Breathless

above the sea, farther down the coast from here. It changed my life, seeing it happen.”
    “Tell me about it. Tell me all about it, please.”
    “The first thing I need to tell you is, there were squirrels on the bluff, and a dozen birds, and they all became very still when it happened. But it wasn’t the appearance of the pair that transfixed them. It was something else. I sensed something was with us that I couldn’t see, something that maybe the birds and squirrels could see, something that brought the two animals or passed themthrough from wherever. I don’t know. I was very afraid, but at the same time … more alive inside than I had been for a long, long time. And … I was changed.”
    The blind man considered this in silence for a while, and then he said, “Are you my Tom?”
    “Yes, Dad. I’m your Tom.”
    “Oh, I want to touch your face.”
    “It’s not a good face, Dad. I’m afraid for Mom to see it.”
    From behind the bench, a woman said, “I’ve seen it, my love. You passed me on the way to sit with your father. You didn’t know me, but I knew you.”
    Tom allowed his father to touch his face, and his father wept, not only at his son’s suffering, but also with joy.
    When Tom rose and turned to see his mother, she said, “You are so beautiful, Tom. No, look at me. You are beautiful. Your face is a face of transcendence.”

Seventy-two

C ammy watched them from the kitchen window as they frolicked in the new snow with Merlin. But for their black hands, black feet, and black noses, they might have been invisible.
    The coffeemaker began to gurgle, and the sudden aroma of fresh Jamaica blend flooded the kitchen.
    Grady said, “Already, I’m inadequate to homeschool them. Their minds leap ahead of mine. Think you could help?”
    “I’d like nothing more. But they’ll probably leap ahead of me too, in no time.”
    He joined her at the window, a hand on her shoulder. “Do you lie awake some nights, wondering where this is going—I mean the world now, with them in it and everything so changed?”
    She shook her head. “No. Wherever they’re going, they’re taking the world with them, and I know beyond doubt that wherever they want us to be, that’s where we’ll belong.”

About the Author

    DEAN KOONTZ is the author of many #1
New York Times
bestsellers. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Anna, and the enduring spirit of their golden, Trixie.
    Correspondence for the author should be addressed to:
    Dean Koontz
    P.O. Box 9529
    Newport Beach, California 92658

Breathless
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
    Copyright © 2009 by Dean Koontz
Title page art from an original photograph by Thomas Buttler
    All rights reserved.
    Published in the United States by Bantam Books,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
    Bantam Books is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
    Koontz, Dean R. (Dean Ray).
Breathless : a novel / Dean Koontz.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90714-8
1. Carpenters—Fiction. 2. Veterinarians—Fiction. 3. Quarantine—Fiction. 4. Mammals—Colorado—Fiction. 5. Colorado—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3561.O55B74 2009
813′.54—dc22
2009036959
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    v3.0