01 Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9780553584493
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2004-10-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 28

WHEN WE GOT OUT OF THE MUSTANG, THE familiar alleyway dwindled north and south into deeper gloom than I recalled from other nights, little-revealed by moonlight, obscured by moonshadows.

Above the back entrance to the restaurant kitchen, a security lamp glowed. Yet the darkness seemed to press toward it rather than to shrink away.

Uncovered stairs led to a second-floor landing and the door to Terri Stambaugh's apartment. Light shone behind the curtains.

At the top of the steps, Stormy pointed at the northern sky "Cassiopeia."

Star by star, I identified the points of the constellation.

In classic mythology, Cassiopeia was the mother of Andromeda. Andromeda was saved from a sea monster by the hero Perseus, who also slew the Gorgon Medusa.

No less than the fabled Andromeda, Stormy Llewellyn, daughter of another Cassiopeia, is stellar enough to deserve a constellation named for her. I have slain no Gorgons, however, and I am no Perseus.

Terri answered the door when I knocked, accepted the car keys, and insisted that we come in for coffee or a nightcap.

Light from two candles throbbed pleasantly over the kitchen walls as cool drafts of conditioned air teased the flames. Terri had been sitting at the table when I knocked. A small glass of peach brandy stood on the red-and-white-checkered oilcloth.

As always, the background music of her life was Elvis: this time, "Wear My Ring Around Your Neck."

We had known that she would expect us to visit for a while, which is why Stormy hadn't waited at the bottom of the stairs.

Terri sometimes suffers from insomnia. Even if sleep slips upon her with ease, the nights are long.

When the CLOSED sign is hung on the front door of the Grille at nine o'clock and after the last customer leaves between nine and ten, whether Terri is drinking decaf coffee or something stronger, she opens as well a bottle of loneliness.

Her husband, Kelsey, her high-school sweetheart, has been dead for nine years. His cancer had been relentless, but being a fighter of uncommon determination, he had taken three years to die.

When his malignancy was diagnosed, he swore that he would not leave Terri alone. He possessed the will but not the power to keep that oath.

In his final years, because of the unfailing good humor and the quiet courage with which Kelsey waged his long mortal battle, Terri's love and respect for him, always deep, had grown profound.

In a way, Kelsey had kept his promise never to leave her. His ghost does not linger around the Grille or anywhere else in Pico Mundo. He lives vividly in her recollections, however, and his memory is etched on her soul.

After three or four years, her grief had matured into a settled sorrow. I think she has been surprised that even after arriving at an acceptance of her loss, she has had no desire to mend the tear in her heart. The hole that Kelsey left has become more comforting to her than any patch with which she could close it.

Her fascination with Elvis, his life and music, began nine years ago, when she was thirty-two, the same year that Kelsey died.

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