Dean Koontz - Odd Thomas

I worried that one or more of them would follow us to the living room, but we reached the front door without a supernatural escort.

Speaking almost as quietly as in the girls' bedroom, I said to Viola, "One thing I better clarify. When I tell you not to go to the movies tomorrow, I mean the girls shouldn't go, either. Don't send them out with a relative. Not to the movies, not anywhere."

Viola's smooth satin brow became brown corduroy. "But my sweet babies… they weren't shot in the dream."

"No prophetic dream reveals everything that's coming. Just fragments."

Instead of merely sharpening her anxiety, the implications of my statement hardened her features with anger. Good. She needed fear and anger to stay sharp, to make wise decisions in the day ahead.

To stiffen her resolve, I said, "Even if you had seen your girls shot… God forbid, dead… you might've blocked it from your memory when you woke."

Stormy rested her hand on Viola's shoulder. "You wouldn't have wanted those images in your mind."

Tense with determination, Viola said, "We'll stay home, have a little party, just ourselves."

"I'm not sure that's wise, either," I said.

"Why not? I don't know what place that was in my dream, but I'm sure it wasn't this house."

"Remember… different roads can take you to the same stubborn fate."

I didn't want to tell her about the bodachs in her daughters' room, for then I would have to reveal all my secrets. Only Terri, the chief, Mrs. Porter, and Little Ozzie know most of the truth about me, and only Stormy knows all of it.

If too many people are brought into my innermost circle, my secret will leak out. I'll become a media sensation, a freak to many people, a guru to some. Simplicity and quiet hours will be forever beyond my reach. My life will be too complicated to be worth living.

I said to Viola, "In your dream, this house wasn't where you were gunned down. But if you were destined to be shot at the movies, and now you aren't going to the theater… then maybe Fate comes here to find you. Not likely. But not impossible."

"And in your dream, tomorrow is the day?"

"That's right. So I'd feel better if you were two steps removed from the future you saw in your nightmare."

I glanced toward the back of the house. Still no bodachs had ventured after us. I think they have no effect on this world.

Nevertheless, taking no chances with the girls' lives, I lowered my voice further. "Step one-don't go to the movies or the Grille tomorrow. Step two-don't stay here, either."

Stormy asked, "How far away does your sister live?"

"Two blocks. Over on Maricopa Lane."

I said, "I'll come by in the morning, between nine and ten o'clock, with the photo I promised. I'll take you and the girls to your sister's."

"You don't have to do that, Odd. We can get there ourselves."

"No. I want to take you. It's necessary."

I needed to be certain that no bodachs followed Viola and her daughters.

Lowering my voice to a whisper, I said, "Don't tell Levanna and Nicolina what you're going to do. And don't call your sister to say you're coming. You could be overheard."

Viola surveyed the living room, worried but also astonished. "Who could hear?"

By necessity, I was mysterious: "Certain… forces." If the bodachs overheard her planning to move the kids to her sister's house, Viola might not have taken two safe steps away from her dreamed-of fate, after all, but only one. "Do you really believe, like you said, that I know about all that's Otherly and Beyond?"

She nodded. "Yes. I believe that."

Her eyes were so wide with wonder that they scared me, for they reminded me of the staring eyes of corpses.

"Then trust me on this, Viola. Get some sleep if you can. I'll come around in the morning. By tomorrow night, this'll have been all just a nightmare, nothing prophetic about it."

I didn't feel as confident as I sounded, but I smiled and kissed her on the cheek.

She hugged me and then hugged Stormy. "I don't feel so alone anymore."

Lacking an oscillating fan, the night outside was hotter than the warm air in the little house.

The moon had slowly ascended toward the higher stars, shedding its yellow veils to reveal its true silver face. A face as hard as a clock, and merciless.

LITTLE MORE THAN AN HOUR BEFORE MIDNIGHT, WORried about a new day that might bring children in the line of gunfire, I parked the Mustang behind the Pico Mundo Grille.

When I doused the headlights and switched off the engine, Stormy said, "Will you ever leave this town?"

"I sure hope I'm not one of those who insists on hanging around after he's dead, like poor Tom Jedd out there at Tire World."

"I meant will you ever leave it while you're alive."

"Just the idea gives me hives on the brain."

"Why?"

"It's big out there."

"Not all of it is big. Lots of towns are smaller and quieter than Pico Mundo."

"I guess what I mean is… everything out there would be new . I like what I know. Considering everything else I have to deal with… I can't at the same time handle a lot of new stuff. New street names, new architecture, new smells, all new people…"

"I've always thought it would be nice to live in the mountains."

"New weather." I shook my head. "I don't need new weather."

"Anyway," she said, "I didn't mean leave town permanently. Just for a day or two. We could drive to Vegas."

"That's your idea of a smaller, quieter place? I'll bet that's a place with thousands of dead people who won't move on."

"Why?"

"People who lost everything they owned at the craps tables, the roulette wheels, then went back to their rooms and blew their brains out." I shivered. "Suicides always hang around after they're dead. They're afraid to move on."

"You have a melodramatic view of Las Vegas, odd one. The average hotel maid doesn't turn up a dozen suicides every morning."

"Bunch of guys murdered by the mob, their bodies dumped in the fresh concrete footings of new hotels. You can bet your ass they have unfinished business and plenty of postmortem rage. Besides, I don't gamble."

"That doesn't sound like the grandson of Pearl Sugars."

"She did her best to turn me into a card hustler, but I'm afraid I disappointed her."

"She taught you poker, didn't she?"

"Yeah. We used to play for pennies."

"Even just for pennies is gambling."

"Not when I played with Granny Sugars."

"She let you win? That's sweet."

"She wanted me to travel the Southwest poker circuit with her. Grandma said, 'Odd, I'm going to grow old on the road, not in a rocking chair on some damn retirement-home porch with a gaggle of farting old ladies, and I'm going to die facedown in my cards in the middle of a game, not of boredom at a tea dance for toothless retirees trying to cha-cha in their walkers.'"

"On the road," Stormy said, "would have been too much new."

"Every day, new and more new." I sighed. "But we sure would have had fun. She wanted me along to share the laughs… and if she died in the middle of a particularly rough game, she wanted me to be sure the other players didn't split her bankroll and leave her carcass in the desert as a coyote buffet."

"I understand why you didn't go on the road, but why don't you gamble?"

"Because even if Granny Sugars didn't play sloppy to give me an edge, I almost always won anyway."

"You mean because of your… gift?"

"Yeah."

"You could see what cards were coming?"

"No. Nothing that dramatic. I just have a feeling for when my hand is stronger than those of other players and when it's not. The feeling proves to be right nine times out of ten."

"That's a huge advantage at cards."