Final Hour (Novella) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Dean Koontz
no more from her than to revere—and to extol—her beauty.
With sun glow on her silken skin, she is exhilarated, as though in expectation of a profound pleasure. This is the perfect state of being. She knows from experience that the tremulous anticipation of orgasm is always more satisfying than the event itself.
She is the still point of the turning world.
How could she not be?
The sun itself has crowned her.
If ever she meets another who, like her, the sun adores so passionately, she will not be pleased. She will do then what she has done before: ensure that she is the only one so venerated.
To prevent the sun from taking full possession of her, she wears heavily tinted glasses. Nothing or no one will ever fully possess her.
In spite of the glasses, the land is bright and the sky is brighter still. Defenses are always needed when one is as desirable as Ursula Jean.
She is en route to see Undine, her identical twin. These visits require great courage, because Undine is evil.
On an open road like this, Ursula always drives as fast as she dares. Speed limits are for others.
She recognizes no limits.
If time cannot touch her, neither can the law.
She looks the same at thirty as she did at twenty.
She lives in time but is not subject to it.
Fast, faster. Faster still.
Perhaps she will prove time powerless by arriving at her destination before she started.
She owns eight cars, one for each day of the week, and a white Rolls-Royce for special occasions. This silver Mercedes convertible is for Mondays.
She remembers a time when she felt content with seven cars. Then she met a woman, Benetta Norquist, who possessed eight.
Benetta also had scored a wealthy husband, Proctor. And a larger, more luxurious house than the one in which Ursula lived.
If any woman on Earth owes everything to a surgeon, it is Benetta, a skank reshaped into eye candy.
When Ursula learned that Benetta had signed a prenuptial agreement, there was no need to kill the corrupt and ever-grasping bitch.
Equally corrupt and an even greater fool, Proctor had been easy for Ursula to seduce, enchant, and marry.
Benetta the skank sued to overturn the prenuptial. She smeared her husband every way she could. Among other things, she claimed, to Ursula’s eventual benefit, that Proctor abused cocaine. She lost the case.
Benetta lives still, but in misery, eaten by resentment, bitter and self-hating for having accepted only four million in the prenup.
One of Benetta’s greatest faults is greed.
Greed is destroying her life.
Ursula has no patience for the greedy.
Greed and happiness cannot coexist.
Ursula would pity the woman if she didn’t loathe her.
Easy to seduce, Proctor had been easier to kill. Like this:
Although she doesn’t touch drugs, Ursula has her sources. She removes his stash of cocaine from his bureau drawer, replaces it with uncut heroin of deadly purity, in a bag and decorative box identical to those that hold the cocaine.
Soon thereafter, he inhales himself to death.
Ursula returns the cocaine to the bureau drawer. Two identical stashes. How foolish of him to make it so easy to confuse them.
Under the cold eyes of the authorities, she weeps copiously. Men are always deeply moved to see such a vision weeping.
She speaks of her efforts to encourage Proctor into rehab. Both household maids testify to having overheard those conversations.
Even suspicious homicide detectives cannot believe Ursula’s flood of tears might be faked. See the sorrowing softness of her full mouth. See the tender curve of her throat convulse with sobs.
Benetta, when questioned, says, “The lucky bitch. Why couldn’t the bastard OD when
I
was married to him?”
When told of this, Ursula weeps again, moved beyond endurance to think that Proctor had been so hated by a woman he once loved.
Following a respectable period of mourning, Ursula reverts to the name Liddon. And thus the episode concludes.
She hadn’t signed a prenup. Proctor so adored
With sun glow on her silken skin, she is exhilarated, as though in expectation of a profound pleasure. This is the perfect state of being. She knows from experience that the tremulous anticipation of orgasm is always more satisfying than the event itself.
She is the still point of the turning world.
How could she not be?
The sun itself has crowned her.
If ever she meets another who, like her, the sun adores so passionately, she will not be pleased. She will do then what she has done before: ensure that she is the only one so venerated.
To prevent the sun from taking full possession of her, she wears heavily tinted glasses. Nothing or no one will ever fully possess her.
In spite of the glasses, the land is bright and the sky is brighter still. Defenses are always needed when one is as desirable as Ursula Jean.
She is en route to see Undine, her identical twin. These visits require great courage, because Undine is evil.
On an open road like this, Ursula always drives as fast as she dares. Speed limits are for others.
She recognizes no limits.
If time cannot touch her, neither can the law.
She looks the same at thirty as she did at twenty.
She lives in time but is not subject to it.
Fast, faster. Faster still.
Perhaps she will prove time powerless by arriving at her destination before she started.
She owns eight cars, one for each day of the week, and a white Rolls-Royce for special occasions. This silver Mercedes convertible is for Mondays.
She remembers a time when she felt content with seven cars. Then she met a woman, Benetta Norquist, who possessed eight.
Benetta also had scored a wealthy husband, Proctor. And a larger, more luxurious house than the one in which Ursula lived.
If any woman on Earth owes everything to a surgeon, it is Benetta, a skank reshaped into eye candy.
When Ursula learned that Benetta had signed a prenuptial agreement, there was no need to kill the corrupt and ever-grasping bitch.
Equally corrupt and an even greater fool, Proctor had been easy for Ursula to seduce, enchant, and marry.
Benetta the skank sued to overturn the prenuptial. She smeared her husband every way she could. Among other things, she claimed, to Ursula’s eventual benefit, that Proctor abused cocaine. She lost the case.
Benetta lives still, but in misery, eaten by resentment, bitter and self-hating for having accepted only four million in the prenup.
One of Benetta’s greatest faults is greed.
Greed is destroying her life.
Ursula has no patience for the greedy.
Greed and happiness cannot coexist.
Ursula would pity the woman if she didn’t loathe her.
Easy to seduce, Proctor had been easier to kill. Like this:
Although she doesn’t touch drugs, Ursula has her sources. She removes his stash of cocaine from his bureau drawer, replaces it with uncut heroin of deadly purity, in a bag and decorative box identical to those that hold the cocaine.
Soon thereafter, he inhales himself to death.
Ursula returns the cocaine to the bureau drawer. Two identical stashes. How foolish of him to make it so easy to confuse them.
Under the cold eyes of the authorities, she weeps copiously. Men are always deeply moved to see such a vision weeping.
She speaks of her efforts to encourage Proctor into rehab. Both household maids testify to having overheard those conversations.
Even suspicious homicide detectives cannot believe Ursula’s flood of tears might be faked. See the sorrowing softness of her full mouth. See the tender curve of her throat convulse with sobs.
Benetta, when questioned, says, “The lucky bitch. Why couldn’t the bastard OD when
I
was married to him?”
When told of this, Ursula weeps again, moved beyond endurance to think that Proctor had been so hated by a woman he once loved.
Following a respectable period of mourning, Ursula reverts to the name Liddon. And thus the episode concludes.
She hadn’t signed a prenup. Proctor so adored
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