Quicksilver

by Dean Koontz

On Monday, during my lunch break, I returned to the bank and withdrew two thousand more and put it in the ziplock bag. After I withdrew three thousand more on Tuesday and another three thousand on Wednesday, I had begun to scare myself. No, I didn’t feel that I was out of control. Rather, I sensed that I was preparing myself for something more than the collapse of the bank, that somehow I knew trouble was coming, as I had known where I would find a valuable coin. Thursday, I alarmed myself further by being unable to resist the urge to buy a small suitcase and pack it full of two changes of clothes and toiletries. I put the suitcase in the trunk of my car and left the vehicle in the long-term parking section of a downtown garage, paying a week in advance with cash. I also withdrew another four thousand from the bank, where they must have begun to think that either I’d become a compulsive gambler or was in thrall to a gold digger.