Novel.62.Intensity.1995 by Koontz Dean

Author:Koontz, Dean [Koontz, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Digital, Inc.
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

Shortly after nine o’clock in the morning, after dealing with the woman and washing the flatware, Mr. Vess sets loose the dogs.

At the back door, at the front door, and in his bedroom, there are call buttons that, when pushed, sound a soft buzzer in the kennel behind the barn. When the Dobermans have been sent there with the word crib, as they were sent earlier, the buzzer is a command that at once returns them to active patrol.

He uses the call button by the kitchen door and then steps to the large window by the dinette to watch the backyard.

The sky is low and gray, still shrouding the Siskiyou Mountains, but rain is no longer falling. The drooping boughs of the evergreens drip steadily. The bark on the deciduous trees is a sodden black; their limbs—some with the first fragile green buds of spring, others still barren—are so coaly that they appear to have been stripped by fire.

Some people might think that the scene is passive now, with the thunder spent and the lightning extinguished, but Mr. Vess knows that a storm is as powerful in its aftermath as in its raging. He is in harmony with this new kind of power, the quiescent power of growth that water bestows on the land.

From the back of the barn come the Dobermans. They pad side by side for a distance, but then split up and proceed each in his own direction.

They are not on attack status at this time. They will chase down and detain any intruder, but they will not kill him. To prime them for blood, Mr. Vess must speak the name Nietzsche.

One of the dogs—Liederkranz—comes onto the back porch, where he stares at the window, adoring his master. His tail wags once, and then once again, but he is on duty, and this brief and measured display of affection is all that he will allow himself.

Liederkranz returns to the backyard. He stands tall, vigilant. He gazes first to the south, then west, and then east. He lowers his head, smells the wet grass, and at last he moves off across the lawn, sniffing industriously. His ears flatten against his skull as he concentrates on a scent, tracking something that he imagines might be a threat to his master.

On a few occasions, as a reward to the Dobermans and to keep them sharp, Mr. Vess has turned loose a captive and has allowed the dogs to stalk her, forgoing the pleasure of the kill himself. It is an entertaining spectacle.

Secure behind the screen of his four-legged Praetorian Guard, Mr. Vess goes upstairs to the bathroom and adjusts the water in the shower until it is luxuriously hot. He lowers the volume of the radio but leaves it tuned to the swing-music program.

As he strips off his soiled clothing, clouds of steam pour over the top of the shower curtain. This humidity enhances the fragrance of the dark stains in his garments. Naked, he stands for a couple of

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