Deeply Odd. Dean Koontz
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roomy shower stall.
I was on my side, in the fetal position, and I might have been crying for my mommy if Mother hadn’t been a deeply disturbed woman who, during my childhood, had often threatened me with a gun. I was raised not with the principles of Dr. Benjamin Spock in mind, but according to the even darker theories of Dr. Jekyll.
I felt no pain, but I was reluctant to raise a hand to my throat, for fear of finding torn flesh, a gaping wound. When I dared to swallow, however, I was able to do so, and I realized both that I could breathe and that the taste of blood didn’t foul my mouth.
Having lost my reason for existence when I lost Stormy Llewellyn nineteen months earlier, I lived a life I didn’t need. Although I had no fear of death, I hoped to avoid excruciating pain, long suffering, and concussion-induced blackouts from which I would awake with embarrassing tattoos. Now I was relieved to find myself mysteriously alive, relieved largely because I had pledged to protect Annamaria from those who would kill her, because I felt compelled to save the three innocent children that the cowboy trucker intended to set afire, and because suddenly I had a fierce appetite for a platter of cheese meatloaf, steak fries, and coleslaw, which I hoped to satisfy before I died again and stayed dead.
One good thing about a condemned man’s last meal is that he doesn’t have to worry about acid reflux.
Getting to my feet, I realized that I wasn’t alone. I spun toward the other with less than balletic grace, as Baryshnikov might have moved if he had ever performed Swan Lake while drunk, my hands out in front of me as if to catch any bullets that might shortly be in flight.
On the tiled and built-in bench adjacent to the shower sat a famous portly man in a three-piece black suit, white shirt, black tie, and black wingtips polished to a high shine. His round face, full cheeks, and two chins had been less pronounced but evident even in photographs of him as a young child. Then as now, his lower lip protruded far past the upper; however, as both a boy and a man, he never appeared to be pouting, but seemed instead to be pondering some profound idea.
“Mr. Hitchcock,” I said, and he smiled.
So soon after being shot dead and finding myself miraculously alive again, I wasn’t ready for Alfred Hitchcock. Bewildered, I went to the sink, leaned toward the mirror, searched the reflection for the concrete walls and the single hanging light—for the dungeon or abattoir, or whatever the place had been—but saw only the clean, bright shower room.
I have never liked looking at myself in a mirror. I don’t know why exactly. I’m not movie-star handsome, but I’m not the Creature from the Black Lagoon, either. I’m pretty much a face in the crowd, which is a blessing when, like me, you have a reason not to draw attention to yourself. There’s just something unsettling about studying your reflection. It’s not a matter of being dissatisfied with your face or of being embarrassed by your vanity. Maybe it’s that when you gaze into your own eyes, you don’t see what you wish to see—or glimpse something that you wish weren’t there.
At least my face was not splashed with blood, and my eyes were not dead-flat yet fevered like those of a zombie. I didn’t know what it felt like to be a lingering spirit unwilling to pass over to the Other Side, but I was certain that it didn’t feel like this. If the encounter with the rhinestone cowboy had not been a hallucination or a vision of a future confrontation, if I had in fact been shot in the throat and killed, I was nevertheless alive again by virtue of a miracle.
I didn’t try to puzzle through how such a thing could be. The world is filled with mysteries; and I have learned that every mystery will either explain itself—or it won’t. I can’t force Nature to draw back her curtains and reveal the hidden machinery that constitutes the true workings of the world.
When I turned once more to Mr. Hitchcock, the great director gave me two thumbs up.
I sat beside him on the bench. My hands were shaking. I clutched my knees to still the tremors.
“I saw you the other day,” I said, “walking on the shore, past the cottage we’ve been renting. You waved at me.”
He thrust out his lower lip even farther and nodded. Although his face was perhaps best suited for a dour expression, he smiled and seemed almost merry. Judging by the wry look in his eyes, I thought that he had something to say that would have made me laugh. Having died in 1980, however, he was a spirit, and spirits never speak.
In previous volumes of these memoirs, I have written of other famous souls who have sought me out, hoping that I could help them find the courage to cross over. Mr. Elvis Presley was with me for a few years before I understood why he lingered in this world and could convince him to leave it. Mr. Frank Sinatra kept me company for a much shorter time, a more volatile spirit than the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, always exciting and perhaps more helpful to me than I was to him, though Old Blue Eyes eventually did cross over.
From those experiences, I wrongly concluded that if another famous person among the lingering dead came to me for counseling, he or she would be a legendary singer. Perhaps Bing Crosby or Bobby Darin, or John Lennon. On some bad days, I worried that it might be Sid Vicious or Kurt Cobain.
Instead, Mr. Alfred Hitchcock, surely one of the five greatest directors in the history of Hollywood—maker of Psycho but also of the sparkling comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith and numerous masterpieces in between—had come to me for help, decades after his death. I already knew much about him. Later I would learn much more. But at that moment in the Star Truck shower room, I felt intellectually inadequate to counsel a man of such accomplishment.
Still shocked from being murdered and resurrected, if in fact such a thing had happened, I found myself speechless. I stared at him for a long moment, and then looked around the white room as if what I ought to say to him might be printed boldly on the walls. It wasn’t. Consequently, more embarrassed by my loss for words than by any stupid thing that I might say, I babbled in search of substance.
“Sorry, I’m a little shaken. The walls were concrete. The cowboy was just suddenly there. Or maybe he wasn’t. He shot me point-blank in the throat. Or maybe he didn’t. I’m sorry. You don’t know about the cowboy. He’s not a cowboy, really. He drives a big truck, not a horse. Nobody drives a horse, of course, it doesn’t have wheels, but you know what I mean. The creep called me Johnny Appleseed. Not that the name Johnny Appleseed is an insult. Johnny was really a great guy. It was the way he said it. Scornfully. With contempt. He’s a nasty piece of work. I mean the cowboy guy, not Johnny Appleseed. I don’t have anything against Johnny Appleseed. If he hadn’t planted all those trees a couple hundred years ago, I wouldn’t have had any ammunition in that supermarket and I’d probably be dead now in the produce section.”
Mr. Hitchcock raised one hand to rest his chin on it, and he regarded me with keen interest, as if I were Sherlock to his Watson, although I was more likely Larry-Curly-Moe to his Einstein.
After several deep breaths, I regained my composure. “Sir, I’ll do what I can for you. I’m honored that you’ve come to me. But since you weren’t murdered, then you must be reluctant to cross over for personal reasons. Psychological reasons. Maybe a sense of guilt. Maybe remorse for something done in life.”
He raised one eyebrow.
“Mr. Presley and Mr. Sinatra,” I said, “were almost as public about their private lives as they were about their careers, so I was able to puzzle out the reasons why their spirits lingered here. I think you kept your family and your personal life private, and since you can’t talk, this is probably going to be a difficult case for me, so I just hope you’ll be patient.”
He removed his hand from under his chin and used it to pat me on the shoulder in a kindly manner, as if to reassure me that, having lingered in this world so many years, he did not expect to be led directly to a celestial escalator.
The spirits of the lingering dead feel as warm and solid to me as does any living person. They could comfort me with a pat, as Mr. Hitchcock had just done, or accept comfort from me, but they could not punch, claw, strangle, or otherwise mutilate me. If they struck out in anger, their fists passed through me without effect.
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