Odd Hours. Dean Koontz
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than the low visibility required.
Oppressed by a feeling that a deadly threat loomed behind me, I glanced toward the house in front of which I had taken refuge. The windowpanes were dark. Except for the lazily billowing fog, nothing moved, and as far as I could tell, no watcher waited in either the scud or the shadows.
Still on my knees, I kept my head bowed behind the hedge while the truck growled closer.
The surrounding fog drank in the twin beams of the vehicle and glowed like swamp gas, yet contained the light within itself and brightened neither me nor the hedge.
I held my breath, though the driver could not have heard me exhale.
As the truck skulked past, seeming to sniff at the pavement for the scent of prey, the fog around me darkled with the passage of the headlamps.
I dared to rise just far enough to peer across the plum thorn toward the street.
Although the vehicle passed less than ten feet away, the dashboard lights were not bright enough to reveal the driver, only a lumpish shadow. I was able, however, to make out the city seal emblazoned on the door. And black letters on an orange background announced MAGIC BEACH/HARBOR DEPARTMENT.
Fog folded the truck out of sight. Its engine faded to a distant guttural purr.
Rising to my feet, I breathed fog faintly scented with exhaust fumes. After my third inhalation, the last engine noise whispered away into another neighborhood.
I wondered what kind of corruption coiled in the heart of the harbor department.
Moving toward the break in the hedge that accommodated the front walkway, I heard a noise issue from the dark house. Not loud. The low squeak-ping of metal tweaking metal.
Although a sense of danger welled in me once more, I turned from the street and followed the walkway to the foot of the porch steps.
Intuition told me that pretending to have heard nothing would be taken as a sign of weakness. And weakness would invite attack.
The subtle sound was a kind of singing, still metallic but also reminiscent of an insect’s clicking serenade.
No less than the world around it, the porch was filled with fog and shadows.
“Who’s there?” I asked, but received no reply.
Climbing the steps, I saw movement to my right. The rhythmic sweep of a slatted form—forward, back—timed to the squeak-ping-click, drew me forward.
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