Dean Koontz - Breathless

The simulacrum under the bedclothes looked like someone sleeping.

If the tormentor stepped into the room, switched on the lights, and opened fire on the fake Henry, the real Henry would return fire from the closet, killing him.

Sitting in the dark, Henry recalled the shape on the bed, under the covers. He could see it clearly in memory.

A real man lying on the bed would present exactly the same form as the pillow-and-rolled-blanket dummy. Exactly.

He knew the sleeper was nothing but pillows and blankets because earlier he arranged them under the covers. He knew. Just pillows and blankets.

Henry listened for a distant door to open. He listened for the stealthy footsteps of an intruder. He listened intently for the sound of the bedsprings adjusting to a shifting weight.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Yet.

For Cammy Rivers, the sudden recognition of the nature of the creatures’ hands was a wardrobe-to-Narnia, tornado-and-Toto moment, when the well-known land of a lifetime suddenly proved to be-to have always been-one door away, one wind away, from another reality.

The creature with the plush yellow duck found the pressure point that made the toy speak: Quack, quack.

At once, its companion answered with the purple bunny: Squeak, squeak, squeak.

Panting in anticipation of play, Merlin stood poised to move whichever way the action might go, looking from one to the other of his new friends.

Quack. Squeak, squeak. Quack, quack. Squeak.

Throughout most of her childhood, Cammy had wished desperately for a magic moment, for a wave of change to wash away the way things were, for all that seemed impossible to become possible in a wink. Having given up long ago, having been old and without dreams even before her brutal childhood ended, she now found herself on the brink of an event potentially so momentous that it seemed to have the power to put her past in a new perspective, to diminish the memory of her suffering, and to open a door through which she could step and be transformed.

Squeak. Quack. Squeak. Quack, quack, quack.

The word wonder was inadequate to describe the feeling-both emotion and sensation-that flowered in her more fully by the minute, and the right word no longer eluded her. But she feared that speaking it even to herself would jinx her, would ensure that what seemed to be momentous would turn out to be mundane.

Squeak, squeak. Quack. Squeak, squeak. Quack.

Sitting on the footstool again, Cammy remained riveted by the animals’ hands as they squeezed the toys. “No, not like monkeys. There’s over a hundred species of monkeys, some with hands instead of paws, but not all. Those with hands don’t always have thumbs.”

Grady rose from the arm of the chair behind Cammy and knelt beside the footstool on which she sat. “These guys have thumbs.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, they sure do. And some monkeys have thumbs that help them hold things. But only capuchins and one or maybe two other species can pick up things between their thumb and forefinger.”

Squeak. Quack. Squeak, squeak. Quack, quack.

One of the animals made soft chortling noises that seemed to express delight, and the two appeared to grin at each other.

Making a timpani of the floor, Merlin galloped out of the room.

“Of monkeys, only capuchins and-I think maybe-guenons can move the thumb around to touch a couple of the other fingers.”

Grady counted, “One, two, three, four,” as he moved his right thumb to each finger on his hand.

“I don’t know of any monkeys that have fully opposable and extendable thumbs, capable of such dexterity,” Cammy said. “A lot of monkeys can’t hold things with their thumb, they just press the object between their fingers and palm.”

“Anyway,” Grady said, “these guys aren’t monkeys. They don’t look anything like monkeys.”

“Definitely not monkeys,” she agreed. “Some lemurs have pretty flexible hands, but these hands aren’t like the hands of any lemur.”

“What has hands like theirs?”

“We do.”

“Besides us.”

“Nothing.”

“There must be something.”

“Yeah. There’s them.”

Having made a selection from his toy box in the kitchen, the wolfhound thundered into the living room with a plush raccoon in his mouth.

The animals on the sofa reacted to that ring-tailed treasure with interest.

Hoping to tease them into a chase, Merlin bit the raccoon, and it produced a squeak identical to that made by the purple bunny.

As if disappointed that the raccoon lacked a unique voice, the creatures returned to the examination of their toys.

“Look at the way they handle those things,” Cammy said.

“What way?”

“The way they stroke the fabric.”

“So?”

“Look at that one, Grady. Look how it likes the feel of the duck’s rubber bill.”

“Yeah, and Merlin loves to chew on it. So what?”

“The other one. See? The way it keeps rubbing its thumb across the bunny’s nose? I bet there’s something else they share with us besides the shape and function of their hands. A richness of nerve endings in the fingertips. Did you know, compared to other species, the human sense of touch is highly refined, it’s unique on Earth?”

“I didn’t know,” he admitted.

“Now you know. Unique on Earth. Or it was.”

As if tiring of the toy, one of the creatures tossed the purple bunny across the living room, where it bounced off the fireplace mantel and fell to the hearth.

Merlin dropped his raccoon and scrambled after the rabbit.

The second creature threw the duck to a far corner of the room.

The wolfhound seized the rabbit, dropped it, and plunged after the duck.

One of the animals began to pry up a sofa cushion, apparently to see what might be under it.

The other had taken an interest in Cammy. It slid to the edge of the sofa and leaned forward, staring intently.

At the centers of its beautiful golden eyes, the pupils were not black but a dark copper color.

Merlin returned with the duck. He squeaked the toy twice, but neither of the creatures wanted to play.

“Calling them ‘it’ doesn’t feel right,” Cammy said. “We ought to name them.”

“I don’t name every animal in the woods.”

“They aren’t in the woods. They’re here now.”

“Probably not for long.”

“Are you paying attention?” she asked.

“I thought I was.”

“They’ve moved in.”

“Wild animals don’t just move in.”

“Wild isn’t the right word for them. You yourself said they were almost tame, like somebody’s pets.”

“I did. I said that. You think they’re someone’s pets?”

She shook her head. “No. Not pets. But they’re something.”

“We aren’t making any progress. We’re back to the something theory.”

After discovering that neither of his new friends was in the mood for a chase, Merlin came to Cammy with the duck, squeaking it teasingly.

She rubbed his head and said, “Not right now, you big sweetie.”

Astonishment and amazement affected the heart and the mind only momentarily and couldn’t be sustained. The wonder that gripped Cammy was continuous, however, in part because the longer she observed the creatures, the more they intrigued her.

Their nostrils quivered frequently, suggesting that their nasal cavities were richly supplied with blood vessels and nerves, like the noses of dogs, and that their olfactory sense was highly developed. Their teeth were those of omnivores, quite human in shape, sharpness, and arrangement. In spite of the masking fur, their facial muscles allowed a wide range of expressions. Their toes were longer than those of humans, and the great toe appeared to be a kind of thumb, not fully opposable but functional enough to make them good climbers.