Free Saint Odd by Dean Koontz Page A

volume the hundred other sources of dissonance combined
.
    Out of the seething crowd, out of the light and the darkness, came Blossom Rosedale, the one and only Happy Monster, which was a name that she had given herself, not because she loathed the way she looked but because she was truly happy in spite of all her suffering
.
    Without realizing that I had staggered to a genuflection, I was on one knee when her left hand—scarred by fire, lacking all digits other than the thumb and forefinger—cupped my chin and lifted my bowed head, bringing me face-to-face with her. She said with great emotion, “Oddie, no. Oh, no, no.”
    I had met her in Magic Beach, back in January; we had quickly become fast friends, each of us a different kind of outsider. Forty-five years earlier, when she’d been only six, her drunken father had in a fit of rage dropped her headfirst into a barrel of trash that he had set afire with a little kerosene. She toppled the barrel and crawled out, but by then she was aflame. Surgeons saved one ear and somewhat rebuilt her nose, reconstructed her lips. She had no hair thereafter, and her face remained seamed and puckered by terrible keloid scars that no surgeon could smooth away
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    Never before had I dreamed of Blossom, but emerging from the chaos of this nightmare, she helped me to my feet and said that I should lean on her. For reasons I didn’t understand, I warned her away, insisted that I would be the death of anyone near me. But she would not be dissuaded. Although she was but five feettall and more than twice my age, she gave me the strength that I needed to lurch forward through the growing bedlam, through the blurred dream light and gyrating dream shadows, through the screaming multitude, toward what I could not guess, toward what proved to be the amaranth
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Twelve
    The old but well-kept house stood on three or four acres beyond the city limits of Pico Mundo, a two-story Victorian structure with a deep front porch and lots of gingerbread, painted white with pale-blue trim. A long blacktop driveway led between colonnades of velvet ash trees, their spring growth dulled by dust, past the house, to a long horse stable that had been converted into a garage with five double-wide doors.
    As I approached the stable, one of the electrically powered doors rose, and as I slowed almost to a stop, a man stepped out of the shadowy interior, into sunlight. Tall, lean, weathered, wearing boots and jeans and a checkered shirt and a cowboy hat, he would have fit right into any Western that John Ford ever directed. He waved me into the garage, and I parked the Big Dog where he indicated.
    As I took off my helmet and goggles, the cowboy introduced himself. He appeared to be as trim and fit as a man in his forties, but a life outdoors had given him an older face, seamed and as tanned as saddle leather. “Name’s Deacon Bullock, born andraised a Texan, lately of Pico Mundo. It’s a five-star honor to meet you.”
    “I’m just a fry cook, sir.” I put the helmet and goggles on the seat of the bike. I shook his hand. “There’s no great honor in it.”
    Every one of the many lines in his face conspired to be part of his smile. “I know your selfsame history, son. Don’t be hidin’ your light under a bushel.”
    “I don’t need a bushel,” I assured him. “A paper cup will do.”
    “You wasn’t followed?”
    “No, sir.”
    “You’d bet an ear on that?”
    “I’d bet them both.”
    “This here’s a safe house where our folks can hide out, and we mean to keep it safe. You been given a phone we tinkered with?”
    I produced my jacket from one of the saddlebags, took the smartphone from the jacket, and handed it to him.
    When Mr. Bullock activated the phone, the first thing that appeared on the screen wasn’t the name of a service provider or phone manufacturer, but instead a single thick exclamation mark in gold against a black background. It remained there until he entered a five-number code, and