Dean Koontz - By the Light of the Moon

'Pee,' Shep said, growing anxious in his stall. 'Dylan, pee. Dylan, Dylan. Pee! '

'Pee,' Dylan replied.

Shep's spoken pee served a purpose similar to that of a signal broadcast by submarine sonar apparatus, and Dylan's response was equivalent to the return ping that signified the echolocation of another vessel, in this case a known and friendly presence in the scary depths of the men's room.

'Pee,' said Shep.

'Pee,' Dylan replied…

In the mirrored wall above the urinals, Dylan observed the retiree's reaction to this verbal sonar.

'Pee, Dylan.'

'Pee, Shepherd.'

Puzzled and uneasy, Mr. Muttonchops looked back and forth from the closed stall to Dylan, to the stall, as if something not only strange but also perverse might be unfolding here.

'Pee.'

'Pee.'

When Mr. Muttonchops realized that Dylan was watching him, when their eyes met in the mirror above the urinals, the retiree quickly looked away. He turned off the water at the sink, without rinsing the orange-scented lather off his hands.

'Pee, Dylan.'

'Pee, Shepherd.'

Dripping frothy suds from his fingers, shedding iridescent bubbles that floated in his wake and settled slowly to the floor, the retiree went to a wall dispenser and cranked out a few paper towels.

At last came the sound of Shepherd's healthy stream.

'Good pee,' said Shep.

'Good pee.'

Reluctant to pause long enough to dry his soapy hands, the man fled the lavatory with the wad of paper towels.

Dylan went to a different sink from the one that the retiree had used – and then had an idea that led him to the towel dispenser.

'Pee, pee, pee,' Shep said happily, with great relief.

'Pee, pee, pee,' Dylan echoed, returning with a towel to the retiree's sink.

Shielding his right hand with the paper towel, he touched the faucet that the retiree had so recently shut off. Nothing. No fizz. No crackle.

He touched the fixture barehanded. Lots of fizz and crackle.

Again with the paper towel. Nothing.

Skin contact was required. Maybe not just hands. Maybe an elbow would work. Maybe feet. All sorts of ludicrous comic possibilities occurred to him.

'Pee.'

'Pee.'

Dylan rubbed the faucet vigorously with the towel, scrubbing away the soap and water that the retiree had left on the handle.

Then he touched it with his bare hand once more. The senior citizen's psychic spoor remained as strong as it had been previously.

'Pee.'

'Pee.'

Evidently, this latent energy couldn't simply be wiped away as fingerprints could be, but it dissipated gradually on its own, like an evaporating solvent.

At another sink, Dylan washed his hands. He was drying them near the towel dispenser when Shepherd came out of the fourth stall and went to the sink that his brother had just used.

'Pee,' Shepherd said.

'You can see me now.'

'Pee,' Shep insisted as he turned on the water.

'I'm right here.'

'Pee.'

Refusing to be drawn into the sonar game when they were within sight of each other, Dylan tossed his crumpled towels in the waste can, and waited.

A riot of bizarre thoughts tumbled through his head, like an immense load of colorful laundry in a laundromat-size clothes dryer. One of those thoughts was that Shep had gone into the first stall but had come out of the fourth.

'Pee.'

Dylan went to the fourth stall. The door stood ajar, and he shouldered it open.

Partitions separated the stalls, with twelve or fourteen inches of air space at the bottom. Shepherd could have dropped flat on the floor and wriggled from stall one to number four, under intervening partitions. Possible but highly unlikely.

'Pee,' Shep repeated, but with less enthusiasm, reluctantly coming to the conclusion that his brother would not participate any longer.

As fastidious about personal cleanliness as he was about the geometrical presentation of his meals, Shep had a post-toilet routine from which he never deviated: vigorously scrub the hands once, rinse them thoroughly, then scrub and rinse again. Indeed, as Dylan watched, Shep began the second scrub.

The kid had a special concern about the sanitary conditions in public lavatories. He regarded even the most well-maintained restroom with paranoid suspicion, certain that all known diseases and some not yet discovered were busily festering on every surface. Having read the American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine , Shep could recite a list of virtually all known diseases and infections if you were foolish enough to ask him to do so, and if he happened to be relating to the outer world well enough to hear your request – and if you had a sufficient number of hours to listen, since he would be all but impossible to stop once he got started.

Now, with the second rinse completed, Shep's hands were red from excessive scrubbing and from water turned up so hot that he'd hissed in discomfort as he had endured it. Mindful of the deadly and cunning microorganisms hiding in plain sight on the chrome faucet handle, he turned the water off with his elbow.

Dylan could not imagine any circumstances under which Shepherd would lie facedown on a lavatory floor and slither under a series of partitions between toilet stalls. In fact, if it ever were to happen, you could be certain that simultaneously, in a sporting-goods store somewhere, Satan would be buying ice skates.

Besides, his white T-shirt remained immaculate. He hadn't been mopping the floor with it.

Holding his hands high, like a surgeon expecting an assisting nurse to sheath them in latex gloves, Shep crossed the room to the towel dispenser. He waited for his brother to turn the crank, which he would not touch with clean hands.

'Didn't you go into the first stall?' Dylan asked.

Head lowered in his customary shy posture, but also cocked so he could look up sideways at the towel machine, Shepherd frowned at the handle and said, 'Germs.'

'Shep, when we came in here, didn't you go straight into the first stall?'

'Germs.'

'Shep?'

'Germs.'

'Hey, come on, listen to me, buddy.'

'Germs.'

'Give me a break, Shep. Will you listen to me, please?'

'Germs.'

Dylan cranked out a few towels, tore them off the perforated roll, and handed them to his brother. 'But then didn't you come out of the fourth stall?'

Scowling at his hands, drying them energetically, obsessively, instead of merely blotting them on the paper, Shep said, 'Here.'

'What'd you say?'

'Here.'

'What do you hear?'

'Here.'

'I don't hear anything, little bro.'

'H-e-r-e,' Shep spelled with some effort, as if pronouncing each letter at an emotional cost.

'What do you want, bro?'

Shep trembled. 'Here.'

'Here what?' Dylan asked, seeking clarification even though he knew that clarification wasn't likely to be granted.

'There,' said Shep.

'There?' Dylan asked.

'There,' Shep agreed, nodding, though continuing to focus intently on his hands, still trembling.

'There where?'

'Here.' The note in Shep's voice might have been impatience.

'What're we talking about, buddy?'

'Here.'

'Here,' Dylan repeated.

'There,' said Shep, and what had seemed to be impatience matured instead into a strained note of anxiety.

Trying to understand, Dylan said, 'Here, there.'

'Here, th-th-there,' Shep repeated with a shudder.

'Shep, what's wrong? Shep, are you scared?'

'Scared,' Shep confirmed. 'Yeah. Scared. Yeah.'

'What're you scared of, buddy?'

'Shep is scared.'

'Of what?'

'Shep is scared,' he said, beginning to shake more violently. 'Shep is scared.'

Dylan put his hands on his brother's shoulders. 'Easy, easy now. It's okay, Shep. There's nothing to be scared about. I'm right here with you, little bro.'