Odd Thomas (Odd Thomas, #1)

by Dean Koontz

I was not surprised, therefore, that Viola’s nightmare, which earlier in the day had seemed likely to be of no consequence, had proved to be a matter of importance, after all. “Do your dreams have voices, sounds?” I asked her. “Some people’s don’t.” “Mine do. In the dream, I can hear myself breathing. And this crowd.” “Crowd?” “A roaring crowd, like the sound in a stadium.” Baffled, I said, “Where would such a place be in Pico Mundo?” “I don’t know. Maybe a Little League game.” “Not such a big crowd at one of those,” Stormy noted. “Wasn’t necessarily thousands of voices. Could’ve been a couple hundred,” Viola said. “Just a crowd, all roaring.” I said, “And then, how is it that you see yourself shot?” “Don’t see it happen. The shadows, the flashes of light, I’m running, and I stumble, fall on my hands and knees…” Viola’s eyes twitched behind their lids as though she were asleep and experiencing the nightmare for the first time. “…on my hands and knees,” she repeated, “hands in something slippery. It’s blood. Then shadows whirl away and light whirls in, and I’m looking down at my own dead face.”