Whispers – Koontz, Dean

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%20Whispers.txt The Living and The Dead

The forces that affect our lives, the influences that

mold and shape us, are often like whispers in a

distant room, teasingly indistinct, apprehended

only with difficulty.

TUESDAY AT DAWN, Los Angeles trembled. Windows rattled

in their frames. Patio wind chimes tinkled merrily even though

there was no wind. In some houses, dishes fel off shelves. At

the start of the morning rush hour, KFWB, al -news radio, used

the earthquake as its lead story. The tremor had registered 4.8

on the Richter Scale. By the end of the rush hour, KFWB

demoted the story to third place behind a report of terrorist

bombings in Rome and an account of a five-car accident on the

Santa Monica Freeway. After al , no buildings had fal en. By

noon, only a handful of Angelenos (mostly those who had moved

west within the past year) found the event worthy of even a

minute’s conversation over lunch.

The man in the smoke-gray Dodge van didn’t even feel the

earth move. He was at the northwest edge of the city, driving

south on the San Diego Freeway, when the quake struck.