Free Relentless by Dean Koontz

edges of the blackout draperies led me to the windows. I found the cord, revealed the glass, the night, the looming lunar face.
    “Cubby?”
    Either she had been unconscious when I called to her or she had not heard me because my voice was even weaker than I thought.
    After the unrelieved gloom, the merest moonlight was sunshine to my eyes, and I saw her pulling herself to her feet at the dresser.
    I went to her, speechless with gratitude. Her breath against my throat, the graceful curve of her back under my right hand, and the sweet smell of her hair were poetry that words could never equal.
    She said the only thing worth saying: “Thank God.”
    On the nightstands, the digital clocks came back to life and began flashing to indicate that they needed to be reset.
    The alarm keypad brightened. A yellow indicator light announced a functioning system, and a red bulb confirmed that it was armed.
    The recorded voice that reported on status changes remained silent, as though the alarm had never been disabled.
    Neither Penny nor I said “Milo,” but we hurried to his room, switching on lights as we went.
    As my hand closed on the knob, a growl rose from the far side of the door. Lassie greeted us with raised hackles and bared teeth. As if we were not the real Penny and Cubby but evil replicants, she continued to threaten violence if we crossed the threshold.
    Dogs have a sense of shame, in fact stronger than most people do these days. Penny played to it, disappointment in her voice: “Growling at me but not one bark to warn us about that lunatic?”
    Lassie stopped growling but continued to bare her teeth.
    “Not one bark for the lunatic?” Penny repeated.
    The dog’s flews quivered with what seemed to be embarrassment and relaxed to cover her teeth. Her tail wagged tentatively.
    I came to Lassie’s defense: “She was ready to protect Milo. Good girl.”
    The boy lay in bed, snoring softly. He didn’t wake when Lassie sprang onto the mattress and curled beside him.
    “Stay here,” I whispered. “I’ll search the house.”
    Voice hushed but adamant, Penny said, “Not alone. Call the cops.”
    “It’s all right. He’s gone. I’m just making sure.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. Call the cops.”
    “And tell them what? Did you see Waxx?”
    “No. But—”
    “I didn’t see him, either.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “He said something, a word.”
    “Three words.
Doom. Hack. Scribbler.”
    She bristled. “He called you a hack?”
    “Yeah.”
    “He should die hard. Point is—you heard him speak at the restaurant.”
    “Only one word. I hardly know his voice.”
    “But you
know
this was him.”
    “Evidence, Penny. Isn’t any.”
    She pointed to a pair of red marks on her left forearm, like two spider bites. “The Taser.”
    “That’s not enough. That’s nothing. How often did he sting you?”
    “Twice. You?”
    “Five, maybe six times.”
    “I’d like to castrate him.”
    “That doesn’t sound like the creator of the Purple Bunny books.”
    “Call the cops,” she insisted.
    “He’ll say we made it up, to get back at him for his review.”
    “He didn’t review me. Why am I going to lie about him?”
    “For me. That’s what they’ll say. You know the media—if you give them a stick, they love to knock you down.”
    I couldn’t say there was an event in my past about which I never told her. If I made accusations about Waxx that he denied, tabloid TV would start digging. They probably wouldn’t be able to learn who I had been, as a child, but I didn’t want to test their skills.
    I said, “Besides, I have a feeling like … he
wants
us to call the cops.”
    “Why would he want that?”
    “Either he wants us to call them or he doesn’t care if we do. This is so screwy. I haven’t done anything to him. There’s something about this we don’t understand.”
    “I don’t understand
any
of it,” she declared.
    “Exactly. Trust me on this. No cops just yet.”
    Leaving her with Milo and the