Koontz,Dean - From The Corner Of His Eye

As I wrote this book, the singular and beautiful music of the late Israel

Kamakawiwo'ole was always playing. I hope that the reader finds pleasure in my

story equal to the joy and consolation that I found in the voice, the spirit,

and the heart of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole.

As I was finishing this book, Carol Bowers and her family spent a day here,

under the auspices of the Dream Foundation. Carol, having read this book,

you'll understand why your visit, coming when it did, reinforced what I

believe about the uncanny interconnectedness of things and about the profound

and mysterious meaning in all our lives.

Each smallest act of kindness reverberates across great distances and spans of

time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source

of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it's

passed, until a simple Courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later

and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each expression of hatred, each

act of evil.

--This Momentous Day, 1-1. R. White

Nobody understands quantum theory.

-Richard Feynman

Chapter 1

BARTHOLOMEW LAMPION was blinded at the age of three, when surgeons reluctantly

removed his eyes to save him from a fast-spreading cancer, but although

eyeless, Barty regained his sight when he was thirteen.

His sudden ascent from a decade of darkness into the glory of light was not

brought about by the hands of a holy healer. No celestial trumpets announced

the restoration of his vision, 'just as none had announced his birth.

A roller coaster had something to do with his recovery, as did a seagull. And

YOU can't discount the importance of Barty's profound desire to make his

mother proud of him before her second death.

The first time she died was the day Barty was born.

January 6, 1965.

In Bright Beach, California, most residents spoke of Barty's mother, Agnes

Lampion--also known as the Pie Lady-with affection. She lived for others, her

heart tuned to their anguish and their needs. In this materialistic world, her

selflessness was cause for suspicion among those whose blood was as rich with

cynicism as with iron. Even such hard souls, however, admitted that the Pie

Lady had countless admirers and no enemies

The man who tore the Lampion family's world apart, on the night of Barty's

birth, had not been her enemy. He was a stranger, but the chain of his destiny

shared a link with theirs.

Chapter 2

JANUARY 6, 1965, shortly after eight o'clock in the morning, Agnes

had entered first-stage labor while baking six blueberry pies. This wasn't

false labor again, because the pains extended around her entire back and

across her abdomen, rather than being limited to the lower

abdomen and groin. The spasms were worse when she walked than

when she stood still or sat down: another sign of the real thing.

Her discomfort wasn't severe. The contractions were regular but widely

separated. She refused to be admitted to the hospital until she completed the

day's scheduled tasks.

For a woman in her first pregnancy, this stage of labor lasts twelve hours on

average. Agnes believed herself to be average in every regard, as comfortably

ordinary as the gray jogging suit with drawstring waist that she wore to

accommodate her baby-stretched physique; therefore, she was confident that she

wouldn't proceed to second-stage labor much sooner than ten o'clock in the

evening.

Joe, her husband, wanted to rush her to the hospital long before noon. After

packing his wife's suitcase and stowing it in the car, he canceled his

appointments and loitered in her vicinity, although he was careful to stay

always one room away from her, lest she become annoyed by his smothering

concern and chase him out of the house.

Each time that he heard Agnes groan softly or inhale with a hiss of pain, he

tried to time her contractions. He spent so much of the day studying his

wristwatch that when he glanced at his face in the foyer mirror, he expected

to see the faint reflection of a sweeping second hand clocking around and

around in his eyes.

Joe was a worrier, although he didn't look like one. Tall, strong, he could

have subbed for Samson, pulling down pillars and collapsing roofs, upon the

philistines. He was gentle by nature, however, and lacked the arrogance and

the reckless confidence of many men his size. Although happy, even jolly, he

believed that he had been too richly blessed with fortune, friends, and

family. Surely, one day fate would make adjustments to his brimming accounts.

He wasn't wealthy, merely comfortable, but he never worried about losing his

money because he could always earn more through hard work and diligence.

Instead, on restless nights, he was kept sleepless by the quiet dread of

losing those he loved. Life was like the ice on an early-winter pond: more

fragile than it appeared to be, riddled by bidden fractures, with cold

darkness below.

