Night Chills by Dean Koontz Page B

death he had spent more time with the children than he might have done if she had lived—partly because there was something of her in Mark and Rya, and he felt that he was keeping in touch with her through them. He had learned that each of them was quite different from the other, each with his unique outlook and abilities, and he cherished their individuality. Rya would always know more about life, people, and the rules of the game than Mark would. Curious, probing, patient, seeking knowledge, she would enjoy life from an intellectual vantage point. She would know that especially intense passion—sexual, emotional, menta!—which none but the very bright ever experience. On the other hand, although Mark would face life with far less understanding than Rya, he was not to be pitied. Not for a moment! Brimming with enthusiasm, quick to laugh, overwhelmingly optimistic, he would live every one of his days with gusto. If he was denied complex pleasures and satisfactions—well, to compensate for that, he would ever be in tune with the simple joys of life in which Rya, while understanding them, would never be able to indulge herself fully without some self-consciousness. Paul knew that, in days to come, each of his children would bring him a special kind of happiness and pride—unless death took them from him.
    As if he had walked into an invisible barrier, he stopped in the middle of the trail and swayed slightly from side to side.
    That last thought had taken him completely by surprise. When he lost Annie, he had thought for a time that he had lost all that was worth having. Her death made him painfully aware that everything—even deeply felt, strong personal relationships that nothing in life could twist or destroy—was temporary, pawned to the grave. For the past three and a half years, in the back of his mind, a small voice had been telling him to be prepared for death, to expect it, and not to let the loss of Mark or Rya or anyone else, if it came, shatter him as Annie’s death had nearly done. But until now the voice had been almost subconscious, an urgent counsel of which he was only vaguely aware. This was the first time that he had let it pop loose from the subconscious. As it rose to the surface, it startled him. A shiver passed through him from head to foot. He had an eerie sense of precognition. Then it was gone as quickly as it had come.
    An animal moved in the underbrush.
    Overhead, above the canopy of trees, a hawk screamed.
    Suddenly the summer forest seemed much too dark, too dense, too wild: sinister.
    You’re being foolish, he thought. You’re no fortune teller. You’re no clairvoyant.
    Nevertheless, he hurried along the winding path, anxious to catch up with Mark and Rya.
     
    At 11:15 that morning, Dr. Walter Troutman was at the big mahogany desk in his surgery. He was eating an early lunch—two roast beef sandwiches, an orange, a banana, an apple, a cup of butterscotch pudding, and several glasses of iced tea—and reading a medical journal.
    As the only physician in Black River, he felt that he had two primary responsibilities to the people in the area. The first was to be certain that, in the event of a catastrophe at the mill or some other medical crisis, he would never find himself undernourished and in want of energy to fulfill his duties. The second was to be aware of all developments in medical techniques and theory, so that the people who came to him would receive the most modern treatment available. Scores of satisfied patients—and the reverence and affection with which the whole town regarded him—testified to his success in meeting his second responsibility. As for the first, he stood five eleven and weighed two hundred and seventy pounds.
    When an overweight patient, in the middle of one of the doctor’s lectures, had the temerity to mention Troutman’s own excess poundage, he was always countered with the same joke. “Obese? Me?” Troutman would ask, clearly astonished. “This