Whispers by Dean Koontz

lost all feeling.
    “Okay,” she said. “I’m going to slide off you. I’m going to keep the gun where it is, and I’m going to slip off beside you. Don’t move. Don’t even blink.”
    He stared at her.
    “You got that?” she asked.
    “Yeah.”
    Keeping the .32 on his scrotum, she disengaged herself from him as if she were rising from a bed of nitroglycerin. Her abdominal muscles were painfully tight with tension. Her mouth was dry and sour. Their noisy breathing seemed to fill the bedroom like rushing wind, yet her hearing was so acute that she could detect the soft ticking of her Cartier watch. She slid to one side, got up on her knees, hesitated, finally pushed all the way to her feet and shuffled quickly out of his reach before he could trip her again.
    He sat up.
    “No!” she said.
    “What?”
    “Lie down.”
    “I’m not coming after you.”
    “Lie down.”
    “Just relax.”
    “Dammit, lie down!”
    He would not obey her. He just sat there. “So what happens next?”
    Waving the pistol at him, she said, “I told you to lie down. Flat on your back. Do it. Now.”
    He twisted his lips into one of those ugly smiles that he did so well. “And I asked you what happens next.”
    He was trying to regain control of the situation, and she did not like that. On the other hand, did it really matter whether he was sitting or lying down? Even sitting up, he could not get to his feet and cross the space between them faster than she could put a couple of bullets into him.
    “Okay,” she said reluctantly. “Sit up if you insist. But you make one move toward me, and I’ll empty the gun on you. I’ll spread your guts all over the room. I swear to Christ I will.”
    He grinned and nodded.
    Shivering, she said, “Now, I’m going to the bed. I’ll sit down there and phone the police.”
    She moved sideways and backwards, crablike, one small step at a time, until she got to the bed. The telephone was on the nightstand. The moment she sat down and lifted the receiver, Frye disobeyed her. He stood up.
    “Hey.”
    She dropped the receiver and clutched the pistol with both hands, trying to keep it steady.
    He held his hands out placatingly, palms toward her. “Wait. Just wait a second. I’m not going to touch you.”
    “Sit down.”
    “I’m not coming anywhere near you.”
    “Sit down right now.”
    “I’m going to walk out of here,” Frye said.
    “Like hell you are.”
    “Out of this room and out of this house.”
    “No.”
    “You won’t try to shoot me if I just leave.”
    “Try me and you’ll be sorry.”
    “You won’t,” he said confidently. “You aren’t the type to pull the trigger unless you don’t have any other choice. You couldn’t kill me in cold blood. You couldn’t shoot me in the back. Not in a million years. Not you. You don’t have that kind of strength. You’re weak. Just too damned weak.” He gave her that ghastly grin again, that wide death’s head smile, and he took one step toward the door. “You can call the cops when I’m gone.” Another step. “It would be different if I was a stranger. Then I might have a chance to get away scot-free. But after all, you can tell them who I am.” Another step. “See, you’ve already won, and I’ve lost. All I’m doing is buying a little time. A very little bit of time.”
    She knew he was right about her. She could kill him if he attacked, but she was not capable of shooting him while he retreated.
    Sensing her unspoken acknowledgment of the truth in what he had said, Frye turned his back on her. His smug self-confidence infuriated her, but she could not pull the trigger. He had been sidling carefully toward the exit. Now, he strode boldly out of the room, not bothering to glance back. He disappeared through the broken door, and his footsteps echoed along the hallway.
    When Hilary heard him thumping down the stairs, she realized that he might not leave the house. Unobserved, he could slip into one of the downstairs rooms