Besides, to Joe Lampion, Agnes was not in any way average, regardless of what

she might think. She was glorious, unique. He didn't put her on a pedestal,

because a mere pedestal didn't raise her as high as she deserved to be raised.

If ever he lost her, he would be lost, too.

Throughout the morning, Joe Lampion brooded about every known medical

complication associated with childbirth. He had learned more than he needed to

know on this subject, months earlier, from a thick medical-reference work that

had raised the hair on the back of his neck more effectively and more often

than any thriller he had ever read.

At 12:50, Unable to purge his mind of textbook descriptions of antepartum

hemorrhage, postpartum hemorrhage, and violent eclamptic convulsions, he burst

through the swinging door, into the kitchen, and announced, All right, Aggie,

enough. We've waited long enough."

At the breakfast table, she was writing notes in the gift cards that would

accompany the six blueberry pies that she had baked that morning. "I feel

fine, Joey."

Other than Aggie, no one called him Joey. He was six feet three, 230 pounds,

with a stone-quarry face that was all slabs and crags, fearsome until he spoke

in his low musical voice or until you noticed the kindness in his eyes.

"We're going to the hospital now," he insisted, looming over her at the table.

"No, dear, not yet."

Even though Aggie was just five feet three and minus the pounds of her unborn

child, less than half Joeys weight, she could not have been lifted out of the

chair, against her will, even if he'd brought with him a power winch and the

will to use it. In any confrontation with Aggie, Joey was always Samson shorn,

never Samson pre-haircut.

With a glower that would have convinced a rattlesnake to uncoil and lie as

supine an earthworm, Joey said, "Please?"

"I have pie notes to write, so Edom can make deliveries for me in the

morning."

... There's only one delivery I'm worried about."

"Well, I'm worried about seven. Six pies and one baby."

"You and your pies," He said with frustration.

"You and your worrying," She countered, favoring him with a smile that

affected his heart as sun did butter.

He sighed. "The notes, and then we go."

... Pie notes. Then Maria comes for her English lesson. And then we go."

"You're in no condition to give an English lesson."

"Teaching English doesn't require heavy lifting, dear."

She did not pause in her note writing when she spoke to him, and he watched

the elegantly formed script stream from the tip of- her ballpoint pen as

though she were but a conduit that carried the words from a higher source.

Finally, Joey leaned across the table, and Aggie looked at him through the

great silent fall of his shadow, her green eyes shining III the shade that he

cast. He lowered his raw-granite face to her porcelain features, and as if

yearning to be shattered, she raised up slightly to meet his kiss.

"I love you, is all," he said, and the helplessness in his voice exasperated

him.

"Is all?" She kissed him again. "Is everything."

"So what do I do to keep from going crazy?"

The doorbell rang.

"Answer that," she suggested.

Chapter 3

THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS of the Oregon coast raised a great green cathedral across

the hills, and the land was as hushed as any place of worship I High above,

glimpsed between the emerald spires, a hawk glided in a widening gyre, dark-

feathered angel with a taste for blood.

Here at ground level, no wildlife stirred, and the momentous day was

breathless. Luminous veils of fog still lay motionless in the deeper hollows,

where the departed night had discarded them. The only sounds were the Crunch

of crisp evergreen needles underfoot and the rhythmic breathing of experienced

hikers.

At nine o'clock that morning, Junior Cain and his bride, Naomi, had parked

their Chevy Suburban along an unpaved fire road and headed north on foot,

along deer trails and other natural pathways, into this shadowy vastness. Even

by noon, the sun penetrated only in narrow shafts that brightened most of the

woods by indirection.

When Junior was in the lead, he occasionally drew far enough of Naomi to pause

and turn and watch her as she approached him. I Her golden hair shimmered

always bright, in sunshine or shadow, and her face was that perfection of

which adolescent boys dreamed, for which grown men sacrificed honor and

surrendered fortune. Sometimes, Naomi led; following her, Junior was so

enraptured by her lithe form that he was aware of little else, oblivious of

the green vaults, the columnar trunks, the lush ferns, and the flourishing

rhododendrons.

Although Naomi's beauty might alone have captured his heart, he was equally

enchanted by her grace, her agility, her strength, and by the determination

with which she conquered the steepest slopes and the most forbiddingly stony

terrain. She approached all of life---not just hiking--with enthusiasm

passion, intelligence, courage.

