Phantoms by Dean Koontz

at ten o’clock. Ten goddamned o’clock! It’s not fair for Hammond to pull me for this Snowfield crap. And me with a hot number all lined up.”
    Frank didn’t take the bait. He didn’t ask who Wargle had a date with. He just drove the car and kept his eyes on the road and hoped that Wargle wouldn’t tell him who this “hot number” was.
    “She’s a waitress over at Spanky’s Diner,” Wargle said. “Maybe you seen her. Blond broad. Name’s Beatrice; they call her Bea.”
    “I seldom stop at Spanky’s,” Frank said.
    “Oh. Well, she don’t have a half-bad face, see. One hell of a set of knockers. She’s got a few extra pounds on her, not much, but she thinks she looks worse than she does. Insecurity, see? So if you play her right, if you kind of work on her doubts about herself, see, and then if you say you want her, anyway, in spite of the fact that she’s let herself get a little pudgy—why, hell, she’ll do any damned thing you want. Anything.”
    The slob laughed as if he had said something unbearably funny.
    Frank wanted to punch him in the face. Didn’t.
    Wargle was a woman-hater. He spoke of women as if they were members of another, lesser species. The idea of a man happily sharing his life and innermost thoughts with a woman, the idea that a woman could be loved, cherished, admired, respected, valued for her wisdom and insight and humor—that was an utterly alien concept to Stu Wargle.
    Frank Autry, on the other hand, had been married to his lovely Ruth for twenty-six years. He adored her. Although he knew it was a selfish thought, he sometimes prayed that he would be the first to die, so that he wouldn’t have to handle life without Ruth.
    “That fuckin’ Hammond wants my ass nailed to a wall. He’s always needling me.”
    “About what?”
    “Everything. He don’t like the way I keep my uniform. He don’t like the way I write up my reports. He told me I should try to improve my attitude. Christ, my attitude! He wants my ass, but he won’t get it. I’ll hang in five more years, see, so I can get my thirty-year pension. That bastard won’t squeeze me out of my pension.”
    Almost two years ago, voters in the city of Santa Mira approved a ballot initiative that dissolved the metropolitan police, putting law enforcement for the city into the hands of the county sheriff’s department. It was a vote of confidence in Bryce Hammond, who had built the county department, but one provision of the initiative required that no city officers lose their jobs or pensions because of the transfer of power. Thus, Bryce Hammond was stuck with Stewart Wargle.
    They reached the Snowfield turnoff.
    Frank glanced in the rearview mirror and saw the third patrol car pull out of the three-car train. As planned, it swung across the entrance to Snowfield road, setting up a blockade.
    Sheriff Hammond’s car continued on toward Snowfield, and Frank followed it.
    “Why the hell did we have to bring water?” Wargle asked.
    Three five-gallon bottles of water stood on the floor in the back of the car.
    Frank said, “The water in Snowfield might be contaminated.”
    “And all that food we loaded into the trunk?”
    “We can’t trust the food up there, either.”
    “I don’t believe they’re all dead.”
    “The sheriff couldn’t raise Paul Henderson at the substation.”
    “So what? Henderson’s a jerk-off.”
    “The doctor up there said Henderson’s dead, along with—”
    “Christ, the doctor’s off her nut or drunk. Who the hell would go to a woman doctor, anyway? She probably screwed her way through medical school.”
    “What?”
    “No broad has what it takes to earn a degree like that!”
    “Wargle, you never cease to amaze me.”
    “What’s eating you?” Wargle asked.
    “Nothing. Forget it.”
    Wargle belched. “Well, I don’t believe they’re all dead.”
    Another problem with Stu Wargle was that he didn’t have any imagination.
    “What a lot of crap. And me lined up with a hot