Odd Thomas

surface.
        From this perch, I surveyed the study, trying to understand how it could have become the black room and then could have reverted to this ordinary space again.
        No residual St. Elmo's fire of supernatural energy glimmered along the metal edges of the file cabinets. No otherworldly presences revealed themselves.
        For a while, this room had been transformed into… a portal, a doorway between Pico Mundo and somewhere far stranger, by which I do not mean Los Angeles or even Bakersfield. Perhaps for a while this house had been a train station between our world and Hell, if Hell exists.
        Or if I had reached the bloody red light at the center of that otherwise perfect darkness, perhaps I would have found myself on a planet in a remote arm of the galaxy, where bodachs ruled. Lacking a boarding pass, I had instead been flung into the living room and the past, then into the carport and the future.
        Of course I examined the possibility that what I had seen could have been mere delusion. I might be as crazy as a laboratory rat that has been fed a diet of psychosis-inducing toxins and forced to watch TV "reality" shows that explore in detail the daily lives of washed-up supermodels and aging rock stars.
        From time to time, I do consider that I might be mad. Like any self-respecting lunatic, however, I am always quick to dismiss any doubts about my sanity.
        I saw no reason to search the study for a hidden switch that might convert it again into the black room. Logic suggested that the formidable power needed to open that mysterious doorway had been projected not from here but from the other side, wherever that might be.
        Most likely Fungus Man was unaware that his sanctum served not merely as a catalogued repository for his homicidal fantasies but also as a terminal admitting bodachs to a holiday of blood. Without my sixth sense, perhaps he could sit here, happily working on one of his grisly files, and not be conscious of the ominous transformation of the room or of the arriving hordes of demonic entities.
        From nearby came a tick-tick-tick, a bone-on-bone rattle that brought to mind Halloween images of ambulatory skeletons, and then a brief scuttling sound.
        I rose from the chair and listened, alert.
        Tickless seconds passed. A rattle-free half minute.
        A rat, perhaps, had stirred in the walls or attic, made sick and restless by the heat.
        I sat once more and opened the desk drawers one by one.
        In addition to pencils, pens, paper clips, a stapler, scissors, and other mundane items, I found two recent bank statements and a checkbook. All three were addressed to Robert Thomas Robertson at this house in Camp's End.
        Good-bye, Fungus Man; hello, Bob.
         Bob Robertson didn't have the necessary malevolent ring for the name of a would-be mass murderer. It sounded more like a jovial car salesman.
        The four-page statement from Bank of America reported upon a savings account, two six-month certificates of deposit, a money-market account, and a stock-trading account. The combined value of all Robertson's assets at Bank of America amounted to $786,542.10.
        I scanned the figure three times, certain that I must be misreading the placement of the comma and the decimal point.
        The four-page statement from Wells Fargo Bank, accounting for investments in its care, showed a combined value of $463,125.43.
        Robertson's handwriting was sloppy, but he faithfully kept a running balance in his checkbook. The current available resources in this account totaled $198,648.21.
        That a man with liquid assets of nearly one and a half million dollars should make his home in a shabby, sweltering casita in Camp's End seemed downright perverse.
        If I had this much green at my command, I might continue to cook short-order now and then purely for the artistic satisfaction, but never for a living. The tire life might not in the least appeal to me any longer.
        Perhaps Robertson required few luxuries because he found all the pleasure he needed in ceaseless bloody fantasies that gouted through his imagination.
        A sudden frenzied flapping-rattling almost brought me up from the chair again, but then a sharp and repeated skreek identified the source as crows pecking out their turf on the roof. They come out early on summer mornings, before the heat is insufferable, spend the