Read Online Hell's Gate by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online

that he had passed the door to his bedroom in his rush to get away from the head of the stairs, and his pistol was now out of reach. The stranger was advancing too fast for him to be able to run back to his room without being caught.
        Behind him, there was a popping, blistering sound. He looked, saw the wall to his left was pocked deeply, blackened and smoking slightly. There were chips of plaster scattered across the floor and a fine pall of dust in the air, slowly settling toward the floor like fine snow. He turned back to the intruder, found that the man was still emotionless, a cigar store statue that could not possibly possess human feelings behind that wooden face, that chiseled rock expression of blandness.
        He pointed the second finger of his right hand at Salsbury. It was capped with something that looked like bright, polished brass, though it was most certainly nothing so simple. While Salsbury was staring, the stranger flicked the finger, discharging a smooth flow of golden light, almost invisible, like hundreds of fine sequins catching the overhead light and reflecting it, refracting it. The beam missed him by inches, smashed another hole in the wall.
        Salsbury turned, leaped three steps into the bathroom, slammed and locked the door before he realized a lock was not going to be of much value against his enemy's firepower. In the next instant, the golden light struck the outer side of the door. The entire portal screeched, rattled on its hinges to produce a sound like a sack of dry bones being shaken. The thick oak bulged inwards as if it were not wood at all but some sort of woodlike plastic. Then it splintered, though it did not break clear through. It would require another shot, maybe two, to achieve that Then the portal would be in shards around Salsbury's feet; he would have nowhere to hide from the sharp blade of pretty yet deadly luminescence. He wondered, grotesquely, what the light weapon would do to human flesh. Would it pock it as it had the plaster? Leave smoking, discolored craters in his stomach and chest? Or would it splinter his flesh as it was now doing to the door, shatter him into thousands of separate slivers?
        Either way, it would kill him.
        He shook his head, angry at himself for his terror over such a simple thing as a vibrabeam. Then he stopped, astounded, at the realization that he knew what sort of weapon this futuristic thing was. For a moment, he almost lost all touch with reality, trying to cope with this new aspect of his mind. But he found that the thought had come from iron Victor, all but gone from his psyche now. Iron Victor knew that was a vibrabeam, and it scared him almost as much as it did soft Victor.
        Salsbury looked around, deciding on a course of action. He stood on the toilet seat, unhooked the single window on the outside wall, and pushed on it. It stuck, made a protesting whine, then swung outward without any screen to block it. He looked down, craning his neck to assess the bad news. Instead, it was good news. Relatively… He did not have to leap two floors to the ground, for the porch roof was only five feet away.
        The second vibrabeam blast hit the door and blew the top of it to shreds, a howitzer striking a nightgown. Twenty feet beyond, the intruder stood in the corridor, his firing arm raised, brass-capped finger pointing at the bottom half of the door. His blue eyes reflected the chandelier light, but there was no depth to that reflection. Just two blue pennies.
        Salsbury grabbed the shower rod with both hands, walked his feet up the wall, and went through the bathroom window feet first because he did not want to turn his back completely on his enemy. For a moment, he thought his hips were going to stick and deny him exit. He grunted, did a bump and grind, and was suddenly free. Next, his shoulders threatened more problems, though he worked them swiftly loose just as the bottom half of the bathroom