The Voice of the Night by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online Page B

asked.
    “You think my mother sells illegal guns out of the kitchen or something?”
    “Doesn’t she have a gun of her own?”
    “Sure. A million of ‘em. And a tank and a bazooka and a nuclear missile.”
    “Just answer the question.”
    “Why would she have a gun?”
    “A sexy woman living alone usually has a gun for protection.”
    “But she doesn’t live alone,” Colin said. “Did you forget about me?”
    “If some crazy rapist wanted to get his hands on your mom, he’d walk right over you.”
    “I’m tougher than I look.”
    “Be serious. Does your mother have a gun?”
    Colin didn’t want to admit there was a gun in the house. He had a hunch that he would save himself a lot of trouble if he lied. But at last he said, “Yeah. She has a pistol.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Yeah. But I don’t think she keeps it loaded. She could never shoot anyone. My father loves guns: ergo, my mother hates them. And so do I. I’m not going to borrow her gun to do something crazy like shoot your neighbor’s dog.”
    “Well, we could kill it some other way.”
    “What would we do—bite it?”
    A night bird sang in the branches above them.
    The sea breeze was cooler than it had been ten minutes ago.
    Colin was tired of pushing the bike, but he sensed that Roy still had a lot to say and wanted to say it quietly, which he couldn’t do if they were riding.
    Roy said, “We could tie the dog up and kill it with a pitchfork.”
    “Jeez.”
    “That would be a popper!”
    “You’re making me sick.”
    “Would you help me?”
    “You don’t need my help.”
    “But it would prove you’re not just a fair-weather friend.”
    After a long while Colin said, “I suppose if it was really important to you, if you just had to do it or die, I could be there when you did it.”
    “What do you mean by ‘be there’?”
    “I mean... I guess I could watch.”
    “What if I wanted you to do more than watch?”
    “Like what?”
    “What if I wanted you to take the pitchfork and stab the dog a few times yourself?”
    “Sometimes you can be really weird, Roy.”
    “Could you stab it?” Roy persisted.
    “No.”
    “I’ll bet you could.”
    “I couldn’t ever kill anything.”
    “But you could watch?”
    “Well, if it would prove to you once and for all that I’m your friend and that I can be trusted...”
    They entered the circle of light under a street lamp, and Roy stopped. He was grinning. “You’re getting better every day.”
    “Oh?”
    “You’re developing nicely,” Roy said.
    “Am I?”
    “Yesterday, you’d have said you couldn’t even watch a dog being killed. Today, you say you could watch but you couldn’t participate. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, you’ll tell me you could find it within yourself to pick up that pitchfork and make mincemeat of that damned dog.”
    “No. Never.”
    “And a week from now, you’ll finally admit that you’d enjoy killing something.”
    “No. You’re wrong. This is stupid.”
    “I’m right. You’re just like me.”
    “And you’re no killer.”
    “I am.”
    “Not in a million years.”
    “You don’t know me.”
    “You’re Roy Borden.”
    “I mean what’s inside me. You don’t know, but you’ll learn.”
    “There’s no cat-and-dog killer inside you.”
    “I’ve killed things bigger than a cat.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like people.”
    “And then I suppose you moved on to even bigger things—like elephants.”
    “No elephants. just people.”
    “I guess with an elephant there’s problems disposing of the corpse.”
    “Just people.”
    Another night bird cried hollowly from its perch in a nearby tree, and in the distance two lonely dogs howled to each other.
    “This is ridiculous,” Colin said.
    “No, it’s true.”
    “You’re trying to tell me you’ve killed people?”
    “Twice.”
    “Why not a hundred times?”
    “Because it was only twice.”
    “Next you’ll be saying you’re really an eight-legged, six-eyed creature