The House of Thunder by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online Page A

had wound up in Willawauk County Hospital.
     
    The doctors, nurses, and orderlies here were also different from those in the hospital where her father had died. All of these people smiled at her. And they seemed genuinely concerned about the patients. As Susan was wheeled through the halls, many staff members paused in their tasks to have a word with her; every one of them expressed pleasure at seeing her awake, alert, and on the way to a full recovery.
     
    Mrs. Baker pushed her to the end of the long main hallway, then turned and started back. Although Susan was already beginning to tire, she was nevertheless in relatively high spirits. She felt better today than she had felt yesterday, better this afternoon than this morning. The future seemed sure to grow brighter almost by the hour.
     
    When the mood changed, it changed with the frightening abruptness of a shotgun blast.
     
    As they passed between the elevators and the nurses’ station—which faced each other midpoint in the corridor—one set of elevator doors opened, and a man stepped out directly in front of the wheelchair. He was a patient in blue- and white-striped pajamas, a dark brown robe, and brown slippers. Mrs. Baker stopped the wheelchair in order to let him pass. When Susan saw who he was, she nearly screamed. She wanted to scream but couldn’t. Chest-tightening, throat-constricting fear had stricken her dumb.
     
    His name was Ernest Harch. He was a squarely built man with a square face, squared-off features, and gray eyes the shade of dirty ice.
     
    When she had testified against him in court, he had fixed her with those chilling eyes and hadn’t glanced away from her for even the briefest moment. She had clearly read the message in his intimidating stare: You’re going to be sorry you ever took the witness stand.
     
    But that had been thirteen years ago. In the meantime, she had taken precautions to be sure he would not find her when he got out of prison. She had long ago stopped looking over her shoulder.
     
    And now here he was.
     
    He looked down at her as she sat helpless in the wheelchair, and she saw recognition flicker in his wintry eyes. In spite of the years that had passed, in spite of the emaciation that had altered her appearance in the last three weeks, he knew who she was.
     
    She wanted to bolt out of the chair and run. She was rigid with fear; she couldn’t move.
     
    Only a second or two had passed since the elevator doors had opened, yet it seemed as if she had been confronting Harch for at least a quarter of an hour. The usual flow of time had slowed to a sludgelike crawl.
     
    Harch smiled at her. To anyone but Susan, that smile might have appeared innocent, even friendly. But she saw hatred and menace in it.
     
    Ernest Harch had been the pledge master in the fraternity that Jerry Stein had wanted to join. Ernest Harch had killed Jerry. Not by accident. Deliberately. In cold blood. In the House of Thunder.
     
    Now, still smiling, he winked at Susan.
     
    The fear-induced paralysis relaxed its tight grip on her, and somehow she found the strength to push up from the wheelchair, onto her feet. She took one step, trying to turn away from Harch, trying desperately to run, and she heard Mrs. Baker call out in surprise. She took a second step, feeling as if she were walking underwater, and then her legs buckled, and she started to fall, and someone caught her just in time.
     
    As everything began to spin and wobble and grow dark, she realized that Ernest Harch was the one who had caught her. She was in his arms. She looked up into his face, which was as big as the moon.
     
    Then for a while there was only darkness.
     

4
     
    “In danger?” McGee said, looking puzzled.
     
    At the foot of the bed, Mrs. Baker frowned.
     
    Susan was trying hard to remain calm and convincing. She possessed sufficient presence of mind to know that a hysterical woman was never taken seriously—especially not a hysterical woman recuperating