Dean Koontz - Phantoms

They were quiet in the presence of Death.

Paul Henderson had been a good man with decent instincts.

His death was a terrible waste.

Bryce said, "Dr. Paige?”

She crouched down at the other side of the corpse." Yes?”

"You didn't move the body?”

"I didn't even touch it, Sheriff.”

"There was no blood?”

"Just as you see it now. No blood.”

"The wound might be in his back," Bryce said.

"Even if it was, there'd still be some blood on the floor.”

"Maybe." He stared into her striking eyes-green flecked with gold.”

Ordinarily, I wouldn't disturb a body until the coroner had seen it. But this is an extraordinary situation. I'll have to turn this man over.”

"I don't know if it's safe to touch him.”

"Someone has to do it," Bryce said.

Dr. Paige stood up, and everyone moved back a couple of steps.

Bryce put a hand to Henderson's purple-black, distorted face." The skin is still slightly warm," he said in surprise.

Dr. Paige said, "I don't think they've been dead very long.”

"But a body doesn't discolor and bloat in just a couple of hours," Tal Whitman said.

"These bodies did," the doctor said.

Bryce rolled the corpse over, exposing the back. No wound.

Hoping to find an unnatural depression in the skull, Bryce thrust his fingers into the dead man's thick hair, testing the bone. If the deputy had been struck hard on the back of the head… But that wasn't the case, either. The skull was intact.

Bryce got to his feet." Doctor, these two decapitations you mentioned… I guess we'd better have a look at those.”

"Do you think one of your men could stay here with my sister?”

"I understand your feelings," Bryce said." But I don't really think it would be wise for me to split up my men. Maybe there isn't any safety in numbers; then on the other hand, maybe there is.”

"It's okay," Lisa assured Jenny." I don't want to be left behind, anyway.”

She was a spunky kid. Both she and her older sister intrigued Bryce Hammond. They were pale, and their eyes were alive with dervish shadows of shock and honor-but they were coping a great deal better than most people would have in this bizarre, waking nightmare.

The Paiges led the entire group out of the substation and down the street to the bakery.

Bryce found it difficult to believe that Snowfield had been a normal, bustling village only a short while ago. The town felt as dry and burnt-out and dead as an ancient lost city in a far desert, off in a corner of the world where even the wind often forgot to go. The hush that cloaked the town seemed a silence of countless years, of decades, of centuries, a silence of unimaginably long epochs piled on epochs.

Shortly after arriving in Snowfield, Bryce had used an electric bullhorn to call for a response from the silent houses. Now it seemed foolish ever to have expected an answer.

They entered Liebermann's Bakery through the front door and went into the kitchen at the rear of the building.

On the butcher's-block table, two severed hands gripped the handles of a rolling pin.

Two severed heads peered through two oven doors.

"Oh, my God," Tal said quietly.

Bryce shuddered.

Clearly in need of support, Jake Johnson leaned against a tall white cabinet.

Wargle said, "Christ, they were butchered like a couple of goddamned cows," and then everyone was talking at once.

'.-why the hell anyone would”

'sick, twisted”

,so where are the bodies?”

"Yes," Bryce said, raising his voice to override the babble, "where are the bodies? Let's find them.”

For a couple of seconds, no one moved, frozen by the thought of what they might find.

"Dr. Paige, Lisa-there's no need for you to help us," Bryce said." Just stand aside.", The doctor nodded. The girl smiled in gratitude.

With trepidation, they searched all the cupboards, opened all the drawers and doors. Gordy Brogan looked inside the big oven that wasn't equipped with a porthole, and Frank Autry went into the walk-in refrigerator. Bryce inspected the small, spotless lavatory off one end of the kitchen. But they couldn't find the bodies-or any other pieces of the bodies-of the two elderly people.

"Why would the killers cart away the bodies?" Frank asked.

"Maybe we're dealing with some sort of cultists," Jake Johnson said.”

Maybe they wanted the bodies for some weird ritual.”

"If there was any ritual," Frank said, "it looks to me like it was conducted right here.”

Gordy Brogan bolted for the lavatory, stumbling and weaving, a big gangling kid who seemed to be composed solely of long legs and long arms and elbows and knees. Retching sounds came through the door that he had slammed behind himself.

Stu Wargle laughed and said, "Jesus, what a ninny.”

Bryce turned on him and scowled." What in God's name do you find so funny, Wargle? People are dead here. Seems to me that Gordy's reaction is a lot more natural than any of ours.”

Wargle's pig-eyed, heavy-jowled face clouded with anger.

He didn't have the wit to be embarrassed.

God, I despise that man, Bryce thought.

When Gordy came back from the bathroom, he looked sheepish." Sorry, Sheriff.”

"No reason to be, Gordy.”

They trooped through the kitchen, across the sales room, out onto the sidewalk.

Bryce went immediately to the wooden gate between the bakery and the shop next door. He stared over the top of the gate, into the lightless, covered passageway. Dr. Paige moved to his side, and he said, "Is this where you thought something was in the rafters?”

:"Well, Lisa thought it was crouched along the wall.”

"But it was this serviceway?”

"Yes.”

The tunnel was utterly black.

He took Tal's long-handled flashlight, opened the creaking gate, drew his revolver, and stepped into the passage. A vague, dank odor clung to the place. The squeal of the rusty gate hinges and then the sound of his own footsteps echoed down the tunnel ahead of him.

The beam of the flash was powerful; it carried over half the length of the passageway. However, he focused it close at hand, swept it back and forth over the immediate area, studying the concrete walls, then looking up at the ceiling, which was eight or ten feet overhead. In this part of the serviceway, at least, the rafters were deserted.

With each step, Bryce grew increasingly certain that drawing his revolver had been unnecessary-until he was almost halfway through the tunnel. Then he suddenly felt… an odd… a tingle, a cold quiver along the spine. He sensed that he wasn't alone any longer.

He was a man who trusted his hunches, and he didn't discount this one.

He stopped advancing, brought the revolver up, listened more closely than before to the silence, moved the flashlight rapidly over the walls and ceiling, squinted with special care at the rafters, looked ahead into the gloom almost as far as the mouth of the alleyway, and even glanced back to see if something had crept magically around behind him.

Nothing waited in the darkness. Yet he continued to feel that he was being watched by unfriendly eyes.

He started forward again, and his light caught something.

Covered by a metal grille, a foot-square drain opening was set in the floor of the serviceway. Inside the drain, something indefinable glistened, reflecting the flashlight beam; it moved.

Cautiously, Bryce stepped closer and directed the light straight down into the drain. Whatever had glistened was gone now.

He squatted beside the drain and peered between the ribs of the grille.

The light revealed only the walls of a pipe. It was a storm drain, about eighteen inches in diameter, and it was dry, which meant he had not merely seen water.

A rat? Snowfield was a resort that catered to a relatively affluent crowd; therefore, the town took unusually stringent measures to keep itself free of all manner of pests. Of course, in spite of Snowfield's diligence in such matters, the existence of a rat or two certainly wasn't impossible. It could have been a rat. But Bryce didn't believe that it had been.