Dean Koontz: Odd Thomas

My beautiful Stormy stood apart, watching. I have never seen on any human face a look more loving than the one with which she favored me in that terrible moment.

Taking my hand, Little Ozzie said, "You know you've got to let her go, dear boy."

I nodded, for I could not speak.

Long after the day of which I now write, Ozzie had told me to keep the tone of this manuscript as light as possible by being an unreliable narrator, like the lead character in Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd . I have played tricks with certain verbs. Throughout, I have often written of Stormy and our future together in the present tense, as if we are still together in this life. No more.

Ozzie said, "She's here now, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"She hasn't left your side for a moment, has she?"

I shook my head.

"You don't want your love for her and hers for you to trap her here when she needs to move on."

"No."

"That's not fair to her, Oddie. Not fair to either of you."

I said, "She deserves… her next adventure."

"It's time, Oddie," said Terri, whose memory of Kelsey, her lost husband, is etched on her soul.

Trembling in fear of life without Stormy, I rose from the sofa and hesitantly went to her. She still wore her Burke amp; Bailey's uniform, of course, without the perky pink hat, yet she had never looked lovelier.

My friends had not known where she stood until I stepped before her and put one hand to her precious face. So warm to me.

The dead cannot speak, but Stormy spoke three words silently, allowing me to read her lips. / love you .

I kissed her, my dead love, so tenderly, so chastely I held her in my arms, my face buried in her hair, her throat.

After a while, she put a hand under my chin. I raised my head.

Three more words. Be happy. Persevere .

"I'll see you in service," I promised, which is what she calls the life that comes after boot camp.

Her eyes. Her smile. Now mine only in memory.

I let her go. She turned away and took three steps, fading. She looked over her shoulder, and I reached out to her, and she was gone.

THESE DAYS I LIVE ALONE IN STORMY'S APARTMENT WITH her eclectic mix of thrift-shop furniture. The old floor lamps with silk shades and beaded fringes. The Stickley-style chairs and the contrasting Victorian footstools. The Maxfield Parrish prints and the carnival-glass vases.

She never had much in this life, but with the simplest things, she made her corner of the world as beautiful as any king's palace. We may lack riches, but the greatest fortune is what lies in our hearts.

I still see dead people, and from time to time I am required to do something about it. As before, this proactive strategy often results in an unusual amount of laundry.

Sometimes, coming awake in the night, I think I hear her voice saying, Loop me in, odd one . I look for her, but she is never there. Yet she is always there. So I loop her in, telling her all that has happened to me recently

Elvis hangs out with me more than he used to. He likes to watch me eat. I have purchased several of his CDs, and we sit together in the living room, in the low silken light, and listen to him when he was young and alive and knew where he belonged.

Stormy believed that we are in this boot camp to learn, that if we don't persevere through all this world's obstacles and all its wounds, we won't earn our next life of great adventure. To be with her again, I will have the perseverance of a bulldog, but it seems to me that the training is unnecessarily hard.

My name is Odd Thomas. I am a fry cook. I lead an unusual life, here in my pico mundo, my little world. I am at peace.