You Are Destined to Be Together Forever (Short Story) by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-12-08T16:00:00+00:00

Four

The stairs creaked. They always creaked when creaking could lead to your death, and they never creaked when creaking didn’t matter. The universe is anthropic, meaning that its design makes possible and sustains intelligent life, especially human beings. Nevertheless, I perceive some power, some presence, some adversary behind the scenes that by countless devices subtle or blunt seeks to destroy us. On the second floor, the master bedroom, a second bedroom, a bathroom, and a hall closet were deserted, but all the door hinges squeaked or rasped, or did both.

Two women were in the third bedroom, at the back of the house. They looked up, frightened, when I pushed open the door.

The youngest of the two was an attractive blonde in her late twenties. She was sitting on the edge of a bed, fully clothed but chained to a steel ring that had been welded to the bed frame.

The other woman fumbled with a collection of keys, trying to free the blonde from the manacle that connected her to the chain. She was gaunt, disheveled, her thin arms mottled with bruises, her right eye swollen shut. When she turned to me, terror and timidity were written large across her paper-pale face, but the tight corners of her mouth suggested determination, and in her green eyes I thought I read a wild scrawl of triumph.

In spite of the rolling pin that I carried and Stormy’s martial-arts baton, the older woman’s initial fright gave way to a kind of frantic but inconstant gladness. One moment, she seemed relieved and rejoicing, as if she had just disarmed a bomb, but an instant later, her face clouded and a frown briefly replaced her grin, as though she heard the bomb clock ticking again.

She scowled. “Who’re you? What’re you doin’ in my house?”

“There’s a dead man—” I began.

“Yeah, Kurt. He moved in on me, moved in smooth as butter. I didn’t see the snake he was till too late. Bastard Kurt, stone dead now, sick bastard, stone dead.” She grinned as though I had told her that she’d won the lottery. “I chopped on him real good, damn if I didn’t. Me, useless old Roberta, I finally done it.” She appeared to be amazed that she had been capable of killing Kurt. “I chopped him like he weren’t but a rack of ribs. Wish I’d chopped him a couple hundred times, chopped him up and down, ’fore I killed him. Wish I’d had the nerve years ago.”

Apparently Stormy decided no threat existed here, or maybe she thought I looked ridiculous as I brandished the rolling pin, because she handed me the stainless-steel baton. The emotionally fragile Roberta, struggling with the manacle lock, had begun to cry. Stormy went to her, put a hand on her shoulder as though to console her, and relieved her of the keys.

Voice trembling more with anger than with fear, the blonde said, “I was on my way to work. It wasn’t even dawn yet. He came up behind me. It happened so fast.

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