Dean Koontz - Night Chills

Paul placed one hand on her shoulder, squeezed gently, reassuringly. “Nobody’s going to be shot.”

As he spoke he ardently wished that he could believe what he was telling her.

Fortunately, Sam Edison sold a line of firearms in addition to groceries, dry goods, drugs, notions and sundries; therefore, they weren’t defenseless. Jenny had a .22rifle. Sam and Paul were both carrying Smith & Wesson Combat Magnum revolvers loaded with.38 Special cartridges which would produce only half of the fierce kick of Magnum ammunition. However, they didn’t want to use the guns, for they were trying to leave the house secretly; they kept the guns at their sides, barrels aimed at the porch floor.

“I’ll handle this,” Sam said. He went across the porch to the wooden steps and started down.

“Hold it right there,” said the man with the shotgun. He came ten yards closer. He pointed the weapon at Sam’s chest, kept his finger on the trigger, and watched all of them with unconcealed anxiety and distrust.

Paul glanced at Jenny.

She was biting her lower lip. She looked as if she wanted to swing up her rifle and level it at Harry Thurston’s head.

That might set off a meaningless but disastrous exchange of gunfire.

He had a mental image of the shotgun booming. Booming again. Flame blossoming from the muzzles.

“Calm,” he said quietly.

Jenny nodded.

At the bottom of the steps, still twenty-five feet from the man with the shotgun, Sam held out a hand in greeting. When Thurston ignored it, Sam said, “Harry?”

Thurston’s shotgun didn’t waver. Neither did his expression. But he said, “Hello, Sam.”

“What are you doing here, Harry?”

“You know,” Thurston said.

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

“Guarding you,” Thurston said.

“From what?”

“From escaping.”

“You’re here to keep us from escaping from our own house?” Sam grimaced. “Why would we want to escape from our own house? Harry, you aren’t talking sense.”

Thurston frowned. “I’m guarding you,” he said stubbornly.

“For whom?”

“The police. I’ve been deputized.” “Deputized? By whom?”

“Bob Thorp.”

“When?”

“An hour.. hour and a half.”

“Why does Bob want you to keep us in the house?”

“You know why,” Thurston said again.

“I’ve already told you that I don’t know.”

“You’ve done something.” “What have we done?” “Something wrong. Illegal.” “You know us better than that.” Thurston said nothing. “Don’t you, Harry?” Silence.

“What have we done?” Sam insisted. “I don’t know.”

“Bob didn’t tell you?”

“I’m just an emergency deputy.”

The shotgun looks nonetheless deadly for that, Paul thought.

“You don’t know what we’re supposed to have done?” Sam asked. “But you’re willing to shoot us if we try to leave?”

“Those are my orders.”

“How long have you known me?”

“Twenty years anyway.”

“And Jenny?”

“A long time.”

“You’re willing to kill old friends just because someone tells you to?” Sam asked. He was probing, trying to discover the breadth and depth of Salsbury’s control.

Thurston couldn’t answer that question. His eyes flicked from one to the other of them, and he shuffled his feet in the wet grass. He was exceedingly nervous, confused, and exasperated— but he was determined to do what the chief of police had asked of him.

Unable to take his eyes off the finger that was curled tightly around the shotgun trigger, unable to look at Sam when he spoke to him, Paul said, “We better get on with this. I think maybe you’ve pushed him far enough.”

“I think so too,” Sam said tensely. And then to Thurston: “I am the key.”

“I am the lock.”

“Lower the gun, Harry.” Thurston obeyed.

“Thank God,” Jenny said. “Come here, Harry.”

Thurston went to Sam.

“I’ll be damned,” Jenny said.

A perfect zombie, Paul thought. A regular little tin soldier.. A chill passed along his spine.

Sam said, “Harry, who really told you to come over here and keep a watch on us?”

“Bob Thorp.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“It was Bob Thorp,” Thurston said, perplexed.

“It wasn’t a man named Salsbury?”

“Salsbury? No.”

“Haven’t you met Salsbury?”

“No. Who are you talking about?” “Maybe he called himself Albert Deighton.” “Who did?” Thurston asked. “Salsbury.”

“I don’t know anyone named Deighton.”

Jenny, Rya, and Paul came down the rain-slick steps and joined the two men.

“Salsbury’s obviously working through Bob Thorp,” Jenny said, “one way or another.”

“What are you people talking about?” Thurston asked.

Sam said, “Harry, I am the key.”

“I am the lock.”

Taking a moment to study Thurston and to decide upon his approach, Sam finally said, “Harry, we are going for a walk up toward Hattie Lange’s house. You won’t try to stop us. Is that clear?”

“I won’t stop you.”

“You won’t shoot us.”

“No. Of course not.”

“You won’t call out or make trouble of any kind.”

Thurston shook his head: no.

“When we leave here,” Sam said, “you’ll go back to the lilac bush. You’ll forget that we ever came out of the house. Is that clear?”

“Yes.”

“I want you to forget that we’ve had this little talk. When the four of us leave here, I want you to forget every word that’s been spoken between us. Can you do that, Harry?”

“Sure. I’ll forget that we talked, that I saw any of you just now, all of it, like a you said.”

For a human robot, for an honest-to-God zombie, Paul thought, he seemed damned relaxed.

“You’ll think we’re still inside,” Sam said.

Thurston stared at the back of the general store.

“You’ll guard the place exactly as you were doing a few minutes ago,” Sam said.

“Guard it.. That’s what Bob told me to do.”

“Then do it,” Sam said. “And forget you’ve seen us.”

Obediently, Harry Thurston returned to the man-size niche in the wall of lilac bushes. He stood with his feet apart. He held the shotgun in both hands, parallel to the ground, prepared to raise it and fire within a second if faced with a sudden threat.

“Incredible,” Jenny said.

“Looks like a storm trooper,” Sam said wearily. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

Jenny followed him.

Paul took hold of Rya’s icy hand.

Her face drawn, a haunted look in her eyes, she squeezed his hand and said, “Will it be all right again?”

“Sure. Everything will be fine before much longer,” he told her, not certain if that was the truth or another lie.

They went west, across the rear lawns of the neighboring houses, walking fast and hoping they wouldn’t be seen.

With every step Paul expected someone to shout at them. And in spite of the manner in which Harry Thurson had behaved, he also expected to hear a shotgun blast close behind him, much too close behind him, inches from his shoulder blades: one sudden apocalyptic roar and then an endless silence.

Halfway down the block they came to the back of St. Luke’s, the town’s all-denominational church. It was a freshly painted, neatly kept rectangular white frame structure on a brick-faced foundation. There was a five-story-high bell tower at the front of the building, out on the Main Street side.

Sam tried the rear door and found it unlocked. They slipped inside, one at a time.

For two or three minutes they stood in the narrow, musty, windowless foyer, and waited to see if Harry Thurston or anyone else would follow them.