresistible attraction? Anything like that along the banks of the Xan?’

‘Very dark in jungle at night. Very dark in village at night. No electricity.’

‘In your childhood,’ Del probed, ‘do you remember any periods of missing time, unexplained blackouts, fugue states?’

Nonplussed, Mrs. Dai could only say, ‘Everyone sure not like nice hot cup of tea?’

No doubt talking to herself but appearing to address Scootie, Del said, ‘Sure as hell, this Xan River is a primary focus of evil extraterrestrial influence.’

Heavy footsteps thudded across the front porch. Tommy tensed, waited, and when a knock came at the door, he stood bolt upright from the sofa.

‘Don’t answer door,’ Mrs. Dai advised. ‘Yeah,’ Del said, ‘it might be that damn aggressive Amway saleswoman.’

Scootie crept warily to the front door. He sniffed along the threshold, caught a scent he didn’t like, whimpered, and hurried back to Del’s side.

The knocking sounded again, louder and more insist-ent than before.

Raising her voice, Mrs. Dai said, ‘You can’t come in.’ Immediately, the demon pounded again, so hard that the door shook and the lock bolt rattled against the striker plate.

‘Go away,’ said Mrs. Dai. To Tommy, she said, ‘Only eighteen minutes, then everyone happy.’

Mother Phan said, ‘Sit down, Tuong. You just making everyone nervous.’

Tommy couldn’t take his eyes off the front door -until movement at one of the flanking windows drew his attention. The serpent-eyed fat man peered in at them.

‘We don’t even have a gun,’ Tommy worried. ‘Don’t need gun,’ Mother Phan said. ‘Got Quy Trang Dai. Sit down and be patient.’

The Samaritan-thing walked to the window on the other side of the front door and peered hungrily at Tommy through that pane. It rapped one knuckle against the glass.

To Del, Tommy repeated, ‘We don’t have a gun.’

‘We’ve got Mrs. Dai,’ Del said. ‘You can always pick her up by the ankles and use her as a club.’

Quy Trang Dai wagged one finger at the Samaritan-thing and said, ‘I made you, and I tell you go away, so now you go.’

The demon turned from the window. Its footsteps thudded across the porch and down the front steps.

‘There,’ said Mother Phan, ‘now sit down, Tuong, and behave.’

Trembling, Tommy sat on the sofa. ‘It really went away?’

‘No,’ said Mrs. Dai. ‘It going all around house now to see did I forget and leave door or window open.’

Tommy bolted up again. ‘Is there a chance you did?’

‘No. I not fool.’

‘You already made one big mistake,’ Tommy reminded her.

‘Tuong!’ Mother Phan gasped, appalled by his rude-ness.

‘Well,’ Tommy said, ‘she did. She made one hell of a mistake, so why not another?’

Pouting, Mrs. Dai said, ‘One mistake, I have to apolo-gize rest of my life?’

Feeling as if his skull might explode from the pressure of his anxiety, Tommy put his hands to his head. ‘This is nuts. This can’t be happening.’

‘It happening,’ Mrs. Dai said.

‘It’s got to be a nightmare.’

To the other women, Del said, ‘He’s just not prepared for this. He doesn’t watch The X Files.’

‘You not watch X Files?’ Mrs. Dai asked, astonished.

Shaking her head with dismay, Mother Phan said, ‘Probably watch junk detective show instead of good educational program.’

From elsewhere in the house came the sounds of the Samaritan-thing rapping on windows and testing doorknobs.

Scootie cuddled against Del, and she petted and soothed him.

Mrs. Dai said, ‘Some rain we have, huh?’

‘So early in season too,’ said Mother Phan.

‘Remind me of jungle rain, so heavy.’

‘We need rain after drought last year.’

‘Sure no drought this year.’

Del said, ‘Mrs. Dai, in your village in Vietnam, did farmers ever find crop circles, inexplicable depressed pat-terns in their fields? Or large circular depressions where something might have landed in the rice paddies?’

Leaning forward in her chair, Mother Phan said to Mrs. Dai, ‘Tuong not want to believe demon rapping window in front of his face, want to think it just bad dream, but then he believe Big Foot real.’

‘Big Foot?’ Mrs. Dai said, and pressed one hand to her lips to stifle a giggle.

The Samaritan-thing stomped up the steps onto the front porch once more. It appeared at the window to the left of the door, eyes fierce and radiant.

Mrs. Dai consulted her wristwatch. ‘Looking good.’

Tommy stood rigid, quivering.

To Mother Phan, Mrs. Dai said, ‘So sorry about Mai.’

‘Break mother’s heart,’ said Tommy’s mother.

‘She live to regret,’ said Mrs. Dai.

‘I try so hard to teach her right.’

‘She weak, magician clever.’

‘Tuong make bad example for sister,’ said Mother Phan.

‘My heart ache for you,’ Mrs. Dai said.

Virtually vibrating with tension, Tommy said, ‘Can we talk about this later, if there is a later?’

From the beast at the window came the piercing, ululant shriek that seemed more like an electronic than an animal voice.

Getting up from her chinoiserie chair, Mrs. Dai turned to the window, put her hands on her hips, and said, ‘Stop that, you bad thing. You wake neighbours.’

The creature fell silent, but it glared at Mrs. Dai almost as hatefully as it had glared at Tommy.

Abruptly the fat-man’s moon-round face split up the middle from chin to hairline, as it had done when the creature had clambered over the bow railing of the yacht on Newport Harbour. The halves of its countenance peeled apart, green eyes now bulging on the sides of its skull, and out of the gash in the centre of its face lashed a score of whip-thin, segmented black tendrils that writhed around a sucking hole crammed with gnashing teeth. As the beast pressed its face to the window, the tendrils slithered frenziedly across the glass.

‘You not scare me,’ Mrs. Dai said disdainfully. ‘Zip up face and go away.’

The writhing tendrils withdrew into the skull, and the torn visage re-knit into the face of the fat man - although with the green eyes of the demon.

‘You see,’ Mother Phan told Tommy, still sitting com-placently with her purse in her lap and her hands on the purse. ‘Don’t need gun when have Quy Trang Dai.’

‘Impressive,’ Del agreed.

At the window, its frustration palpable, the Samaritan-thing issued a pleading, needful mewl.

Mrs. Dai took three steps toward the window, lights flashing across the heels of her shoes, and waved at the beast with the backs of her hands. ‘Shoo,’ she said impatiently. ‘Shoo, shoo.’

This was more than the Samaritan-thing could tolerate, and it smashed one fat fist through the window.