Dean Koontz - Lightning

Brenkshaw stitched up his patient, snipped the thread—"sutures will dissolve" — and bound the bandages in place with wide adhesive tape that he repeatedly wound around the guardian's chest and back.

The air had a pungent, medicinal smell that made Laura slightly but it did not bother Chris. He sat in the corner, happily working on another Tootsie Pop.

While waiting for the X-rays, Brenkshaw also had administered an injection of penicillin. Now he went to the tall, white, metal cabinets along the far wall and poured capsules from a large jar into a pill bottle, then from another large jar into a second small bottle. “I keep some basic drugs here, sell them to poorer patients at cost so they don't have to go broke at the pharmacy."

"What're these?" Laura asked when he returned to the examination table, where she stood, and gave her the two small plastic

"More penicillin in this one. Three a day, with meals — if he can take meals. I think he'll come around soon. If he doesn't he'll begin to dehydrate, and he'll need intravenous fluid. Can't give him liquid by mouth when he's in a coma — he'd choke. This other is a painkiller. Only when needed, and no more than two a day."

"Give me more of these. In fact give me your whole supply." She pointed to two quart jars that contained hundreds of both capsules.

"He won't need that much of either one. He — "

"No, I'm sure he won't," she said, "but I don't know what the hell other problems we're going to have. We may need both penicillin and painkillers for me — or my boy."

Brenkshaw stared at her for a long moment. "What in the name of God have you gotten into? It's like something in one of your books."

"Just give me — " Laura stopped, stunned by what he had said. "Like something in one of my books? In one of my books! Oh, my God, you know who I am."

"Of course. I've known almost from the moment I saw you on the porch. I read thrillers, as I said, and although your books aren't strictly in that genre, they're very suspenseful, so I read them, too, and your photograph's on the back of the jacket. Believe me, Ms. Shane, no man would forget your face once he'd seen it, even if he'd seen it only in pictures and even if he was an old crock like me."

"But why didn't you say — "

"At first I thought it was a joke. After all, the melodramatic way you appeared on my doorstep in the dead of night, the gun, the corny, hard-boiled dialogue… it all seemed like a gag. Believe me, I have certain friends who might think of such an elaborate hoax and, if they knew you, might be able to persuade you to join in the fun."

Pointing to her guardian, she said, "But when you saw him—"

"Then I knew it was no joke," the physician said.

Hurrying to his mother's side, Chris pulled the Tootsie Pop from his mouth. "Mom, if he tells on us. "

Laura had drawn the.38 from her waistband. She began to raise it, then lowered her hand as she realized the gun no longer had any power to intimidate Brenkshaw; in fact it had never frightened him. For one thing she now realized he was not the kind of man who could be intimidated, and for another thing she could not convincingly portray a lawless, dangerous woman when he knew who she really was.

On the examination table her guardian groaned and tried to shift in his unnatural sleep, but Brenkshaw put a hand upon his chest and stilled him.

"Listen, Doctor, if you tell anyone what happened here tonight, if you can't keep my visit a secret for the rest of your life, it'll be the death of me and my boy."

"Of course the law requires a physician to report any gunshot wounds he treats."

"But this is a special case," Laura said urgently. "I'm not on the run from the law, Doctor."

"Who are you running from?"

"In a sense. from the same men who killed my husband, Chris's father."

He looked surprised and pained. "Your husband was killed?"

"You must've read about it in the papers," she said bitterly. "It made a sensational story there for a while, the kind of thing the press loves."

"I'm afraid I don't read newspapers or watch television news," Brenkshaw said. "It's all fires, accidents, and crazed terrorists. They don't report real news, just blood and tragedy and politics. I'm sorry about your husband. And if these people who killed him, whoever they are, want to kill you now, you should go straight to the police."

Laura liked this man and thought they shared more views and sympathies than not. He seemed reasonable, kind. Yet she had little hope of persuading Brenkshaw to keep his mouth shut. "The police can't protect me, Doctor. No one can protect me except me — and maybe the man whose wounds you just sewed up. These people who’re after us… they're relentless, implacable, and they're

He shook his head. "No one is beyond the law."

"They are, Doctor. It'd take me an hour to explain to you why they are. and then you probably wouldn't believe me. But I beg of you, unless you want our deaths on your conscience, keep your mouth shut about our being here. Not just for a few days but forever."

"Well…"

Studying him, she knew it was no use. She remembered what he had told her in the foyer earlier, when she had warned him not to lie about the presence of other people in the house: He did not lie. he said, because always telling the truth made life simpler; telling the truth was a lifelong habit. Hardly forty-five minutes later, she knew him well enough to believe that he was indeed an unusually truthful f man. Even now, as she begged him to keep their visit secret, he was I not able to tell the lie that would placate her and get her out of his office. He stared at her guiltily and could not tease the falsehood from his tongue. He would do his duty when she left; he would file a police report. The cops would look for her at her house near Big Bear, where they would discover the blood if not the bodies of the time travelers, and where they would find hundreds of expended bullets, shattered windows, slug-pocked walls. By tomorrow or the next day the story would be splashed across the newspapers.

The airliner that had flown overhead more than half an hour ago might not have been a passing jet, after all. It might well have been what she had first thought it was — very distant thunder, fifteen or twenty miles away.

More thunder on a night without rain.

"Doctor, help me get him dressed," she said, indicating her guardian on the table beside them. "Do at least that much for me, since you're going to betray me later."

He winced visibly at the word betray.

Earlier she'd sent Chris upstairs to get one each of Brenkshaw's shirts, sweaters, jackets, slacks, a pair of his socks, and shoes. The physician was not as muscular and trim as her guardian, but they were approximately the same size.

At the moment the wounded man was wearing only his bloodstained pants, but Laura knew there would not be time to put all the clothes on him. "Just help me get him into the jacket, Doctor. I'll take the rest and dress him later. The jacket will be enough to protect him from the cold."

Reluctantly lifting the unconscious man into a sitting position on the examination table, the doctor said, "He shouldn't be moved." Ignoring Brenkshaw, struggling to pull the wounded man's right arm through the sleeve of the warmly lined corduroy jacket, Laura said. "Chris, go to the waiting room at the front of the house. It's dark in there. Don't turn on the lights. Go to the windows and give the street a good looking over, and for God's sake don't let yourself be seen."

"You think they're here?" the boy asked fearfully. "If not now, they will be soon," she said, working her guardian's left arm through the other jacket sleeve.

"What're you talking about?" Brenkshaw asked, as Chris dashed into the adjoining office and on into the dark waiting room. Laura didn't answer. "Come on, let's get him in the wheel-chair.