Vision by Dean Koontz

Absolutely not.”
    “When did your visions begin?”
    “Later the same year.”
    “A few minutes ago you asked me why you’d been singled out to be a clairvoyant. Well, there’s nothing mysterious about it really. As in the case of Peter Hurkos, your psychic talent came after a serious head injury.”
    “Not serious enough.”
    He stopped polishing his spectacles, put them on, and studied her with huge, magnified eyes. “Is it possible that a severe psychological shock could trigger psychic abilities in the same way that certain head injuries seem to do?”
    She shrugged.
    “If you didn’t acquire your power as a result of a physical trauma, then maybe you acquired it because of a psychological trauma. Do you suppose that’s possible?”
    “It could be,” she said.
    “Either way,” he said, thrusting a bony finger at her, as if repeatedly tapping a window between them, “either way, your clairvoyance probably goes back to Berton Mitchell, to what he did to you that you can’t remember.”
    “Maybe . ”
    “And your insomnia goes back to Berton Mitchell. Your periodic depressions go back to him. What he did to you is the underlying cause of your anxiety attacks. I tell you, Mary, the sooner you face up to this, the better. If you ever let me use hypnosis to regress you and guide you through the memories, then you’ll never need my help again.”
    “I’ll always need your help.”
    He scowled. His deeply tanned face was scored by lines like saber slashes. An ambitious portrait painter would have wanted to catch him with that expression, for it made him look fierce, yet fair and reliable. It was that expression that drew her to him at a party three years ago ; and his distant but paternal manner caused her to seek his advice when her dependency on sleeping pills became absolute.
    “If you’ll always need my help,” he said, “then I’m not helping you at all. As a psychiatrist, I must make you find all the strength you need inside yourself.”
    She went to the bar and picked up the decanter of brandy. “You said I could have another if I kept talking a while.”
    “I never break a promise.” He joined her at the bar. “The day’s nearly over. I’ll have another, too.”
    As she poured for them, she said, “You’re wrong about Mitchell.”
    “In what sense?”
    “I don’t think all of my problems date back to him. Some of them started the day my father died.”
    “I’ve heard you expound on that theory before.”
    “I was in the car with him when he was killed. I was in the back seat and he was driving. I saw him die. His blood sprayed all over me. I was only nine. And the years after he died weren’t easy. In three years my mother lost all the money my father left us. We went from rich to poor between my ninth and twelfth birthdays. I think an experience like that would leave some scars, don’t you?”
    “It has,” he said. He picked up his brandy glass. “But it’s not responsible for the worst scars.”
    “How do you know?”
    “You’re able to talk about it.”
    “So?”
    “But you aren’t able to talk about what happened with Berton Mitchell.”
     
 
When he finished with the woman, he stood, pulled up his pants, zipped his fly. He hadn’t even taken off his coat.
    He stepped back from her, looked at her.
    Given the opportunity, she made no effort to cover herself. Her skirt was bunched around her hips. Her blouse was unbuttoned ; one plump breast was visible. Her hands were fisted. Her fingernails had gouged her palms, and ribbons of blood were on her hands. Terrorized, reduced to little more than a cowering animal, she represented his ideal woman.
    He took the knife out of his coat pocket.
    He expected her to scream and scramble away from him, but as he moved in for the kill, she lay as if she were dead already. She was past fear now, past feeling anything.
    Kneeling beside her, he placed the point of the blade at her throat. The flesh dimpled around it, but she