The Taking. Dean Koontz

the world falling into tumult on TV, Neil had moved the family-room telephone from the end table beside the sofa, where it usually stood, to the floor at his side. From time to time, he had tried to call his brother, Paul, in Hawaii.

      Sometimes he got a dial tone; Paul’s cell phone rang out there on Maui, but no one answered. At other times, when he picked up the handset, he got the oscillating electronic tones that accompanied the colorful patterns on TV.

      On the seventh or eighth attempt, a connection was made. Paul answered.

      The sound of his brother’s voice clearly lifted Neil’s spirits. “Paulie. Thank God. Thought you might be just crazy enough to catch some waves in this.”

      Paul surfed. The ocean was his second passion.

      Molly grabbed the remote control, muted the TV.

      Into the phone, Neil said, “What?” He listened. “Yeah, we’re okay. Here at the house. It’s raining so hard maybe we need gopher wood and plans for an ark.”

      Molly knelt in front of her husband, reached to the phone, and pressed the button labeled speaker.

      From the north shore of Maui, Paul said, “—seen a lot of tropical rains, but nothing like this.”

      “TV says seven inches an hour.”

      “Worse than that here,” Paul said. “Much worse. Rain so thick, you can almost drown on your feet. If you gasp for breath, you get more water than air. The rain—it’s a heavy weight, wants to drive you to your knees. We’ve gathered in the courthouse. Almost four hundred of us.”

      “The courthouse?” Puzzlement furrowed Neil’s brow. “Not the church? The church is on higher ground.”

      “The courthouse has fewer and smaller windows,” Paul explained. “It’s more easily fortified and defended.”

      Defended.

      Molly glanced at the pistol, the shotgun.

      On the muted television, spectacular video from some far city showed buildings burning in spite of quenching masses of falling rain.

      On the phone, Paul said, “First Peter, chapter four, verse seven. Does it feel that way to you, little brother?”

      “Truth? It feels like Close Encounters to me,” Neil admitted, at last putting into words the thought that neither he nor Molly had been willing to express. “But where it’s ultimately going—who knows?”

      “I know,” Paul said, his voice firm and calm. “I’ve accepted with good will all the anguish, pain, and sorrow that might come.”

      Molly recognized his stilted words as a paraphrasing of Acceptance of Death, one of the Church’s evening prayers.

      She said, “It’s not going to be like that, Paulie. There’s something … I don’t know … something positive about this, too.”

      “Molly, I love your sweet voice,” Paul said. “Always the one to see a rainbow in a hurricane.”

      “Well… life’s taught me to be optimistic.”

      “You’re right. Death is nothing to fear, is it? Just a new beginning.”

      “No, I don’t mean that.” She told him about the coyotes on the porch. “I walked among them. They were so docile. It was miraculous, Paul, exhilarating.”

      “I love you, Molly. You’ve been a godsend to Neil, made him happy, healed his soul. That first year, I said hurtful things—”

      “Never,” she disagreed.

      Neil took her hand, squeezed it gently.

      On the TV, in yet another city, no buildings were afire, but looters smashed store windows. The cascades of shattered glass glittered no more brightly than the spangled rain.

      To Molly, Paul said, “This is no time for lies, kiddo. Not even the polite kind meant to spare feelings.”

      Initially Paul had not approved of their marriage. Over the years, however, he adjusted to it, eventually embraced it. He and Molly had become fast friends, and until now they had never spoken about his early antagonism.

      She smiled. “All right, Father Paul, I confess. There were times you really pissed me off.”

      Paul laughed softly. “I’m sure God felt the same way. I asked His forgiveness long ago—and now I’m asking yours.”

      Her voice thickened. She wanted to hang up. She despaired over the inescapable implications of this conversation. They were saying good-bye. “Paulie … you’re my brother, too. You can’t know … how I treasure you.”

      “Oh, but I know. I do. And listen, kiddo, your last book would have made your mother proud.”

      “Sweet melody, good rhythm,” she said, “but in the service of shallow observations.”

      “No. Stop beating yourself up. It rang with the same wisdom as Thalia’s best work.”

      Tears blurred Molly’s vision. “Remember … this is no time for lies, Paulie.”

      “Haven’t told any.”

      Silently, a rain-drenched, wild-eyed mob raced toward and past the TV camera. They appeared to be fleeing in terror from something.

      From the phone, Paul said, “Listen … I have to go. I don’t think there’s much time left.”

      “What’s happening there?” Neil worried.

      “I finished saying Mass a few minutes before you called. But not everyone gathered here is a Catholic, so they need a different kind of comforting.”

      On the screen, the cameraman was knocked over by the panicked throng. The point of view swung wildly, crashed down to pavement level, revealing running feet that splashed up luminous sprays from darkly jeweled puddles.

      Holding tightly to the handset even though the speakerphone feature was engaged, as though he were keeping his brother on the line sheerly by the intensity of his grip, Neil said, “Paulie, what did you mean—the courthouse can be more easily defended? Defended from who?”

      Interference distorted the reply incoming from Hawaii.

      “Paulie? We didn’t hear that. The line broke up a little. Who’re you expecting to defend against?”

      Although audible again, Paulie sounded as if he were speaking from the bottom of a deep pit. “These are mostly simple people, Neil. Their imaginations may be working overtime, or they might see what they expect to see rather than what really is. I haven’t seen one myself.”

      “One what?”

      Static fizzed and crackled.

      “Paulie?”

      Among the broken, twisted words issuing from the speaker, one sounded like devils.

      “Paulie,” Neil said, “if this line goes, well call you right back. And if we can’t get through, you try calling us. Do you hear me, Paulie?”

      On TV, in a city now identified by caption—Berlin, Germany—the last of the soundless, running feet chased across the streaming pavement, past the fallen videocam.

      Suddenly out of distant Maui, as clear as if originating from the adjacent kitchen, Paul Sloan’s voice once more swelled loud in midsentence: “… chapter twelve, verse twelve. Do you remember that one, Neil?”

      “Sorry, Paulie, I didn’t catch the book,” Neil replied. “Say it again.”

      In Berlin, captured blurrily through a wet lens, legions of luminous raindrops marched across the puddled street, casting up a spray more glittery than diamond dust.

      A prescient awareness of pending horror kept Molly’s attention riveted on the muted TV.

      The