Dean Koontz: Lightning

By the cash register, the radio was turned low. The Beach Boys were singing their new hit "Surfin' U.S.A." Considering the weather, their tune was as appropriate as "White Christmas" sung in July.

Bob looked at his watch: three-fifteen.

There'll be rain by three-thirty, he thought, and a lot of it.

Business had been good during the morning, but the afternoon had been slow. At the moment no shoppers were in the store.

The family-owned grocery faced new, deadly competition from convenience store chains like 7-Eleven. He was planning to shift to a deli-style operation, offering more fresh foods, but was delaying as long as possible because a deli required considerably more work.

If the oncoming storm was bad he would have few customers the rest of the day. He might close early and take Laura to a movie.

Turning from the door, he said, "Better get the boat, doll."

Laura was kneeling at the head of the first aisle, across from the cash register, absorbed in her work. Bob had carried four cartons of canned soup from the stockroom, then Laura had taken over. She was only eight years old, but she was a reliable kid, and she liked to help out around the store. After stamping the correct price on each of the cans, she stacked them on the shelves, remembering to cycle the merchandise, putting the new soup behind the old.

She looked up reluctantly. "Boat? What boat?"

"Upstairs in the apartment. The boat in the closet. From the look of the sky, we're going to need it to get around later today."

"Silly," she said. "We don't have a boat in the closet."

He walked behind the checkout counter. "Nice little blue boat."

"Yeah? In a closet? Which closet?"

He began to clip packages of Slim Jims to the metal display rack beside the snack pack crackers. "The library closet, of course."

"We don't have a library."

"We don't? Oh. Well, now that you mention it, the boat isn't in the library. It's in the closet in the toad's room."

She giggled. "What toad?"

"Why, you mean to tell me that you don't know about the toad?"

Grinning, she shook her head.

"As of today we are renting a room to a fine, upstanding toad from England. A gentleman toad who's here on the queen's business."

Lightning flared and thunder rumbled through the April sky. On the radio, static crackled through The Cascades' "Rhythm of the Rain."

Laura paid no attention to the storm. She was not frightened of things that scared most kids. She was so self-confident and self-contained that sometimes she seemed to be an old lady masquerading as a child. "Why would the queen let a toad handle her business?"

"Toads are excellent businessmen," he said, opening one of the Slim Jims and taking a bite. Since Janet's death, since moving to California to start over, he had put on fifty pounds. He had never been a handsome man. Now at thirty-eight he was pleasantly round, with little chance of turning a woman's head. He was not a great success, either; no one got rich operating a corner grocery. But he didn't care. He had Laura, and he was a good father, and she loved him with all her heart, as he loved her, so what the rest of the world might think of him was of no consequence. "Yes, toads are excellent businessmen indeed. And this toad's family has served the crown for hundreds of years. In fact he's been knighted. Sir Thomas Toad."

Lightning crackled brighter than before. The thunder was louder as well.

Having finished stocking the soup shelves, Laura rose from her knees and wiped her hands on the white apron that she was wearing over T-shirt and jeans. She was lovely; with her thick, brown hair and large, brown eyes, she bore more than a passing resemblance to her mother. "And how much rent is Sir Thomas Toad paying?"

"Six pence a week."

"Is he in the room next to mine?"

"Yes, the room with the boat in the closet."

She giggled again. "Well, he better not snore."

"He said the same of you."

A battered, rusted Buick pulled up in front of the store, and as *e driver's door opened, a third thunderbolt blasted a hole in the darkening sky. The day was filled with molten light that appeared flow liquidly along the street outside, sprayed lavalike over the parked Buick and the passing cars. The accompanying thunder shook the building from roof to foundation, as though the stormy heavens were reflected in the land below, precipitating an earth quake.

"Wow!" Laura said, moving fearlessly toward the windows.

Though no rain had fallen yet, wind suddenly swept in from the west, harrying leaves and litter before it.

The man who got out of the decrepit, blue Buick was looking at the sky in astonishment.

Bolt after bolt of lightning pierced the clouds, seared the air, cast their blazing images in windows and automobile chrome, and with each flash came thunder that struck the day with god-size fists.

The lightning spooked Bob. When he called to Laura — "Honey, get away from the windows" — she rushed behind the counter and let him put an arm around her, probably more for his comfort than hers.

The man from the Buick hurried into the store. Looking out at the fulminous sky, he said, "You see that, man? Whew!"

The thunder faded; silence returned.

Rain fell. Fat droplets at first struck the windows without much force then came in blinding torrents that blurred the world beyond the small shop.

The customer turned and smiled. "Some show, huh?"

Bob started to respond but fell silent when he took a closer look at the man, sensing trouble as a deer might sense a stalking wolf. The guy was wearing scuffed engineer boots, dirty jeans, and a stained windbreaker half zipped over a soiled white T-shirt. His windblown hair was oily, and his face was shaded with beard stubble. He had bloodshot, fevered eyes. A junkie. Approaching the counter, he drew a revolver from his windbreaker, and the gun was no surprise.

"Gimme what's in the register, asshole."

"Sure."

"Make it quick."

"Just take it easy."

The junkie licked his pale, cracked lips. "Don't hold out on me, asshole."

"Okay, okay, sure. You got it," Bob said, trying to push Laura behind him with one hand.

"Leave the girl so I can see her! I want to see her. Now, right now, get her the fuck out from behind you!"

"Okay, just cool off."

The guy was strung out as taut as a dead man's grin, and his entire body vibrated visibly. "Right where I can see her. And don't you reach for nothin' but the cash register, don't you go reachin' for no gun, or I'll blow your fuckin' head off."

"I don't have a gun," Bob assured him. He glanced at the rain-washed windows, hoping that no other customers would arrive while the holdup was in progress. The junkie seemed so unstable that he might shoot anyone who walked through the door.

Laura tried to ease behind her father, but the junkie said, "Hey, don't move!"

Bob said, "She's only eight—"

"She's a bitch, they're all fuckin' bitches no matter how big or little." His shrill voice cracked repeatedly. He sounded even more frightened than Bob was, which scared Bob more than anything else.

Though he was focused intently on the junkie and the revolver, Bob was also crazily aware that the radio was playing Skeeter Davis singing "The End of the World," which struck him as uncomfortably prophetic. With the excusable superstition of a man being held at gunpoint, he wished fervently that the song would conclude before it magically precipitated the end of his and Laura's world.

"Here's the money, here's all of it, take it."

Scooping the cash off the counter and stuffing it into a pocket of his dirty windbreaker, the man said, "You got a storeroom in back?"

"Why?"

With one arm the junkie angrily swept the Slim Jims, Life Savers, crackers, and chewing gum off the counter onto the floor. He thrust the gun at Bob. "You got a storeroom, asshole, I know you do. We're gonna go back there in the storeroom."