They had been married fourteen months, yet dally his love grew stronger. He

was only twenty-three, and sometimes it seemed that one day his heart would be

too small to contain his feelings for her.

Other men had pursued Naomi, some better looking than Junior, many smarter,

virtually all of them richer. Yet Naomi had wanted only him, not for what he

owned or might one day acquire, but because she claimed to see in him "a

shining soul."

Junior was a physical therapist, and a good one, working mostly with accident

and stroke victims who were struggling to regain lost physical function. He

would never lack for meaningful work, but he would never own a mansion on a

hill.

Fortunately, Naomi's tastes were simple. She preferred beer to champagne,

shunned diamonds and didn't care if she ever saw Parts. She loved nature,

walks in the rain, the beach, and good books.

Hiking, she often sang softly when the trail was easy. Two of her favorite

tunes were "Somewhere over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World." I Her

voice was as pure as spring water and as warm its sunshine. Junior often

encouraged her to sing, for in her song he heard a love of life and an

infectious joy that lifted him.

Because this January day was unseasonably warm in the sixties, and because

they were too close to the coast to be in the snow zone at any altitude, they

wore shorts and T-shirts. The pleasant heat of exertion, the sweet ache of

well-tested muscles the forest air scented with pine, the tautness and grace

of Naomi's bare legs, her sweet song: This was what paradise might be like if

paradise existed.

On a day hike, not intending to camp overnight, they carried light packs-a

first-aid kit, drinking water, lunch-and thus made good time. Shortly after

noon, they came to a narrow break in the forest and stepped onto the final

coil of the serpentine fire road, which had arrived at this point by a route

different front theirs. They followed the dirt track to the summit, where it

terminated at a fire tower that was indicated oil their map by a red triangle.

The tower stood on a broad ridge line: a formidable structure of creosote-

soaked timbers, forty feet on a side at the base. The tower tapered as it

rose, though an open view deck flared out from the top. Ill the center of the

deck was an enclosed observation post with large windows.

The sod was stony and alkaline here, so tile most Impressive trees were only a

hundred feet tall, little more than half the size of many of the rain-forest

behemoths that thrived on lower slopes. At 150 feet, the tower rose high above

them.

The switchback stairs were in the center of the open framework, rising under

the tower rather than circling the exterior. Aside from a few sagging treads

and loose balusters, the staircase was in good condition, yet Junior became

uneasy when he was just two flights off the ground. He wasn't able to pinpoint

the cause of his concern, but instinct told him to be wary.

Because the autumn and winter had been rainy, the fire danger was low, and the

tower was not currently manned. In addition to its more serious function, the

structure also served as an observation platform open to any of the public

determined enough to reach it.

The steps creaked. Their footfalls echoed hollowly through this half-enclosed

space, as did their heavy breathing. None of these sounds was a reason for

alarm, and yet...

As Junior ascended behind Naomi, the wedge-shaped open spaces between the

crisscrossed framing beams grew narrower, allowing ever less daylight to

penetrate. The space under the tower platform became gloomy, though never dark

enough to require a flashlight.

The penetrating odor of creosote was now laced with the musty smell of mold or

fungus, neither of which should have been thriving in the presence of timber

treated with such pungent wood tar.

Junior paused to peer down the stairs, through the trestlework of shadows,

half expecting to discover someone stealthily climbing behind them. As far as

he could see, they were not being stalked.

Only spiders kept them company. No one had come this way in weeks, if not

months, and repeatedly they encountered daunting webs of grand design. Like

the cold and fragile ectoplasm of summoned spirits, the gossamer architecture

pressed against their faces, and so much of it clung tenaciously to their

clothes that even in the gloom, they began to look like the risen dead in

tattered gravecloth.

As the diameter of the tower shrank, the steps came in shorter and steeper

flights, finally ending at a landing only eight or nine feet below the floor

of the observation platform. From here, a ladder led up to an open trapdoor.

