Final Chapter Preview: Chapter Three - Brother Thomas by Dean Koontz (your surprise from me, continued)

As a BzzAgent I have been asked to take several chapter previews from Dean Koontz's upcoming novel from his Odd Thomas series, Brother Thomas, and share them with as many people as I can. What better way to accomplish that goal than to treat my Suite 101 readers? So without further ado, and at the request of the publishing house, I present Chapter Three. Enjoy.

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Chapter Three

INTO THE OLD ABBEY, WHICH WAS NOW ST.

Bartholomew's School, had been transplanted modern mechanical

systems that could be monitored from a computer

station in the basement.

The spartan computer room had a desk, two chairs, and an

unused file cabinet. Actually, the bottom drawer of the cabinet

was packed with over a thousand empty Kit Kat wrappers.

Brother Timothy, who was responsible for the mechanical

systems of both the abbey and the school, had a Kit Kat jones.

Evidently, he felt that his candy craving was uncomfortably close

to the sin of gluttony, because he seemed to be hiding the

evidence.

Only Brother Timothy and visiting service personnel had reason

to be in this room frequently. He felt his secret was safe here.

All the monks knew about it. Many of them, with a wink and

a grin, had urged me to look in the bottom drawer of the file

cabinet.

No one could have known whether Brother Timothy had confessed gluttony to the prior, Father Reinhart. But the existence

of his collection of wrappers suggested that he wanted to

be caught.

His brothers would be happy to discover the evidence, although

not until the trove of wrappers grew even larger, and not

until the right moment, the moment that would ensure the greatest

embarrassment for Timothy.

Although Brother Timothy was loved by everyone, unfortunately

for him, he was also known for his bright blush, which

made a lantern of his face.

Brother Roland had suggested that God would have given a

man such a glorious physiological response to embarrassment

only if He wanted it to be displayed often and to be widely enjoyed.

Posted on a wall of this basement room, referred to by the

brothers as the Kit Kat Katacombs, hung a framed needlepoint

sampler: THE DEVIL IS IN THE DIGITAL DATA.

Using this computer, I could review the historical performance

record as well as the current status of the heating-and-cooling

system, the lighting system, the fire-control system, and the

emergency-power generators.

On the second floor, the three bodachs still roamed from room

to room, previewing victims to enhance the pleasure they would

get from carnage when it came. I could learn no more from

watching them.

Fear of fire had driven me to the basement. On the screen, I

studied display after display relating to the fire-control system.

Every room featured at least one sprinkler head embedded in

the ceiling. Every hallway had numerous sprinklers, spaced fifteen

feet on center.

According to the monitoring program, all the sprinklers were

in order and all the water lines were maintaining the required

pressure. The smoke detectors and alarm boxes were functional

and periodically self-testing.

I backed out of the fire-control system and called up the

schema of the heating-and-cooling systems. I was particularly

interested in the boilers, of which the school had two.

Because no natural-gas service extended to the remote Sierra,

both boilers were fired by propane. A large pressurized storage

tank lay buried at a distance from both the school and the abbey.

According to the monitors, the propane tank contained 84 percent

of maximum capacity. The flow rate appeared to be normal.

All of the valves were functioning. The ratio of BTUs produced to

propane consumed indicated no leaks in the system. Both of the

independent emergency-shutdown switches were operative.

Throughout the schema, every point of potential mechanical

failure was signified by a small green light. Not a single red indicator

marred the screen.

Whatever disaster might be coming, fire would probably not

be a part of it.

I looked at the needlepoint sampler framed on the wall above

the computer: THE DEVIL IS IN THE DIGITAL DATA.

Once, when I was fifteen, some seriously bad guys in porkpie

hats handcuffed me, chained my ankles together, locked me in

the trunk of an old Buick, picked up the Buick with a crane,

dropped the car into a hydraulic compressing machine of the

kind that turns any once-proud vehicle into a three-foot cube of

bad modern art, and punched the CRUSH ODD THOMAS button.

Relax. It's not my intention to bore you with an old war story. I raise the issue of the Buick only to illustrate the fact that my

supernatural gifts do not include reliable foresight.

Those bad guys had the polished-ice eyes of gleeful sociopaths,

facial scars that suggested they were at the very least

adventurous, and a way of walking that indicated either painful

testicular tumors or multiple concealed weapons. Yet I did not

recognize that they were a threat until they knocked me flat to

the ground with a ten-pound bratwurst and began to kick the

crap out of me.

I had been distracted by two other guys who were wearing

black boots, black pants, black shirts, black capes, and peculiar

black hats. Later, I learned they were two schoolteachers who had

each independently decided to attend a costume party dressed as

Zorro.

In retrospect, by the time I was locked in the trunk of the Buick

with the two dead rhesus monkeys and the bratwurst, I realized

that I should have recognized the real troublemakers the minute

I had seen the porkpie hats. How could anyone in his right mind

attribute good intentions to three guys in identical porkpie hats?

In my defense, consider that I was just fifteen at the time, not

a fraction as experienced as I am these days, and that I have

never claimed to be clairvoyant.

Maybe my fear of fire was, in this case, like my suspicion of the

Zorro impersonators: misguided.

Although a survey of selected mechanical systems had given

me no reason to believe that impending flames had drawn the

bodachs to St. Bart's School, I remained concerned that fire was a

danger. No other threat seemed to pose such a challenge to a

large community of the mentally and physically disabled.

Earthquakes were not as common or as powerful in the mountains

of California as in the valleys and the flatlands. Besides, the

new abbey had been built to the standards of a fortress, and the

old one had been reconstructed with such diligence that it should

be able to ride out violent and extended temblors.

This high in the Sierra, bedrock lay close underfoot; in some

places, great granite bones breached the surface. Our two buildings

were anchored in bedrock.

Here we have no tornadoes, no hurricanes, no active volcanoes,

no killer bees.

We do have something more dangerous than all those things.

We have people.

The monks in the abbey and the nuns in the convent seemed

to be unlikely villains. Evil can disguise itself in piety and charity,

but I had difficulty picturing any of the brothers or sisters running

amok with a chain saw or a machine gun.

Even Brother Timothy, on a dangerous sugar high and crazed

by Kit Kat guilt, didn't scare me.

The glowering Russian staying on the second floor of the

guesthouse was a more deserving object of suspicion. He did not

wear a porkpie hat, but he had a dour demeanor and secretive

ways.

My months of peace and contemplation were at an end.

The demands of my gift, the silent but insistent pleas of the

lingering dead, the terrible losses that I had not always been able

to prevent: These things had driven me to the seclusion of St.

Bartholomew's Abbey. I needed to simplify my life.

I had not come to this high redoubt forever. I had only asked

God for a time-out, which had been granted, but now the clock

was ticking again.

When I backed out of the heating-and-cooling-system schema,

the computer monitor went to black with a simple white menu.

In that more reflective screen, I saw movement behind me.

For seven months, the abbey had been a still point in the river,

where I turned in a lazy gyre, always in sight of the same familiar

shore, but now the true rhythm of the river asserted itself. Sullen,

untamed, and intractable, it washed away my sense of peace and

washed me toward my destiny once more.

Expecting a hard blow or the thrust of something sharp, I spun

the office chair around, toward the source of the reflection in the

computer screen.

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Tags: dean koontz brother odd

Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three