From the Corner of His Eye by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online Page B

door handle with her right, she prayed, prayed that the baby would be all right, that she would live at least long enough to bring her child into this wonderful world, into this grand creation of endless and exquisite beauty, whether she herself lived past the birth or not.
    Onto its roof now, the Pontiac spun as it slid, grinding loudly against the blacktop, and regardless of how determinedly Agnes held on, she was being pulled out of her seat, toward the inverted ceiling and also backward. Her forehead knocked hard into the thin overhead padding, and her back wrenched against the headrest.
    She could hear herself screaming once more, but only briefly, because the car was either struck again by the pickup or hit by other traffic, or perhaps it collided with a parked vehicle, but whatever the cause, the breath was knocked out of her, and her screams became ragged gasps.
    This second impact turned half a roll into a full three-sixty. The Pontiac crunched onto the driver’s side and jolted, at last, onto its four tires, jumped a curb, and crumpled its front bumper against the wall of a brightly painted surfboard shop, shattering a display window.
    Worry Bear, big as ever behind the steering wheel, slumped sideways in his seat, with his head tipped toward her, his eyes rolled to one side and his gaze fixed upon her, blood streaming from his nose. He said, “The baby?”
    “All right, I think, all right,” Agnes gasped, but she was terrified that she was wrong, that the child would be stillborn or enter the world damaged.
    He didn’t move, the Worry Bear, but lay in that curious and surely uncomfortable position, arms slack at his sides, head lolling as though it were too heavy to lift. “Let me…see you.”
    She was shaking and so afraid, not thinking clearly, and for a moment she didn’t understand what he meant, what he wanted, and then she saw that the window on his side of the car was shattered, too, and that the door beyond him was badly torqued, twisted in its frame. Worse, the side of the Pontiac had burst inward when the pickup plowed into them. With a steel snarl and sheet-metal teeth, it had bitten into Joey, bitten deep, a mechanical shark swimming out of the wet day, shattering ribs, seeking his warm heart.
    Let me…see you.
    Joey couldn’t raise his head, couldn’t turn more directly toward her…because his spine had been damaged, perhaps severed, and he was paralyzed.
    “Oh, dear God,” she whispered, and although she had always been a strong woman who stood on a rock of faith, who drew hope as well as air with every breath, she was as weak now as the unborn child in her womb, sick with fear.
    She leaned forward in her seat, and toward him, so he could see her more directly, and when she put one trembling hand against his cheek, his head dropped forward on neck muscles as limp as rags, his chin against his chest.
    Cold, wind-driven rain slashed through the missing windows, and voices rose in the street as people ran toward the Pontiac—thunder in the distance—and on the air was the ozone scent of the storm and the more subtle and more terrible odor of blood, but none of these hard details could make the moment seem real to Agnes, who, in her deepest nightmares, had never felt more like a dreamer than she felt now.
    She cupped his face in both of her hands and was barely able to lift his head, for fear of what she would see.
    His eyes were strangely radiant, as she had never seen them before, as if the shining angel who would guide him elsewhere had already entered his body and was with him to begin the journey.
    In a voice free of pain and fear, he said, “I was…loved by you.”
    Not understanding, thinking that he was inexplicably asking if she loved him, she said, “Yes, of course, you silly bear, you stupid man, of course, I love you.”
    “It was…the only dream that mattered,” Joey said. “You…loving me. It was a good life because of you.”
    She tried to tell him that he was going