When Junior followed his agile wife to the top of the ladder and then through

the trap, onto the observation deck, he would have been knocked breathless by

the view if he'd not already been left gasping by the climb. From here,

fifteen stories above the highest point of the ridge and five stories above

the tallest trees, they saw a green sea of needled waves rising in eternal

ranks to the misty east and descending In timeless sets toward the real sea a

few miles to the west.

"Oh ," Eenie," she exclaimed, "It's spectacular!"

Eenie was her pet name for him. She didn't want to call him Junior as did

everyone else, and he didn't permit anyone to call him Enoch, which was his

real name. Enoch Cain. Jr.

Well, everyone had a cross to bear. At least he hadn't been born with a hump

and a third eye.

After wiping the cobwebs off each other and rinsing then- hands with bottled

water, they ate lunch. Cheese sandwiches and , little dried fruit.

While they ate, they circled the observation deck more than once, relishing

the magnificent vistas. During the second circuit, Naomi put one hand against

the railing and discovered that some of the supports were rotten.

She didn't lean her weight against the handrail and wasn't in any danger of

falling. The pickets sagged outward, one of them began to crack, and Naomi

immediately retreated from the edge of the platform to safety.

Nevertheless, Junior was so unnerved that he wanted to leave the tower at once

and finish their lunch on solid ground. He was trembling, and the dryness of

his Mouth had nothing to do with the cheese.

Quavering, his voice, and strange to his own ear: I almost lost you."

"Oh, Eenie, it wasn't even close."

... Too close, too close."

Climbing the tower, he hadn't broken out in .I sweat, but now he felt

perspiration prickle his brow.

Naomi sullied. She used her paper napkin to daub at his damp forehead. "You're

sweet. I love you, too."

He held her tightly. She felt so good in his arms. Precious.

"Let's go down," he insisted.

Slipping free of his embrace, taking a bite of her sandwich, managing to be

beautiful even while talking with her mouth full, she said, "Well, of course,

we can't go down until we see how bad the problem is."

"What problem?"

"The railing. Maybe that's the only dangerous section, but maybe the whole

things rotten. We have to know the extent of the problem when we get back to

civilization and call the forest service to report it."

"Why can't we 'just call and let them check out the rest of it?"

Grinning, she pinched his left earlobe and tugged it.

Ding dong. Anyone home? I'm taking a poll to see who knows the meaning of

civic responsibility.

He frowned. "Making the phone call is responsible enough."

"The more Information we have, the more credible we'll sound, and the more

credible we sound, the less likely they are to think we're just kids jerking

their chain."

"This is nuts."

"Brazil or hazel?"

"What',"

"If It's nuts, I don't recognize the variety." Having finished her sandwich

she licked her fingers. "Think about it, Eenie. What if some family comes up

here with their kids?"

He could never deny her anything she wanted, in part because she rarely wanted

anything for herself.

The platform encircling the enclosed observation post was about ten feet wide.

It seemed solid and safe underfoot. Structural problems were restricted to the

balustrade.

"All right," he reluctantly agreed. "But I'll check the railing, and you stay

back by the wall, where it's safe."

Lowering her voice and speaking in a Neanderthal grunt, she said, "Man fight

fierce tiger. Woman watch."

"That's the natural order of things."

Still grunting: "Man say is natural order. To woman, is just entertainment.

"Always happy to amuse, ma'am."

As Junior followed the balustrade, gingerly testing it, Naomi stayed behind

him. "Be careful, Eenie."

The weathered railing cap was rough under his band. He was more concerned

about splinters than about falling. He remained at arm's length from the edge

of the platform, moving slowly, repeatedly shaking the railing, searching for

loose or rotten pickets.

In a couple minutes, they completed a full circuit of the platform, returning

to the spot where Naomi had discovered the rotten wood. This was the only

point of weakness in the railing.

"Satisfied?" he asked. "Lets go down."

"Sure, but lets finish lunch first." She had taken a bag of-dried apricots

from her backpack.

"We ought to go down," he pressed.

Shaking two apricots from the bag into his band: "I'm not alone with this

view. Don't be a killjoy, Eenie. We know it's safe now."

"Okay." He surrendered. "But don't lean on the railing even where we know it's

all right."

"You'd make someone a wonderful mother."

"Yeah, but I'd have trouble with the breast-feeding."

