Dean Koontz - Night Chills

“Yes.”

“Go do it.”

Troutman left the room.

Ten minutes ago Salsbury had decided to eliminate Buddy Pellineri. Although the man had experienced the night chills and nausea, and although he had been partially brainwashed by by the subceptive program, he was not a good subject. He could not be fully and easily controlled. When told to erase from his memory the men he had seen coming down from the reservoir on the morning of August sixth, he might forget them forever— or only for a few hours. Or not at all. Had he been been a genius, the drug and the subliminals would have transformed him into the ideal slave. Ironically, however, his ignorance condemned him.

It was a pity that Buddy had to die. In his own way he was a likable brute.

But I’ve got the power, Salsbury thought. And I’m going to

keep it. I’m going to eliminate as many people as have to be eliminated for me to keep the power. I’ll show them. All of them. Dawson, good old Miriam, the bitches, the holier-than-thou college professors with their snotty questions and self-righteous denunciations of my work, the whores, my mother, the bitches. Tat-tat-tat-tat. . No one is going to take this away from me. No one. Not ever. Never.

3:20 P.M.

Rya sat up in bed, yawning and smacking her lips. She looked from Jenny to Sam to Paul — but she didn’t seem to know for certain who they were.

“Do you remember what he said?” Paul asked again. “The man with the thick glasses. Do you remember?”

Squinting at him, scratching her head, she said, “Who. am this?”

“She’s still dopey,” Jenny said, “and will be for a while yet.” Studying the girl from the foot of the bed, Sam said, “Salsbury knows he’s got to deal with us. As soon as he’s decided how, he’ll come here. We don’t have time to wait for the sedative to wear off. We’ve got to help her come out of it.” He looked at Jenny. “You give her a cold shower. A long one. I’ll make some fresh coffee.”

“Don’t like coffee,” Rya said sullenly.

“You like tea, don’t you?”

“S’okay.” She yawned.

Sam hurried downstairs to make a pot of tea.

Jenny hustled Rya out of bed and into the bathroom at the end of the hallway.

Left alone, Paul went to the living room to sit with Mark’s body until Rya was ready to be questioned.

‘When you decide to meet that big, bright, shiny, chrome-edged American world on its own terms, he thought, things start to move. Faster and faster and faster.

3:26 P.M.

Dr. Troutman leaned in the open doorway and said, “He’ll be better in the morning.”

“That’s fine,” Bob Thorp said. “You go along home now.” Popping the last piece of his chocolate-almond bar into his mouth, the doctor said, “Take care.” He walked away.

To Thorp, Salsbury said, “Get some help. Move the body into one of the cells. Stretch him out on the bunk so that he looks like he’s sleeping.”

4:16 P.M.

Rain gurgled noisily down the leader beside the kitchen window.

The room smelled of lemons.

Steam rose from the spout of the teapot and from the china cup.

Rya wiped away her tears, blinked in sudden recollection, and said, “Oh. Oh, yes. ‘I am the key.’”

4:45 P.M.

The downpour dwindled abruptly to a drizzle. Soon the rain stopped altogether.

Salsbury raised one of the Venetian blinds and looked out at North Union Road. The gutters were overflowing. A miniature lake had formed down toward the square where a drainage grating was clogged with leaves and grass. The trees dripped like melting candles.

He was glad to see it end. He had begun to worry about the turbulent flying conditions that Dawson’s helicopter pilot would have to face.

One way or another, Dawson had to get to Black River to-

night. Salsbury didn’t actually need help to deal with the situation; but he did need to be able to share the blame if the field test went even further awry.

Neither of his current options was without risk. He could send Bob Thorp and a couple of deputies to the general store to arrest the Edisons and the Annendales. Of course there might be trouble, violence, even a shoot-out. Every additional corpse or missing person that had to be explained to the authorities outside of Black River increased the chance of discovery. On the other hand, if he had to maintain the roadblock through tomorrow, keep control of the town, and perpetuate the state of siege, his chances of coming out on top of this would be less promising than they were now.

What in the devil was happening at Edison’s place? They had found the boy’s body. He knew that. He had assigned several guards to cover the store. Why hadn’t they come here to see Bob Thorp? Why hadn’t they tried to leave town? Why hadn’t they, in short, acted like anyone else would have done? Surely, even with Buddy’s story to build from, they couldn’t have reconstructed the truth behind the events of the past few weeks. They couldn’t know who he really was. They probably didn’t know about subliminal advertising in general — and certainly not about his research in specific. He suddenly wished that he had brought his briefcase with the infinity transmitter from Pauline Vicker’s rooming house.

“Everything looks so crisp and fresh after a summer rain, doesn’t it?” Bob Thorp asked.

“I’m glad it’s over,” Salsbury said.

“It isn’t. Not by a long shot.”

Salsbury turned from the windows. “What?”

Smiling, as amiable as Salsbury had ordered him to be, Bob Thorp said, “These summer storms start and stop half a dozen times before they’re finished. That’s because they bounce back and forth, back and forth between the mountains until they finally find a way out.”

Thinking of Dawson’s helicopter, Salsbury said, “Since when are you a meteorologist?”

“Well, I’ve lived here all my life, except for my hitch in the service. I’ve seen hundreds of storms like this one, and they—”

“I said it’s over! The storm is over, Finished. Done with. Do you understand?”

Frowning, Thorp said, “The storm is over.”

“I want it to be over,” Salsbury said. “So it is. It’s over if I say it is. isn’t it?”

“Of course.”

“All right.”

“It’s over.”

“Dumb cop.”

Thorp said nothing.

“Aren’t you a dumb cop?”

“I’m not dumb.”

“I say you are. You’re dumb. Stupid. Stupid as an ox. Aren’t you, Bob?”

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“What?”

“That you’re as stupid as an ox.”

“I’m as stupid as an ox.”

Returning to the window, Salsbury stared angrily at the lowering cobalt clouds.

Eventually he said, “Bob, I want you to go to Pauline Vicker’s house.”

Thorp stood up at once.

“I’ve got a room on the second floor, the first door on the right at the head of the stairs. You’ll find a leather briefcase beside the bed. Fetch it for me.”

4:55 P.M.

The four of them went through the crowded stockroom and onto the rear porch of the general store.

Immediately, twenty yards away on the wet emerald-green

lawn, a man moved out of the niche formed by two angled rows of lilac bushes. He was a tall, hawk-faced man in horn-rimmed glasses. He was wearing a dark raincoat and holding a double-barreled shotgun.

“Do you know him?” Paul asked.

“Harry Thurston,” Jenny said. “He’s a foreman at the mill. Lives next door.”

With one hand Rya clutched Paul’s shirt. Her self-confidence and her faith in people had been seriously eroded by what she had seen Bob Thorp do to her brother. Watching the man with the shotgun, trembling, her voice pitched slightly higher than it normally was, she said, “Is he. going to shoot US?”