Free Mr. Murder by Dean Koontz Page B

an hour. Trucks and cars explode past him, the wind of their passage buffeting the Honda, splashing dirty water across his windshield, their red taillights swiftly receding into the gloom.
    Assuring himself that his mysterious destiny will prove to be as great as any that John Wayne pursued in films, he accelerates.
    Empty and half-empty packages of food, crumpled and smeary and full of crumbs, are heaped on the passenger seat. They cascade onto the floor, under the dashboard, completely filling the leg space on that side of the car.
    From the litter, he extracts a new box of doughnuts. To wash them down he opens a warmish Pepsi.
    Westward. Steadily westward.
    An identity awaits him. He is going to be someone.

15
    Later Sunday, at home, after huge bowls of popcorn and two videos, Paige tucked the girls into bed, kissed them goodnight, and retreated to the open doorway to watch Marty as he settled down for that moment of the day he most cherished. Story time.
    He continued with the poem about Santa’s evil twin, and the girls were instantly enraptured.
    “Reindeer sweep down out of the night. See how each is brimming with fright? Tossing their heads, rolling their eyes, these gentle animals are so very wise— they know this Santa isn’t their friend, but an imposter and far ’round the bend. They would stampede for all they’re worth, dump this nut off the edge of the earth. But Santa’s bad brother carries a whip, a club, a harpoon, a gun at his hip, a blackjack, an Uzi—you better run!— and a terrible, horrible, wicked raygun.”
    “Raygun?” Charlotte said. “Then he’s an alien!”
    “Don’t be silly,” Emily admonished her. “He’s Santa’s twin, so if he’s an alien, Santa is an alien too, which he isn’t.”
    With the smug condescension of a nine-year-old who had long ago discovered Santa Claus wasn’t real, Charlotte said, “Em, you have a lot to learn. Daddy, what’s the raygun do? Turn you to mush?”
    “To stone,” Emily said. She withdrew one hand from under the covers and revealed the polished stone on which she had painted a pair of eyes. “That’s what happened to Peepers.”
    “They land on the roof, quiet and sneaky. Oh, but this Santa is fearfully freaky. He whispers a warning to each reindeer, leaning close to make sure they hear: ‘You have relatives back at the Pole— antlered, gentle, quite innocent souls. So if you fly away while I’m inside, back to the Pole on a plane I will ride. I’ll have a picnic in the midnight sun: reindeer pie, pâté, reindeer in a bun, reindeer salad and hot reindeer soup, oh, all sorts of tasty reindeer goop.’ ”
    “I hate this guy,” Charlotte announced emphatically. She pulled her covers up to her nose as she had done the previous evening, but she wasn’t genuinely frightened, just having a good time pretending to be spooked.
    “This guy, he was just born bad,” Emily decided. “For sure, he couldn’t be this way just ’cause his mommy and daddy weren’t as nice to him as they should’ve been.”
    Paige marveled at Marty’s ability to strike the perfect note to elicit the kids’ total involvement. If he’d given her the poem to review before he’d started reading it, Paige would have advised that it was a little too strong and dark to appeal to young girls.
    So much for the question of which was superior—the insights of the psychologist or the instinct of the storyteller.
    “At the chimney, he looks down the bricks, but that entrance is strictly for hicks. With all his tools, a way in can be found for a fat bearded burglar out on the town. From roof to yard to the kitchen door, he chuckles about what he has in store for the lovely family sleeping within. He grins one of his most nasty grins. Oh, what a creep, a scum, and a louse. He’s breaking into the Stillwater house.”
    “Our place!” Charlotte squealed.
    “I knew!” Emily said.
    Charlotte said, “You did not.”
    “Yes, I did.”
    “Did not.”
    “Did too.