Free The Funhouse by Dean Koontz

enough to start a family with another man. Have you thought of that? Maybe she’s long dead.”
    “She’s alive.”
    “You can’t be sure.”
    “I’m positive.”
    “Even if she’s alive, she might not have children.”
    “She does. They’re out there—somewhere.”
    “Damn it, you have no reason to be so sure of that!”
    “I’ve been sent signs. Portents.”
    Zena looked into his cold, crystalline blue eyes, and she shivered. Signs? Portents? Was Conrad still only half-mad—or had he gone all the way over the edge?
    The raven tapped its beak against the metal bars of its cage.
    Zena said, “If by some miracle you do find one of Ellen’s kids, what then?”
    “I’ve told you before.”
    “Tell me again,” she said, watching him closely.
    “I want to tell her kids what she did,” Conrad said. “I want them to know she’s a baby killer. I want to turn them against her. I want to use all of my power as a pitchman to convince them that their mother is a vicious, despicable human being, the worst kind of criminal. A baby killer. I’ll make them hate her as much as I hate her. In effect, I’ll be taking her kids away from her, though not as brutally as she took my little boy.”
    As always, when he talked about exposing Ellen’s past to her family, Conrad spoke with conviction.
    As always, it sounded like a hollow fantasy.
    And as always, Zena felt that he was lying. She was sure that he had something else in mind, an act of revenge even more brutal than what Ellen had done to that strange, disturbing, mutated baby twenty-five years ago.
    If Conrad intended to kill Ellen’s children when (and if) he found them, Zena wanted no part of that. She didn’t want to be an accomplice to murder.
    Yet she continued to assist him in his search. She helped him only because she didn’t believe he would ever find what he was looking for. Helping him seemed harmless; she was merely humoring him. That was all. Nothing more than humoring him. His quest was hopeless. He would never find Ellen’s kids, even if they did exist.
    Conrad looked away from her, turned his gaze on the raven.
    The bird fixed him with one of its oily black eyes, and as their gazes locked, the raven froze.
    Outside, on the midway, there was calliope music. The hundred thousand sounds of the closing-night crowd blended into a rhythmic susurration like the breathing of an enormous beast.
    In the distance the giant, mechanical funhouse clown laughed and laughed.

3
    When Amy stepped into the house at a quarter till twelve, she heard muffled voices in the kitchen. She thought her father was still awake, though he usually went to bed early Saturday night in order to get up in time for the first Mass on Sunday, thus freeing the rest of the day for his hobby—building miniature sets for model train layouts. When Amy got to the kitchen, she found only her mother. The voices were on the radio; it was tuned to a telephone talk show on a Chicago station, and the volume was turned low.
    The room smelled vaguely of garlic, onions, and tomato paste.
    There wasn’t much light. A bulb burned above the sink, and the hood light was on over the stove. The radio dial cast a soft green glow.
    Ellen Harper was sitting at the kitchen table. Actually, she was slumped over it, arms folded on the tabletop, head resting on her arms, her face turned away from the doorway where Amy stopped. A tall glass, half-full of yellow liquid, was within Ellen’s reach. Amy didn’t have to sample the drink to know what it was; her mother always drank the same thing—vodka and orange juice—and too much of it.
    She’s asleep, Amy thought, relieved.
    She turned away from her mother, intending to sneak out of the room and upstairs to bed, but Ellen said, “You.”
    Amy sighed and looked back at her.
    Ellen’s eyes were blurry, bloodshot; the lids drooped. She blinked in surprise. “What’re you doing home?” she asked groggily. “You’re more than an hour