Odd Thomas (Odd Thomas, #1)

by Dean Koontz

After I declined a bottle of Corona, the chief and I sat in lawn chairs, and he said, “You been communing with the dead again?” “Yes, sir, off and on all day. But this isn’t so much about who’s dead as who might be soon.” I told him about Fungus Man at the restaurant and later at Green Moon Mall. “I saw him at the Grille,” the chief said, “but he didn’t strike me as suspicious, just…unfortunate.” “Yes, sir, but you didn’t have the advantage of being able to see his fan club.” I described the disturbing size of Fungus Man’s bodach entourage. When I recounted my visit to the small house in Camp’s End, I pretended, rather ludicrously, that the side door had been standing open and that I had gone inside under the impression that someone might be in trouble. This relieved the chief of the need to conspire with me, after the fact, in the crime of breaking and entering. “I’m not a high-wire artist,” he reminded me. “No, sir.” “You expect me to walk a dangerously narrow line sometimes.” “I have great respect for your balance, sir.” “Son, that sounds perilously like bullshit.” “There’s some bullshit in it, sir, but it’s mostly sincerity.” Telling him what I found in the house, I omitted any mention of the black room and the traveling swarm. Even a man as sympathetic and open-minded as Wyatt Porter will become a skeptic if you force too much exotic detail upon him.