Dean Koontz: Whispers

He took the large knife from the sheath on his right hip and thrust it in front of him.

"Back off," she said desperately.

"Bitch."

"I mean it."

He started toward her again.

"For God's sake," she said, "be serious. That knife's no good against a gun."

He was twelve or fifteen feet from the other side of the bed.

"I'll blow your goddamned head off."

Frye waved the knife at her, drew small rapid circles in the air with the point of the blade, as if it were a talisman and he were chasing off evil spirits that stood between him and Hilary.

And he took another step.

She lined up the forward sight with the center of his abdomen, so that no matter how high the recoil kicked her hands and no matter whether the gun pulled to the left or the right, she would hit something vital. She squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

Please, God!

He took two steps.

She stared at the pistol, stunned. She had forgotten to throw off the safety catches.

He was maybe eight feet from the other side of the bed. Maybe only six.

Swearing at herself, she thumbed the two tiny levers on the side of the pistol, and a pair of red dots appeared on the black metal. She aimed and pulled the trigger a second time.

Nothing.

Jesus! What? It can't be jammed!

Frye was so completely disassociated from reality, so thoroughly possessed by his madness, that he did not realize immediately that she was having problems with the weapon. When he finally saw what was happening, he moved in fast, while the advantage was his. He reached the bed, scrambled onto it, stood up, started straight across the mattress like a man walking a bridge of barrels, swaying on the springy surface.

She had forgotten to jack a bullet into the chamber. She did that and retreated two steps until she backed into the wall. She squeezed off a shot without taking aim, fired up at him as he loomed directly over her like a demon leaping out of a crack in hell.

The sound of the shot filled the room. It slapped off the walls and reverberated in the windows.

She saw the knife shatter, saw the fragments arc out of Frye's right hand. The sharp steel flew up and back, sparkling for a moment in the shaft of light that escaped through the open top of the bedside lamp.

Frye howled as the knife spun away from him. He fell backwards and rolled off the far side of the bed. But he was up as soon as he went down, cradling his right hand in his left.

Hilary didn't think she had hit him. There wasn't any blood. The bullet must have struck the knife, breaking it and tearing it out of his grasp. The shock would have stung his fingers worse than the crack of a whip.

Frye wailed in pain, screamed in rage. It was a wild sound, a jackal's bark, but it was definitely not the cry of an animal with its tail between its legs. He still intended to come after her.

She fired again, and he went down again. This time he stayed down.

With a little whimper of relief, Hilary sagged wearily against the wall, but she did not take her eyes off the place where he had gone down and where he now lay out of sight beyond the bed.

No sound.

No movement.

She was uneasy about not being able to see him. Head cocked, listening intently, she moved cautiously to the foot of the bed, out into the room, then around to the left until she spotted him.

He was belly-down on the chocolate-brown Edward Fields carpet. His right arm was tucked under him. His left arm was flung straight out in front, the hand curled slightly, the still fingers pointing back toward the top of his head. His face was turned away from her. Because the carpet was so dark and plush and eye-dazzlingly textured, she had some difficulty telling from a distance if there was any blood soaked into it. Quite clearly, there was not an enormous sticky pool like the one she had expected to find. If the shot had hit him in the chest, the blood might be trapped under him. The bullet might even have taken him squarely in the forehead. bringing instant death and abrupt cessation of heartbeat; in which case, there would be only a few drops of blood.

She watched him for a minute, two minutes. She could not detect any movement, not even the subtle rise and fall of his breathing.

Dead?

Slowly, timidly, she approached him.

"Mr. Frye?"

She didn't intend to get too close. She wasn't going to endanger herself, but she wanted a better look at him. She kept the gun trained on him, ready to put another round into him if he moved.

"Mr. Frye?"

No response.

Funny that she should keep calling him "Mr. Frye." After what had happened tonight, after what he had tried to do to her, she was still being formal and polite. Maybe because he was dead. In death, the very worst man in town is accorded hushed respect even by those who know that he was a liar and a scoundrel all his life. Because every one of us must die, belittling a dead man is in a way like belittling ourselves. Besides, if you speak badly about the dead, you somehow feel that you are mocking that great and final mystery--and perhaps inviting the gods to punish you for your effrontery.

Hilary waited and watched as another minute dragged past.

"You know what, Mr. Frye? I think I won't take any chances with you. I think I'll just put another bullet in you right now. Yeah. Fire a round right in the back of your head."

Of course, she wasn't able to do that. She wasn't violent by nature. She had fired the gun on a shooting range once, shortly after she bought it, but she had never killed a living thing larger than the cockroaches in that Chicago apartment. She had found the will to shoot at Bruno Frye only because he had been an immediate threat and she had been pumped full of adrenalin. Hysteria and a primitive survival instinct had made her briefly capable of violence. But now that Frye was on the floor, quiet and motionless, no more menacing than a pile of dirty rags, she could not easily bring herself to pull the trigger. She couldn't just stand there and watch as she blew the brains out of a corpse. Even the thought of it turned her stomach. But the threat of doing it was a good test of his condition. If he was faking, the possibility of her shooting pointblank at his skull ought to make him give up his act.

"Right in the head, you bastard," she said, and she fired a round into the ceiling.

He didn't flinch.

She sighed and lowered the pistol.

Dead. He was dead.

She had killed a man.

Dreading the coming ordeal with police and reporters, she edged around the outstretched arm and headed for the hall door.

Suddenly, he was not dead any more.

Suddenly, he was very much alive and moving.

He anticipated her. He'd known exactly how she was trying to trick him. He'd seen through the ruse, and he'd had nerves of steel. He hadn't even flinched!

Now he used the arm under him to push up and forward, striking at Hilary as if he were a snake, and with his left hand he seized her ankle and brought her down, screaming and flailing, and they rolled over, a tangle of arms and legs, then over again, and his teeth were at her throat, and he was snarling like a dog, and she had the crazy fear that he was going to bite her and tear open her jugular vein and suck out all of her blood, but then she got a hand between them, got her palm under his chin and levered his head away from her neck as they rolled one last time, and then they came up against the wall with jarring impact and stopped, dizzy, gasping, and he was like a great beast on her, so rough, so heavy, crushing her, leering down at her, his hideous cold eyes so frighteningly close and deep and empty, his breath foul with onions and stale beer, and he had one hand under her dress, shredding her pantyhose, trying to get his big blunt fingers under her panties and gain a grip on her sex, not a lover's grip but a fighter's grip, and the thought of the damage he might do to her softest tissues made her gag with horror, and she knew it was even possible to kill a woman that way, to reach up inside and claw and rip and pull, so she tried frantically to scratch his cobalt eyes and blind him, but he swiftly drew his head back, out of range, and then they both abruptly froze, for they realized simultaneously that she had not dropped the pistol when he had pulled her down onto the floor. It was wedged between them, the muzzle pressed firmly into his crotch--and although her finger was on the trigger guard instead of the trigger itself, she was able to slip it back a notch and put it in the proper place even as she became aware of the situation.