The House of Thunder by Dean R. Koontz

Author:Dean R. Koontz
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Crimes Against, Psychological Fiction, Amnesiacs, Horror, Traffic Accidents, Short Stories (single author), Fiction, Medical Novels, Suspense, Amnesia, Mystery Fiction, Horror fiction, Women - Crimes Against, Women
ISBN: 9780425231470
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1982-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

The walls and ceiling were the same shade of robin’s-egg blue. Lying flat on her back on the wheeled stretcher, her head raised just a few inches by a firm little pillow, looking up, Susan almost felt as if she were suspended in the middle of a summer sky.

Jeff McGee appeared beside her. “We’re going to start with an EEG.”

“Electroencephalogram,” she said. “I never had one of those.”

“Yes, you did,” he said. “While you were in the coma. But of course you weren’t aware of it. You wouldn’t remember it. Now, don’t be afraid. It doesn’t hurt at all.”

“I know.”

“It’ll give us a look at the pattern of your brain waves. If you’ve got abnormal brain function of any kind, it’s almost sure to show up on an EEG.”

“Almost?”

“It’s not perfect.”

A nurse rolled the EEG machine out of the corner where it had been standing, and she positioned it beside Susan.

“This works best if you’re relaxed,” McGee told Susan.

“I’m relaxed.”

“It won’t be very reliable at all or easily interpreted if you’re in an emotional turmoil.”

“I’m relaxed,” she assured him.

“Let’s see your hand.”

She lifted her right hand off the stretcher’s three-inch-thick mattress.

“Hold it straight out in front of you, keeping the fingers together. Okay. Now spread the fingers wide apart.” He watched closely for a few seconds, then nodded with satisfaction. “Good. You’re not trying to fake me out. You are calmer. You aren’t trembling any more.”

As soon as they had brought her downstairs, Susan became relatively calm, for she felt that progress, however limited, was finally being made. After all, as a first-rate physicist, she could understand, appreciate, and approve of what was happening now: tests, laboratories, the scientific method, a carefully planned search for answers conducted by eliminating possibilities until the solution stood alone, exposed. She was comfortable with that process and trusted it.

She trusted Jeffrey McGee, too. She had a lot of faith in his medical abilities and confidence in his intellect. He would know what to look for, and, more importantly, he would know how to recognize it when he saw it.

The tests would provide an answer, perhaps not quickly but eventually. McGee was now taking the first tentative steps toward putting an end to her ordeal.

She was sure of it.

“Calm as a clam,” she said.

“Oyster,” he said.

“Why oyster?”

“It seems to fit you better.”

“Oh, you think I look more like an oyster than like a clam?”

“No. Pearls are found in oysters.”

She laughed. “I’ll bet you’re a shameless come-on artist in a singles’ bar.”

“I’m a shark,” he said.

McGee attached eight saline-coated electrodes to Susan’s scalp, four on each side of her head.

“We’ll take readings from both the left and the right side of the brain,” he said, “then compare them. That’ll be the first step in pinpointing the trauma.”

The nurse switched on the EEG apparatus.

“Keep your head just as you have it,” McGee told Susan. “Any sudden movement will interfere.”

She stared at the ceiling.

McGee watched the green, fluorescent screen of the EEG monitor, which was not in Susan’s line of sight.

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