Dean Koontz - Winter Moon

They were purveyors of ghost stories, and he had trouble suspending disbelief long enough to become involved in their tales.

If hell existed, he supposed the unknown entity trying to open a door in the fabric of the night might have been a damned soul or a demon forcing its way out of that fiery realm. But that was the sticking point: he didn't believe hell existed, at least not as the carnival gaudy kingdom of evil portrayed in cheap films and books.

To his surprise, he found Heinlein and Clarke to be entertaining and thought-provoking. He preferred the crustiness of the former to the sometimes naive humanism of the latter, but they both had value.

He wasn't sure what he hoped to discover in their books that would help him to deal with the phenomenon in the woods. Had he harbored, in the back of his mind, the absurd expectation that one of these writers had produced a story about an old man who lived in an isolated place and who made contact with something not of this earth? If such was the case, then he was so far around the bend that he would meet himself coming the other way at any moment.

Nevertheless, it was more likely that the presence he sensed beyond the phantom fire and pulsating sound was extraterrestrial rather than hell-born.

The universe contained an infinite number of stars. An infinite number of planets, circling those stars, might have provided the right conditions for life to have arisen. That was scientific fact, not fantasy.

He might also have imagined the whole business. Hardening of the arteries that supplied blood to the brain. An Alzheimer-induced hallucination. He found it easier to believe in that explanation than in demons or aliens.

He had bought the video camera more to assuage self-doubt than to gather evidence for the authorities. If the phenomenon could be captured on tape, he wasn't dotty, after all, and was competent to continue to live alone. Until he was killed by whatever finally opened that doorway in the night.

On the fifteenth of April, he drove into Eagle's Roost to buy fresh milk and produce-and a Sony Discman with quality headphones.

Custer's Appliance also had a selection of audiotapes and compact discs… Eduardo asked the Mozart lookalike for the loudest music to which teenagers were listening these days.

"Gift for your grand-kid?" the clerk asked.

It was easier to agree than to explain. "That's right."

"Heavy metal."

Eduardo had no idea what the man was talking about.

"Here's a new group that's getting really hot," the clerk said, selecting a disc from the display bins. "Call themselves Wormheart."

Back at the ranch, after putting away the groceries, Eduardo sat at the kitchen table to listen to the disc. He installed batteries in the Discman, inserted the disc, put on the headphones, and pressed the Play button. The blast of sound nearly burst his eardrums, and he hastily lowered the volume.

He listened for a minute or so, half convinced he'd been sold a faulty disc.

But the clarity of the sound argued that he was hearing exactly what Wormheart had intended to record. He listened for another minute or two, waiting for the cacophony to become music, before realizing it apparently was music by the modern definition.

He felt old.

He remembered, as a young man, necking with Margaret to the music of Benny Goodman, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Tommy Dorsey. Did young people still neck? Did they know what the word meant? Did they cuddle? Did they pet? Or did they just get naked and tear at each other straightaway?

It sure didn't sound like music you'd play as background to lovemaking.

What it sounded like, to him anyway, was music you'd play as background to violent homicide, maybe to drown out the victim's screams.

He felt ancient.

Aside from not being able to hear music in the music, he didn't understand why any group would call itself Wormheart. Groups should have names like The Four Freshmen, The Andrews Sisters, The Mills Brothers. He could even handle The Four Tops or James Brown and the Famous Flames. Loved James Brown. But Wormheart? It brought disgusting images to mind.

Well, he wasn't hip and didn't try to be. They probably didn't even use the word "hip" any more. In fact, he was sure they didn't. He hadn't a clue as to what word meant "hip" these days.

Older than the sands of Egypt… He listened to the music for another minute, then switched it off and removed the headphones.

Wormheart was exactly what he needed.

By the last day of April, the winter shroud had melted except for deeper drifts that enjoyed the protection of shadows during a large part of the day, although even they were dwindling steadily. The ground was damp but not muddy any longer. Dead brown grass, crushed and matted from the weight of the vanished snow, covered hills and fields, within a week, however, a carpet of tender green shoots would brighten every corner of the now dreary land.

Eduardo's daily walk took him past the east end of the stables and across open fields to the south. At eleven in the morning, the day was sunny, the temperature near fifty, with a receding armada of high white clouds to the north. He wore khakis and a flannel shirt, and was so warmed by exertion that he rolled up his sleeves. On the return trip he visited the three graves that lay west of the stables.

Until recently, the State of Montana had been liberal about allowing the establishment of family cemeteries on private property. Soon after acquiring the ranch, Stanley Quartermass had decided he wanted to spend eternity there, and he had obtained a permit for as many as twelve burial plots.

The graveyard was on a small knoll near the higher woods. That hallowed ground was defined only by a foot-high fieldstone wall and by a pair of four-foot-high columns at the entrance. Quartermass had not wanted to obstruct the panoramic view of the valley and mountains-as if he thought his spirit would sit upon his grave and enjoy the scenery like a ghost in that old, lighthearted movie Topper.

Only three granite headstones occupied a space designed to accommodate twelve.

Quartermass. Tommy. Margaret. pecified by the producer's will, the inscription on the first monument read: "Here lies Stanley Quartermass / dead before his time / because he had to work / with so damned many / actors and writers"-followed by the dates of his birth and death. He had been sixty-six when his plane crashed. However, if he'd been five hundred years old, he still would have felt that his span had been too short, for he had been a man who embraced life with great energy and passion.

Tommy's and Margarite's stones bore no humorous epitaphs-just "beloved son" and "beloved wife." Eduardo missed them.

The hardest blow had been the death of his son, who had been killed in the line of duty only a little more than a year ago, at the age of thirty-two. At least Eduardo and Margaret had enjoyed a long life together.

It was a terrible thing for a man to outlive his own child.

He wished they were with him again. That was a wish frequently made,and the fact that it could never be fulfilled usually reduced him to a melancholy mood which he found difficult to shake. At best, longing to see his wife and son again, he drifted into nostalgic mists, reliving favorite days of years gone by.

This time, however, the familiar wish had no sooner — flickered through his mind than he was inexplicably overcome by dread. A chill wind seemed to whistle through his spine as if it were hollow end to end.

Turning, he wouldn't have been surprised to find someone looming behind him.

He was alone.

The sky was entirely blue, the last of the clouds having slipped across the northern horizon, and the air was warmer than it had been at any time since last autumn. Nonetheless, the chill persisted. He rolled down his sleeves, buttoned the cuffs.