Dean Koontz - Phantoms

"… stay here forever and ever and ever," Lisa was saying, still swooning over the beauty of the mountain village.

"It doesn't make you… uneasy?" Jenny asked.

"What?”

'-The silence.”

"Oh, I love it. It's so peaceful.”

It was peaceful. There was no sign of trouble.

So why am I so damned jumpy? Jenny wondered.

She opened the trunk of the car and lifted out one of Lisa's suitcases, then another.

Lisa took the second suitcase and reached into the trunk for a book bag.

"Don't overload yourself," Jenny said." We've got to make a couple of more trips, anyway.”

They crossed the lawn to a stone walkway and followed that to the front porch, where, in response to the amber-purple sunset, shadows were rising and opening petals as if they were night-blooming flowers.

Jenny opened the front door, and stepped into the dark foyer.

"Hilda, we're home!”

There was no answer.

The only light in the house was at the far end of the hall, beyond the open kitchen door.

Jenny put down the suitcase and switched on the hall light.

"Hilda?”

"Who's Hilda?" Lisa asked, dropping her suitcase and the book bag.

"My housekeeper. She knew what time we expected to arrive. I thought she'd be starting dinner about now.”

" Wow, a housekeeper! You mean, a live-in?”

"She has the apartment above the garage," Jenny said, putting her purse and car keys on the small foyer table that stood beneath a large, brass-framed mirror.

Lisa was impressed." Hey, are you rich or something?”

Jenny laughed." Hardly. I can't really afford Hilda-but I can't afford to be without her, either.”

Wondering why the kitchen light was on if Hilda wasn't here, Jenny headed down the hall, with Lisa following close behind.

"What with keeping regular office hours and making emergency house calls to three other towns in these mountains, I'd never eat more than cheese sandwiches and doughnuts if it wasn't for Hilda.”

"Is she a good cook?" Lisa asked.

" Marvelous. Too good when it comes to desserts.”

The kitchen was a large, high-ceilinged room. Pots, pans, ladles, and other utensils hung from a gleaming, stainless-steel utility rack above a central cooking island with four electric burners, a grill, and a work area. The countertops were ceramic tile, and the cabinets were dark oak. On the far side of the room were double sinks, double ovens, a microwave oven, and the refrigerator.

Jenny turned left as soon as she stepped through the door, and she went to the built-in secretary where Hilda planned menus and composed shopping lists. It was there she would have left a note. But there was no note, and Jenny was turning away from the small desk when she heard Lisa gasp.

The girl had walked around to the far side of the central cooking island. She was standing by the refrigerator, staring down at something on the floor in front of the sinks. Her face was flour-white, and she was trembling.

Filled with sudden dread, Jenny stepped quickly around the island.

Hilda Beck was lying on the floor, on her back, dead. She stared at the ceiling with sightless eyes, and her discolored tongue thrust stiffly between swollen lips.

Lisa looked up from the dead woman, stared at Jenny, tried to speak, could not make a sound.

Jenny took her sister by the arm and led her around the island to the other side of the kitchen, where she couldn't see the corpse. She hugged Lisa.

The girl hugged back. Tightly. Fiercely.

"Are you okay, honey?”

Lisa said nothing. She shook uncontrollably.

Just six weeks ago, coming home from an afternoon at the movies, Lisa had found her mother lying on the kitchen floor of the house in Newport Beach, dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. The girl had been devastated. Never having known her father, who had died when she was only two years old, Lisa had been especially close to her mother. For a while, that loss had left her deeply shaken, bewildered, depressed.

Gradually, she had accepted her mother's death, had discovered how to smile and laugh again. During the past few days, she had seemed like her old self. And now this.

Jenny took the girl to the secretary, urged her to sit down, then squatted in front of her. She pulled a tissue from the box of Kleenex on the desk and blotted Lisa's damp forehead. The girl's flesh was not only as pale as ice; it was ice-cold as well.

"What can I do for you, Sis?”

"I'll b-be okay," Lisa said shakily.

They held hands. The girl's grip was almost painfully tight.

Eventually, she said, "I thought… When I first saw her there… on the floor like that… I thought… crazy, but I thought… that it was Mom." Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she held them back." I kn-know Mom's gone. And this woman here doesn't even look like her. But it was… a surprise… such a shock… and so confusing.”

They continued to hold hands, and slowly Lisa's grip relaxed.

After a while, Jenny said, "Feeling better?”

"Yeah. A little.”

"Want to lie down?”

"No." She let go of Jenny's hand in order to pluck a tissue from the box of Kleenex. She wiped at her nose. She looked at the cooking island, beyond which lay the body." Is it Hilda?”

"Yes," Jenny said.

,I'm sorry.”

Jenny had liked Hilda Beck enormously. She felt sick at heart about the woman's death, but right now she was more concerned about Lisa about anything else." Sis, I think it would be better if we got you out of here. How about waiting in my office while I take a closer look at the body. Then I've got to call the sheriff's office and the county coroner.”

"I'll wait here with you.”

"It would be better if”

"No!" Lisa said, suddenly breaking into shivers again." I don't want to be alone.”

"All right," Jenny said soothingly." You can sit right here.”

"Oh, Jeez," Lisa said miserably. The way she looked… all swollen…

all black and b-blue. And the expression on her face' She wiped at her eyes with the back of one hand.

"Why's she all dark and puffed up like that?”

"Well, she's obviously been dead for a few days," Jenny said." But listen, you've got to try not to think about things like-”

"If she's been dead for a few days," Lisa said quaveringly,why doesn't it stink in here? Wouldn't it stink?”

Jenny frowned. Of course, it should stink in here if Hilda Beck had been dead long enough for her flesh to grow dark and for her body tissues to bloat as much as they had. It should shift. But it didn't.

"Jenny, what happened to her?”

I don't know yet.”

"I' m scared.”

"Don't be scared. There's no reason to be scared.”

"that expression on her face," Lisa said." It's awful.”

"However she died, it must have been quick. She doesn't seem to have been sick or to have struggled. She couldn't have suffered much pain.”

"But… it looks like she died in the middle of a scream.”

The Dead Woman Jenny Paige had never seen a corpse like this one. Nothing in medical school or in her own practice of medicine had prepared her for the peculiar condition of the body. She crouched beside the corpse and examined it with sadness and distaste but also with considerable curiosity and with steadily increasing bewilderment.

The dead woman's face was swollen; it was now a round, smooth, and somewhat shiny caricature of the countenance she had worn in life. Her body was bloated, too, and in some places it strained against the seams of her gray and yellow housedress. Where flesh was visible-the neck, lower waist, hands, calves, ankles-it had a soft, overripe look.

However, this did not appear to be the gaseous bloat that was the consequence of decomposition. For one thing, the stomach should have been grossly distended with gas, far more bloated than any other part of the body, but it was only moderately expanded. Besides, there was no odor of decay.