Life Expectancy
In the dazzling new thriller from the master of dark suspense, the hand of fate reaches out to touch an ordinary man with greatness. So long as he is ready. So long as he is, above all, afraid.Jimmy Tock comes into the world on the very night his grandfather leaves it. As a violent storm rages outside the hospital, Rudy Tock spends long hours walking the corridors between the expectant fathers' waiting room and his dying father's bedside. It's a strange vigil made all the stranger when, at the very height of the storm's fury, Josef Tock suddenly sits up in bed and speaks coherently for the first and last time since his stroke.What he says before he dies is that there will be five dark days in the life of his grandson – five dates whose terrible events Jimmy will have to prepare himself to face. The first is to occur in his 20th year; the second in his 23rd year; the third in his 28th; the fourth in his 29th; the fifth in his 30th.Rudy is all too ready to discount his father's last words as a dying man's delusional rambling. But then he discovers that Josef also predicted the moment of his grandson's birth to the minute, as well as his exact height, weight, and the fact that Jimmy would be born with syndactyly – the unexplained anomaly of fused digits on his left foot. Suddenly, the old man's predictions take on a chilling significance.What terrifying events await Jimmy on these five dark days? What nightmares will he face? What challenges must he survive? As the novel unfolds, picking up Jimmy's story at each of these crisis points, the path he must follow will defy every expectation. And with each crisis he faces, he will move closer to a fate he could never have imagined. For who Jimmy Tock is and what he must accomplish on the five days his world turns is a mystery as dangerous as it is wondrous – a struggle against an evil so dark and pervasive only the most extraordinary of human spirits can shine through.
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DEAN KOONTZ
Life Expectancy
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2005
Copyright © Dean Koontz 2005
Dean Koontz asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
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Source ISBN: 9780007196951
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007318223
Version: 2018-12-03
To Laura Albano,
who has such a good heart.
Strange brain, but good heart.
But he that dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.
—ANNE BRONTё, “The Narrow Way”
Here’s a sigh to those who love me,
And a smile to those who hate;
And, whatever sky’s above me, Here’s a heart for every fate.
—LORD BYRON, “To Thomas Moore”
Contents
Title PageCopyrightEpigraphPart One: Welcome To The World, Jimmy TockChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourPart Two: Might As Well Die If I Can’t FlyChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty OneChapter Twenty TwoChapter Twenty ThreePart Three: Welcome To The World, Annie TockChapter Twenty FourChapter Twenty FiveChapter Twenty SixChapter Twenty SevenChapter Twenty EightChapter Twenty NineChapter ThirtyChapter Thirty OneChapter Thirty TwoChapter Thirty ThreeChapter Thirty FourChapter Thirty FiveChapter Thirty SixChapter Thirty SevenChapter Thirty EightChapter Thirty NineChapter FortyPart Four: All I Ever Wanted Was ImmortalityChapter Forty OneChapter Forty TwoChapter Forty ThreeChapter Forty FourChapter Forty FiveChapter Forty SixChapter Forty SevenChapter Forty EightChapter Forty NineChapter FiftyChapter Fifty OneChapter Fifty TwoPart Five: Just Like Pontius Pilate,You Washed Your Hands Of MeChapter Fifty ThreeChapter Fifty FourChapter Fifty FiveChapter Fifty SixChapter Fifty SevenChapter Fifty EightChapter Fifty NineChapter SixtyChapter Sixty OneChapter Sixty TwoPart Six: I Am Moonlight Walking, The Love Of Every Woman, The Envy Of Every ManChapter Sixty ThreeChapter Sixty FourChapter Sixty FiveChapter Sixty SixChapter Sixty SevenChapter Sixty EightChapter Sixty NineChapter SeventyPreviewKeep ReadingAbout the AuthorAlso By Dean KoontzAbout the Publisher
On the night that I was born, my paternal grandfather, Josef Tock, made ten predictions that shaped my life. Then he died in the very minute that my mother gave birth to me.
Josef had never previously engaged in fortunetelling. He was a pastry chef. He made éclairs and lemon tarts, not predictions.
Some lives, conducted with grace, are beautiful arcs bridging this world to eternity. I am thirty years old and can’t for certain see the course of my life, but rather than a graceful arc, my passage seems to be a herky-jerky line from one crisis to another.
I am a lummox, by which I do not mean stupid, only that I am biggish for my size and not always aware of where my feet are going.
This truth is not offered in a spirit of self-deprecation or even humility. Apparently, being a lummox is part of my charm, an almost winsome trait, as you will see.
No doubt I have now raised in your mind the question of what I intend to imply by “biggish for my size.” Autobiography is proving to be a trickier task than I first imagined.
I am not as tall as people seem to think I am, in fact not tall at all by the standards of professional—or even of high school—basketball. I am neither plump nor as buff as an iron-pumping fitness fanatic. At most I am somewhat husky.
