Read Online The House of Thunder by Dean Koontz - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dean Koontz
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a wink, and the threat was all in my head?”
“Don’t you figure that’s probably the case?” he asked diplomatically.
She sighed. “Yeah, I guess I do. And I suppose I should apologize for causing so much trouble about this.”
“It wasn’t any trouble,” he said graciously.
“I’m awfully tired, weak, and my perceptions aren’t as sharp as they should be. Last night, I dreamed about Harch, and when I saw that man step out of the elevator, looking so much like Harch, I just ... lost my head. I panicked.”
That was a difficult admission for her to make. Other people might act like Chicken Little at the slightest provocation, but Susan Kathleen Thorton expected herself to remain—and previously always had remained—calm and collected through any crisis that fate threw at her. She had been that way since she was just a little girl, for the circumstances of her lonely childhood had required her to be totally self-reliant. She hadn’t even panicked in the House of Thunder, when Ernest Harch had kicked in Jerry’s skull; she had run, had hidden, had survived—all because she had kept her wits about her at a time when most people, if thrust into the same situation, would surely have lost theirs. But now she had panicked; worse, she had let others see her lose control. She felt embarrassed and humbled by her behavior.
“I’ll be a model patient from now on,” she told Dr. McGee. “I’ll take my medicine without argument. I’ll eat real well, so I’ll regain my strength just as quickly as possible. I’ll exercise when I’m told to and only as much as I’m told to. By the time I’m ready to be discharged, you’ll have forgotten all about the scene I caused today. In fact you’ll wish that all of your patients were like me. That’s a promise.”
“I already wish all of my patients were exactly like you,” he said. “Believe me, it’s much more pleasant treating a pretty young woman than it is treating cranky old men with heart conditions.”
After McGee had gone for the day, Susan arranged with one of the orderlies to have a rental television installed in her room. As afternoon faded into evening, she watched the last half of an old episode of “The Rockford Files,” then the umpteenth rerun of an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” In spite of frequent bursts of storm-caused static, she watched the five o’clock news on a Seattle station, and she was dismayed to discover that the current international crises were pretty much the same as the international crises that had been at the top of the news reports more than three weeks ago, before she had fallen into a coma.
Later, she ate all the food on her dinner tray. Later still, she rang for one of the second-shift nurses and asked for a snack. A pert blonde named Marcia Edmonds brought her a dish of sherbet with sliced peaches. Susan ate all of that, too.
She tried not to think about Bill Richmond, the Harch look-alike. She tried not to think about the House of Thunder, or about the precious days she had lost in a coma, or about the remaining gaps in her memory, or about her current state of helplessness, or about anything else that might upset her. She concentrated on being a good patient and developing a positive attitude, for she was eager to get well again.
Nevertheless, an unspecific but chilling presentiment of danger disturbed her thoughts from time to time. A shapeless portent of evil.
Each time that her thoughts turned into that dark pathway, she forced herself to think only of pleasing things. Mostly, she thought about Dr. Jeffrey McGee: the grace with which he moved; the ear-pleasing timbre of his voice; the sensitivity and the intriguing scintillation of his exceptionally blue eyes; his strong, well-formed, long-fingered hands.
Near bedtime, after she had taken the sedative that McGee had prescribed for her, but before she had begun to get drowsy, the rain stopped falling. The wind, however, did not die down. It
“Don’t you figure that’s probably the case?” he asked diplomatically.
She sighed. “Yeah, I guess I do. And I suppose I should apologize for causing so much trouble about this.”
“It wasn’t any trouble,” he said graciously.
“I’m awfully tired, weak, and my perceptions aren’t as sharp as they should be. Last night, I dreamed about Harch, and when I saw that man step out of the elevator, looking so much like Harch, I just ... lost my head. I panicked.”
That was a difficult admission for her to make. Other people might act like Chicken Little at the slightest provocation, but Susan Kathleen Thorton expected herself to remain—and previously always had remained—calm and collected through any crisis that fate threw at her. She had been that way since she was just a little girl, for the circumstances of her lonely childhood had required her to be totally self-reliant. She hadn’t even panicked in the House of Thunder, when Ernest Harch had kicked in Jerry’s skull; she had run, had hidden, had survived—all because she had kept her wits about her at a time when most people, if thrust into the same situation, would surely have lost theirs. But now she had panicked; worse, she had let others see her lose control. She felt embarrassed and humbled by her behavior.
“I’ll be a model patient from now on,” she told Dr. McGee. “I’ll take my medicine without argument. I’ll eat real well, so I’ll regain my strength just as quickly as possible. I’ll exercise when I’m told to and only as much as I’m told to. By the time I’m ready to be discharged, you’ll have forgotten all about the scene I caused today. In fact you’ll wish that all of your patients were like me. That’s a promise.”
“I already wish all of my patients were exactly like you,” he said. “Believe me, it’s much more pleasant treating a pretty young woman than it is treating cranky old men with heart conditions.”
After McGee had gone for the day, Susan arranged with one of the orderlies to have a rental television installed in her room. As afternoon faded into evening, she watched the last half of an old episode of “The Rockford Files,” then the umpteenth rerun of an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.” In spite of frequent bursts of storm-caused static, she watched the five o’clock news on a Seattle station, and she was dismayed to discover that the current international crises were pretty much the same as the international crises that had been at the top of the news reports more than three weeks ago, before she had fallen into a coma.
Later, she ate all the food on her dinner tray. Later still, she rang for one of the second-shift nurses and asked for a snack. A pert blonde named Marcia Edmonds brought her a dish of sherbet with sliced peaches. Susan ate all of that, too.
She tried not to think about Bill Richmond, the Harch look-alike. She tried not to think about the House of Thunder, or about the precious days she had lost in a coma, or about the remaining gaps in her memory, or about her current state of helplessness, or about anything else that might upset her. She concentrated on being a good patient and developing a positive attitude, for she was eager to get well again.
Nevertheless, an unspecific but chilling presentiment of danger disturbed her thoughts from time to time. A shapeless portent of evil.
Each time that her thoughts turned into that dark pathway, she forced herself to think only of pleasing things. Mostly, she thought about Dr. Jeffrey McGee: the grace with which he moved; the ear-pleasing timbre of his voice; the sensitivity and the intriguing scintillation of his exceptionally blue eyes; his strong, well-formed, long-fingered hands.
Near bedtime, after she had taken the sedative that McGee had prescribed for her, but before she had begun to get drowsy, the rain stopped falling. The wind, however, did not die down. It
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