They circled the platform again, pausing every few steps to gaze at the

spectacular panorama, and Junior's tension quickly ebbed. Naomi's company, as

always, was tranquilizing.

She fed him an apricot. He was reminded of their wedding reception, when they

had fed slivers of cake to each other. Life with Naomi was a perpetual

honeymoon.

Eventually they returned yet again to the section of the railing that had

almost collapsed under her hands.

Junior shoved Naomi so hard that she was almost lifted off her feet. Her eyes

flared wide, and a half-chewed wad of apricot fell from her gaping month. She

crashed backward into the weak section of railing.

For an instant, Junior thought the railing might hold, but the pickets

splintered, the handrail cracked, and Naomi pitched backward off the view

deck, in a clatter of rotting wood. She was so surprised that she didn't begin

to scream until she must have been a third of the way through her long fall.

Junior didn't hear her hit bottom, but the abrupt cessation of the scream

confirmed impact.

He had astonished himself. He hadn't realized that he was capable of cold-

blooded murder, especially on the spur of the moment, with no time to analyze

the risks and the potential benefits of such a drastic act,

After catching his breath and coming to grips with his amazing audacity,

Junior moved along the platform, past the broken-away railing. From a secure

position, he leaned out and peered down.

She was so tiny, a pale spot on the dark grass and stone. On her back. One leg

bent under her at an impossible angle. Right arm at her side, left arm flung

out as if she were waving. A radiant rumbus of golden hair fanned around her

head.

He loved her so much that he couldn't bear to look at her. He turned away from

the railing, crossed the platform, and sat with his back against the wall of

the lookout station.

For a while, he wept uncontrollably. Losing Naomi, he had lost more than a

wife, more than a friend and lover, more than a soul mate. He had lost a part

of his own physical being: He was hollow inside, as though the very meat and

bone at the core of him had been torn out and replaced by a void, black and

cold. Horror and despair racked him and he was tormented by thoughts of self-

destruction.

But then he felt better.

Not good, but definitely better.

Naomi had dropped the bag of dried apricots before she plummeted from the

tower. He crawled to it, extracted a piece of fruit, and chewed slowly,

savoring the morsel. Sweet.

Eventually he squirmed on his belly to the gap in the railing, where he gazed

straight down at his lost love far below. She was in precisely the same

position as when he'd first looked.

Of Course, he hadn't expected her to he dancing. A fifteen-story fall all but

certainly quashed the urge to boogie.

From this height, he could not see any blood. He was Sure that some blood must

have been spilled.

The air was still, no breeze whatsoever. The sentinel firs and pines stood as

motionless as those mysterious stone heads that faced the sea on Faster

Island.

Naomi dead. So alive only moments ago, now gone. Unthinkable.

The sky was the delft-blue of a tea set that his mother had owned. Mounds of

clouds to the cast, like clotted cream. Buttery, the sun.

Hungry, he ate another apricot.

No hawks above. No visible movement anywhere in this fastness.

Below, Naomi still dead.

How strange life is. How fragile. You never know what stunning development

lies around the next corner.

Junior's shock had given way to a profound sense of wonder. For most of his

young life, he had understood that the world was deeply mysterious, ruled by

fate. Now, because of this tragedy, he realized that the human mind and heart

were no less enigmatic than the rest of creation.

Who would have thought that Junior was capable of such a sudden, violent act

as this?

Not Naomi.

Not Junior himself, in fact. How passionately he had loved this woman. How

fiercely he had cherished her. He'd thought he couldn't live without her.

He'd been wrong. Naomi down there, still very dead, and him up here, alive.

His brief suicidal impulse had passed, and now he knew that he would get

through this tragedy somehow, that the pain Would eventually Subside, that the

sharp sense Of loss Would be dulled by time, and that eventually he might even

love someone again.

Indeed, in spite of his grief and anguish, he regarded the future with more

optimism, interest, and excitement than he'd felt in a long time. If he was

capable of this, then he was different from the mail he'd always imagined

himself to be, more complex, more dynamic. Wow.

He sighed. Tempting, as it was to lie here, gazing down at dead Naomi,

daydreaming about a holder and more colorful future than any that he'd

previously imagined, he had much to accomplish before the afternoon was done.

