Free Final Hour (Novella) by Dean Koontz

haggard face contorts with a pretense of having been offended—more than offended, deeply wounded—by having her virtue questioned, her motivations impugned.
    “Admit the truth about yourself, Undine.” She holds up the manacle key between thumb and forefinger. “Admit the truth, and I will set you free.”
    Undine stares at the key so hungrily that it might be food.
    “Admit the truth. It’s just that easy.”
    But Undine knows she will never be set free. Besides, Ursula is such a pathological liar that the taste of truth is too repulsive for her to speak a word of it.
    Instead, Undine says, “I forgive you.”
    “Liar.”
    She pretends sadness and compassion with conviction. “You’re sick, Little Bear.”
    That is a nickname from their childhood, given to her by this deceitful sibling. The name
Ursula
is from the Latin
ursa,
meaning
she-bear.
    “It’s not your fault, Little Bear. You’re very sick.”
    Little Bear raises the pistol.
    She points it at her hateful sister’s face.
    Undine does not flinch or even blink.
    “Am I very sick?” Little Bear asks.
    “Yes, love. You are. You really are.”
    “What are you going to do about it?” Little Bear asks.
    “There’s nothing I can do. Not now.”
    “There’s one thing,” says Little Bear, tightening her finger on the trigger.
    * * *
    Bob the dog could see and hear and feel and taste, of course, but most of his extensive knowledge of the world came to him courtesy of his fine nose, which had twenty muscles more than the pathetic four-muscle human nose, and which provided him with a sense of smell many thousands of times greater than Pogo’s. By that one sense, he took in more data than all five human senses combined.
    No sooner had Bob crossed the threshold into the abandoned factory than he caught a scent that interested him, perhaps one he recognized, possibly that of the bold woman who, in the supermarket parking lot, had earlier displaced him from the front seat of Makani’s Chevy and in the process damaged his pride. He padded to the north end of building, nose to the floor, following a trail of spoor undetectable by his two companions.
    Pogo was impressed by the silence with which Bob set out upon the search. He seemed to have a cat’s ability to retract his claws, so that they did not click on the concrete, though this was not a trick that a dog should be able to perform. In spite of the physical exertion and excitement, Bob didn’t pant, either, or express his opinion of the quarry by vocalizing—with growl and grumble—as he closed on her.
    They came to a door. Beyond the door were steps descending.
    Below lay a maze of corridors and rooms.
    Voices ahead.
    * * *
    Undine does not once fix her eyes upon the fearsome bore of the pistol, from the darkness of which her death will issue in a spurt of flame.
    She meets Little Bear’s eyes and does not look away, as if her last best hope might be to mesmerize her executioner.
    Little Bear says, “Tell me the one thing you’ll do for your big sister, the one thing in addition to forgiving me.”
    Although physically damaged, Undine remains mentally sharp. She knows what Little Bear is daring her to say.
    “Tell me what you told me four days ago, the lie that almost got you killed then. End your agony and tell me.”
    “It’s not a lie.”
    “So tell me.”
    Undine hesitates. “I forgive you…I’ll pray for you.”
    “Liar. Neither you nor I, nor anyone in this freakin’ family, has ever prayed for anyone or ever will.”
    At such close range, she intends to blow off Undine’s hateful face, but the dog leaps upon her back, knocking her to the floor.
    * * *
    The pistol discharged, and the bullet ricocheted through the room, drawing no blood, clanging off one of the metal shades that directed the light of the ceiling-mounted lamps toward the floor, shattering a distant fluorescent tube.
    Bob bounded off Ursula as she scrambled on hands and knees toward the gun that, knocked from her