Time Thieves by Dean Koontz Read Free Book Online

his mind and be done with it, but he could find no way to stop the input.
        
        Then there was a second voice, speaking to him in a whisper as the first had. It was vague and unimaginably distant, but it swelled in volume as the seconds passed. He forgot Annie and focused on this upstart.
        
        Though it grew as clear and as loud as the Faydor woman's whisper, it made no sense. It was a jumble of words and feelings, polysyllabic tonal chains that sometimes were recognizeable as English and sometimes were nothing more than murmurs, groans and sighs of happiness.
        
        It took him more than five minutes to identify the sleep-laden thoughts of his own wife. She wasn't dreaming, but she was thinking in a random, restful manner that indicated the human brain didn't relax completely, even when its body was slumbering soundly.
        
        He smiled at the rounded comfortableness of her thoughts and made to shut off their contact.
        
        He couldn't do it.
        
        The sweet, gentle tide of Della's memories undulated over him, through him, saturating him as they grew in volume and intensity. He was beginning to find the thought of sleep irresistible. His eyes fluttered, and he yawned and stretched.
        
        Then, as the whispers swayed and crashed together, he was fully awake, listening to Annie Faydor bitch about Henry-while Della's unconscious ramblings coursed as a backdrop to the carefully constructed catalogue of infidelity.
        
        And there were others.
        
        He opened his eyes.
        
        The den was deserted.
        
        He closed his eyes and listened and felt the others surging toward him. In minutes, they were on him, overwhelming him, pouring forth a mixture of bitterness and happiness, fear and trust, hatred and love. He recognized some of them as neighbors. Others were utter strangers to him, invading the sanctity of his mind.
        
        “Go away!” he heard himself croaking at the empty room.
        
        They remained, as he had known they would. They chattered and laughed, hissed and cried. Here, a mother agnonized over the pregnancy of an unwed daughter. Here, a businessman worked over his balance sheets. Here, a teenage boy popped two bennies and leaned back in his chair, waiting for the surge of excitement he knew would claim him. Here, bare legs tangled in love.
        
        He stood and pushed the swivel chair away from him. It fell over, backwards, but made little noise on the thick blue carpeting.
        
        More whispers arose in the distance and rushed towards him. He had opened up a floodgate of thought-projectionists, and the deluge was about to take him.
        
        Here, a man named Harry had drunk too much and was leaning into the bathroom sink, wondering if he should or could be sick. Here, a woman lay in a dark bedroom, alone, watching the patterns of automobile lights on her roughly plastered ceiling. Here a bitter argument over money. Here, a baby is crying in the night and a woman is padding along the corridor to its room, her slippers making soft animal sounds on the hardwood floor.
        
        He took three quick, wobbling steps away from the desk, into the center of the room. Each step became a challenge of heroic proportions. He now had to consciously will each set of muscles to do their part. By the time he was three steps from the desk, he stopped, for he had begun to wonder where he was going.
        
        His moment of doubt allowed the tide of strange thoughts to overwhelm him once again. It was almost a physical battering now; every joint in his body ached.
        
        “Let me alone,” he said.
        
        But they didn't.
        
        “Help.”
        
        But there was none.
        
        His mind was filled with a thousand consciousnesses now, though none of them were aware of him. As one