His life was going to be busy for a while.

Chapter 4

THROUGH THE ROSE-PATTERNED glasswork in the front door, as the bell rang

again, Joe saw Maria Gonzalez: tinted red here and green there, beveled in

some places and crackled in others, her face a mosaic of petals and leaf

shapes.

When Joey opened the door, Maria half bowed her head, kept her eyes lowered,

and said, "I must be Maria Gonzalez."

"Yes, Maria, I know who you are." He was, as ever, charmed by her shyness and

by her brave struggle with English.

Although Joey stepped back and held the door open wide, Maria remained on the

porch. I will to see Mrs. Agnes."

"Yes, that's right. Please come in."

She still hesitated. "For the English."

"She has plenty of that. More than I can usually cope with."

Maria frowned, not yet proficient enough in her new language to understand his

joke.

Afraid that she would think he was teasing or even mocking her, Joe gathered

considerable earnestness into his voice. "Maria, please, come in. Mi casa es

su casa."

She glanced at him, then quickly looked away.

Her timidity was only partly due to shyness. Another part of it was cultural.

She was of that class, in Mexico, that never made direct eye contact with

anyone who might be considered a patron.

He wanted to tell her that this was America, where no one was required to bow

to anyone else, where ones station at birth was not a prison, but an open

door, a starting point. This was always the land of tomorrow.

Considering Joe's great size, his rough face, and his tendency to glower when

he encountered injustice or its effects, anything he said to Maria about her

excessive self-effacement might seem to be argumentative. He didn't want to

have to return to the kitchen to inform Aggie that he had frightened away her

student.

For an awkward moment, he thought that they might remain at this impasse-Maria

staring at her feet, Joe gazing down at the top of her humbled head-until some

angel blew the horn of judgment and the dead rose from their graves to glory.

Then an invisible dog, in the form of a sudden breeze, scampered across the

porch, lashing Maria with its tall. It sniffed curiously at the threshold and,

panting, entered the house, bringing the small brown woman after it, as though

she held it oil a leash.

Closing the door, Joe said, "Aggie's in the kitchen."

Maria inspected the foyer carpet as intently as she had examined the floor of

the porch. "You please to tell her I am Maria?"

"Just go oil back to the kitchen. She is waiting for you."

"The kitchen? On myself?"

"Excuse me?"

"To the kitchen on myself?"

"By yourself," he corrected, smiling as he got her meaning. "Yes, Of Course.

You know where it is."

Maria nodded, crossed the foyer to the living-room archway turned, and dared

to meet his eyes briefly. "Thank You."

As he watched her move through the living room and disappear into the dining

room, Joe didn't at first grasp why she had thanked him.

Then he realized she was grateful that he trusted her not to steal while

unaccompanied.

Evidently, she was accustomed to being an object Of Suspicion, not because she

was unreliable, but simply because she was Maria Elena Gonzalez, who had

traveled north from Hermosillo, Mexico, in search of a better life.

Although saddened by this reminder of the stupidity and meaness of the world,

Joe refused] to dwell oil negative thoughts. Their firstborn was soon to

arrive, and years from now, he wanted to be able to recall this day as a

shining time, characterized entirely by sweet-if nervous anticipation and fly

the joy of the birth.

In the living room, he sat in his favorite armchair and tried to read

You Only Live Twice, the latest novel about James Bond. He couldn't relate to

the story. Bond had survived ten thousand threats and vanquished villains by

the hundred, but he didn't know anything about the complications that could

transform ordinary labor into a mortal trial for mother and baby.

Chapter 5

DOWN, DOWN, THROUGH the shadows and the shredded spider webs down through the

astringent creosote stink and the underlying foulness of black mold, Junior

descended the tower stairs with utmost caution. If he tripped on a loose tread

and fell and broke a leg, he might lie here for days, dying of thirst or

infection or of exposure if the weather turned cooler, tormented by whatever

predators found him helpless in the night.

Hiking into the wilds alone was never wise. He always relied on the buddy

system, sharing the risk, his buddy had been Naomi, and she wasn't here for

him anymore.

