Dean Koontz - Lost Souls

Although he could develop no theory of his own that made sense, Bryce resisted the boy’s fantastic explanation, even as he pretended to consider it seriously. Gazing out the window, across the roofs of the town to the foothills and mountains, he didn’t believe that a flying saucer had landed in the Treasure State, and he doubted that one ever would.

Turning to the boy again, he said, “I need to poke around some more, see what else might be amiss, talk to another patient or two and find out if they have stories to tell.”

Sitting up straighter in bed, hands fisted against his chest, Travis said, “Don’t leave me here.” He was obviously embarrassed to admit his fear of being alone; he was nine, after all, and thought himself almost grown.

“I’m not leaving you,” Bryce assured him. “I’ll be back. I just need to scout the territory some.”

The drowned sun pressed its smothered glow through fathoms of clouds, but no longer had the strength to penetrate the windows and brighten the room. Energy-efficient bulbs produced hard light that made everything appear flat and cheerless.

Without the more nuanced sunlight, the boy seemed to have turned a whiter shade of pale. When his face had swollen during the episodes of anaphylactic shock, the tissue around his eyes had sustained light bruises that now lent him a gaunt quality. He said, “We can scout the territory together.”

“No, son, that won’t work. If it’s just me, I appear to be a restless and lonely old man hoping to find some cordial company. If it’s the two of us, we’ll look like what we are-a suspicious pair nosing about in search of proof to support our worst fears. And if your worst fear is true, then the last thing we want them to think is that we’re suspicious.”

Travis thought about that, and nodded. “Don’t be gone long.”

“I won’t.”

“And when you come back-”

“I will come back.”

“-how will I know it’s you?”

“It’ll be me, Travis. Don’t you worry.”

“But how will I know?”

“You knew I was real when I first came in here. You’ll know the next time, too.”

Bryce crossed the room to the door. He glanced back at Travis and gave him two thumbs up.

The boy did not return the gesture. He looked grim.

After maybe two minutes, standing at the window in the LaPierre house and watching Nummy’s house through binoculars, Mr. Lyss said, “Both squad cars are leaving, but there’s only one cop in each. Two of them have holed up in your place.”

“What do they want in my place?” Nummy wondered.

“They want you, Peaches. They want to haul you back to the jail and throw you in the cell with that thing, so it can crunch you into mush.”

“That’s not fair, is it? I never done nothing to them.”

Turning away from the window and putting aside the binoculars, Mr. Lyss said, “It’s not what you’ve done, it’s what you’ve seen. They can’t let you run around loose after what you saw happen in that cell.”

“I don’t know what it was I seen. What happened to them people was ugly, scary, but I couldn’t tell nobody because I don’t know how to tell it. Anyway, people they wouldn’t believe me because of how I am. I’m a dummy, you know.”

“I had my suspicions that you are,” Mr. Lyss said as he returned to the bureau to select a sweater.

Nummy sat on the edge of Poor Fred’s bed. “I keep seeing the lady.”

“What lady?”

“The one she reached through the bars, asked me could I save her. I feel sad I didn’t.”

“You’re a dummy. Dummies aren’t smart enough to save people. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re not a dummy.”

“No, I’m not. But I couldn’t save her, either. I’m a bad man. I’m the worst of bad men. Bad men don’t save people.” He turned from the bureau, holding up a red sweater with orange and blue stripes. “What about this one?”

“It’s awful bright, sir.”

“You’re right. I don’t want to attract attention.” He threw the sweater on the floor.

“Why are you a bad man?” Nummy asked.

“Because that’s what I’m really good at being,” Mr. Lyss said, throwing more clothes on the floor.

“How did you get good at it?”

“Natural talent.”

“Is your whole family bad people?”

Mr. Lyss showed him a light-brown sweater with checkers that were a little darker brown. “You think I’ll look good in this?”

“I told you true how I can’t lie.”

Frowning at the sweater, Mr. Lyss said, “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing wrong with it, sir.”

“Ah. I see. So you’re saying I’m such an ugly lump I won’t look good in anything.”

“I don’t want to say that.”

Mr. Lyss put the sweater on a chair. From the closet, he took a pair of khaki pants and put them with the sweater.

“What are we doing next?” Nummy asked.

Taking socks and underwear from another drawer, the old man said, “If we go out the front or back door, there’s a risk one of the cops at your place will look this way. So we either go out a window, keeping this place between us and them, or we wait till dark.”

“What about Norman?”

“I’m still thinking about you. It makes no sense bringing you, but I’m thinking. Don’t push me about it.”

“I mean my dog, Norman.”

“Don’t worry about him. He’s fine.”

“He’s over there alone with them.”

“What’re they going to do, take him to the pound and gas him? He’s a toy dog. You’re as dumb as dumb gets, but don’t be stupid.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say you’re sorry all the time. What’ve you got to be sorry about? Tell me-do I stink?”

“It’s not nice telling people their faults.”

“Take a walk on the wild side. Go ahead. Tell me if I stink.”

“Some people they might like the way you smell.”

“Who? What people? What the hell kind of people would like the way I smell?”

“You must like it. So other people like you, they’d like it.”

Gathering the clothes he had chosen, Mr. Lyss said, “I’m going to take a shower before I change. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”

Nummy followed the old man into the hallway, to the door of the bathroom. “What if you’re showering, the doorbell rings?”

“Don’t answer it.”

“What if the phone rings?”

“Don’t answer it.”

“What if Mrs. Trudy LaPierre comes back?”

“She won’t.”

“What if-”

Mr. Lyss turned on Nummy, and his face twisted up so he looked every bit like the worst kind of bad man that he claimed to be. “Stop badgering me! Stay away from the windows and sit somewhere with your head up your butt till I tell you to take it out, you clueless, useless, fumbling, flat-footed retard!”

The old man stepped into the bathroom and slammed shut the door.

For a moment, Nummy stood there, wanting to ask a couple of questions through the door, but he decided that would be a bad idea.

Instead, he went into the kitchen. He circled the room, studying everything.

He said aloud, “Faster is disaster. Easy and slow makes it all go just so. Think it through double, you’ll stay out of trouble.”

The phone didn’t ring.

Nobody rang the doorbell.

Everything was going to be all right.

When Bryce came out of Room 218, no one manned the nurses’ station. Her back to him, Doris Makepeace proceeded to the farther end of the main wing and disappeared into a patient’s room.