Deeply Odd(36)
Whatever his hesitation in the doorway might imply, whatever his silence was meant to convey, my interpretation of his behavior would most likely be wrong. I was in new territory in every sense of the word, standing waist-deep in the surging waters of the unknown, which is the worst place to find oneself, for that riverbed is treacherous underfoot and those currents are as unpredictable as they are deadly.
Intuition and reason told me to remain mute and to be prepared that when he spoke, if he spoke, what little I thought I knew about this place and this man would be washed away. And then events would rush forward in waves, in drowning cataracts.
My expectation was fulfilled a moment later, when the silhouette declared, “My name is Odd Thomas. I see the spirits of the lingering dead.” His voice was mine.
He stepped forward, and the door swung shut behind him, sweeping away the dirty-yellow light in the stairwell.
Thirteen
THERE CAN BE NO MORE DREAMLIKE MOMENT THAN TO encounter yourself in a dark place and to know in your marrow as surely as in your mind that only one of you will leave this rendezvous alive.
Yet this was not a dream.
In the worst nightmares, a threshold of terror is reached at which your pounding heart achieves a pace that would set off a cardiac-monitor alarm if you were in an ER, hyperventilation and elevated blood pressure lead to an attack of pulmonary hypertension, and you are violently ejected from sleep, heart hammering so loud that your eardrums seem about to split from the concussions, chest aching, unable to draw an adequate breath. For a moment, you are convinced that the malevolent presence from the nightmare, whatever its nature, is still upon you, smothering you, but within seconds, the familiarity of the waking world is an antidote for your panic.
As the man who claimed to be me approached and as the door fell shut behind him, leaving us in an abyssal dark, my heart achieved the requisite pace to trigger an alarm, my breathing became so fast and shallow that a pain rose in my breast, but I did not wake because I was not sleeping.
Intuition urgently insisted that I move quickly to my right and squeeze off three spread shots at where the Other Odd Thomas would be if he continued on a straight line toward my original position. I regret to say that I allowed my intuition to be overruled by instinct—which urged me to Shoot now, this instant, shoot or run, run!—but which simultaneously raised in me an existential horror of shooting someone who claimed to be me and who sounded exactly like me. In human beings, low superstition is inevitably entwined with instinct—one struggling for dominance over the other in moments of high risk—a linkage that no doubt dates to our caveman days. And so fright shivered through muscle, sinew, and blood—a dread that if I killed this Other, I would at the same time kill myself.
Instinct is an animal faculty, independent of instruction and reasoning, but far inferior to intuition, which is a grace unique to humanity. Instinct will never mislead a deer that senses a hunter in the woods and bolts for the cover of a thicker stand of trees, because animals are not subject to superstition that can pollute pure instinct, as we are.
Besides, instinct always triggers instant action, the fight-or-flight impulse. But because modern human beings are accustomed to the comforts of Starbucks and smartphones and aerosol cheese and athletic shoes with air-cushion insoles, we rarely find ourselves in crises that can be resolved as easily as choosing to run or attack, other than in the competitive crowds at an electronics store on the first bargain-price shopping day after Thanksgiving. Intuition, on the other hand, arises from the perpetual calm in the core of the soul, and it requires of us discrimination and adroitness if it is to serve us well.
During that blackout on the roof, I was no more discriminating and adroit than a night-grazing rabbit abruptly paralyzed by a double flash of lightning and a hammerstrike of thunder loud enough to cleave stone. The Other had spoken in my voice, therefore I was him and he was me, and to shoot seemed to be suicide.
In my defense, I was stupidly immobilized only for a moment, but that proved long enough for him to seize me by the throat with both hands. His touch was cold, his grip tight.
Even at less than arm’s length, I couldn’t discern the barest outlines of his face. If I had been able to see him, to stare into my own face sans mirror, perhaps I would have been further inhibited, but blindness allowed me to squeeze the trigger, and I pumped two rounds into his chest at point-blank range. The hard reports echoed through the darkness, not only out across the vast wasteland but off something overhead, as though the sky might in fact be plated over with a material more substantial than clouds.
Unfortunately, two hollow-point 9-mm slugs seemed to have less effect on him than flea bites. His left hand continued to clutch my throat as if his fingers were the steel digits of a robot, but now he clasped the back of my head with his right hand and pulled my face closer to his.