When he was all the way down, when he was out from under the tower, he hurried

toward the dirt lane. 'The car was hours away by the challenging overland

route they had taken to get here, but maybe half In hour-at most forty-five

minutes-away if he returned by the fire road.

After only a few steps, Junior halted. He dared not bring the authorities back

to this ridge top only to discover that poor Naomi, though critically injured,

was still clinging to life.

One hundred fifty feet, approximately fifteen stories, was not a fall that

anyone could be expected to Survive. On the other hand, miracles do

occasionally happen.

Not miracles in the sense of gods and angels and saints goofing around in

human affairs. Junior didn't believe in any such nonsense.

"But amazing singularities do happen," he muttered, because he had a

relentlessly mathmatical-scientific view of existence, which allowed for in

many astounding anomalies, for mysteries of astonishing the mechanical effect,

but which provided no room for the supernatural.

With more trepidation than seemed reasonable, he circled the base of the

tower. The grass and weeds tickled his bare calves. At this season, no

insects were buzzing, no gnats trying to sip at the sweat oil his brow.

Slowly, warily, he approached the crumpled form of his fallen wife.

III fourteen months of marriage, Naomi never raised her voice to him, was

never cross with him. She never looked for a fault in a person if site could

find a virtue, and she was the type who could find a virtue in everyone but

child molesters and ...well, and Murderers.

He dreaded finding her still alive, because for the first time in their

relationship, she would surely be filled with reproach. She would no doubt

have harsh, perhaps bitter, words for him, and even if he could quickly

silence her, his lovely memories of their marriage would be tarnished forever.

Henceforth, every time he thought of his golden Naomi, he would hear her

shrill accusations, see her beautiful face contorted and made ugly by anger.

How sad it would be to have so many cherished recollections spoiled forever.

He rounded the northwest corner of the tower and saw Naomi lying where he

expected her to be, not sitting tip and brushing the pine needles out of her

hair, just lying twisted and still.

Nevertheless, he halted, reluctant to go closer. He studied her from a safe

distance, squinting in the bright sunlight, alert for the slightest twitch. In

the windless, bugless, lifeless silence, he listened, half expecting her to

take Lip one of her favorite songs-" Some where over the Rainbow" or "What a

Wonderful World"-but in a thin, crushed, tuneless voice choked with blood and

rattling with broken cartilage.

He was working himself into a state, and for no good reason. She was almost

certainly dead, but he had to be sure, and to be sure, he had to take a closer

look. No way around it. A quick look and then away, away, into all eventful

and interesting future.

As soon as he stepped closer, he knew why he had been reluctant to approach

Naomi. He had been afraid that her beautiful face would be hideously

disfigured, torn and crushed.

Junior was squeamish.

He didn't like war movies or mystery flicks in which people were shot or

stabbed, or even discreetly poisoned, because they always had to show you the

body, as if you couldn't take their word for it that someone had been killed

and just get on with the plot. He preferred love stories and comedies.

He'd once picked up a Mickey Spillane thriller and been sickened by the

relentless violence. He'd almost been unable to finish the book, but he

considered it a character flaw not to complete a project that one had begun,

even if the task was to read a repulsively bloody novel.

In war movies and thrillers, he immensely enjoyed the action. The action

didn't trouble him. He was disturbed by the aftermath.

Too many moviemakers and novelists were intent on showing you the aftermath,

as if that were as important as the story itself. The entertaining part,

however, was the movement, the action, not the consequences. If you had a

runaway train scene, and the train hit a busload of nuns at a crossing,

smashing it the hell out of the way and roaring on, you wanted to follow that

train, not go back and see what had happened to the luckless nuns; dead or

alive, the nuns were history once the damn bus was slammed off the tracks, and

what mattered was the train; not consequences, but momentum.

Now, here on this sunny ridge in Oregon, miles from any train and farther

still from any nuns, Junior applied this artistic insight to his own

situation, overcame his squeamishness, and regained some momentum of his own.

He approached his fallen wife, stood over her, and stared down into her fixed

eyes as he said, "Naomi'."

He didn't know why he'd spoken her name, because at first sight of her face,

he was certain that she was dead. He detected a note of melancholy in his

voice, and he supposed that already he was missing her.

Koontz, Dean - From The Corner Of His Eye

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