Dean Koontz - Winter Moon

On Wednesday the moving company arrived with the small shipment from Los Angeles: the rest of their clothes, their books, Heather's computers and related equipment, Toby's toys and games, and the other items they hadn't been willing to give away or sell. The presence of a greater number of their familiar possessions made the new house seem more like home.

Although the days became chillier and more overcast as the week waned, Heather's mood remained bright and cheerful. She was not troubled by anxiety attacks like the one she'd experienced when Paul Youngblood had first shown them around the property Monday evening, day by day that paranoid episode faded from her thoughts… She swept away spiderwebs and desiccated insect prey in the back stairs, washed the spiraling treads with pungent ammonia water, and rid that space of mustiness and the faint odor of decay. No uncanny feelings overcame her, and it was hard to believe that she'd felt a superstitious dread of the stairs when she'd first descended them behind Paul and Toby.

From a few second-floor windows, she could see the graveyard on the knoll. It didn't strike her as macabre any longer, because of what Paul had said about ranchers' attachment to the land that had sustained their families for generations. In the dysfunctional family in which she'd been raised, and in Los Angeles, there had been so little tradition and such a weak sense of belonging anywhere or to anything that these ranchers' love of home seemed touching-even spiritually uplifting- rather than morbid or strange.

Heather cleaned out the refrigerator too, and they filled it with healthy foods for quick breakfasts and lunches. The freezer compartment was already half filled with packaged dinners, but she delayed doing an inventory because more important tasks awaited her.

Four evenings in a row, too weary from their chores to cook, they drove into Eagle's Roost to eat at the Main Street Diner, owned and operated by the steer that could drive a car and do math and dance. The food was first-rate country cooking.

The sixteen-mile journey was insignificant. In southern California, a trip had been measured not by distance but by the length of time needed to complete it, and even a quick jaunt to the market, in city traffic, had required half an hour. A sixteen-mile drive from one point in L.A. to another could take an hour, two hours, or eternity, depending on traffic and the violent tendencies of other motorists. Who knew?

However, they could routinely drive to Eagle's Roost in twenty or twenty-five minutes, which seemed like nothing. The perpetually uncrowded highways were exhilarating.

Friday night, as on every night since they'd arrived in Montana, Heather fell asleep without difficulty. For the first time, however, her sleep was troubled… in her dream, she was in a cold place blacker than a moonless and overcast night, blacker than a windowless room. She was feeling her way forward, as if she had been stricken blind, curious but at first unafraid. She was actually smiling, because she was convinced that something wonderful awaited her in a warm, welllighted place beyond the darkness. Treasure. Pleasure.

Enlightenment, peace, joy, and transcendence waiting for her, if she could find her way. Sweet peace, freedom from fear, freedom forever, enlightenment, joy, pleasure more intense than any she had ever known, waiting, waiting.

But she fumbled through the impenetrable darkness, feeling with hands extended in front of her, always moving in the wrong direction, turning this way and that, that way and this. Curiosity became overpowering desire. She wanted whatever lay beyond the wall of night, wanted it as badly as she had ever wanted anything in her life, more than food or.love or wealth or happiness, for it was all those things and more.

Find the door, the door and the light beyond, the wonderful door, beautiful light, peace and joy, freedom and pleasure, release from sorrow. transformation, so close, achingly close, reach out, reach.

Want became need, compulsion became obsession. She had to have whatever awaited hen — joy, peace, freedom-so she ran into the cloying blackness, heedless of danger, plunged forward, frantic to find the way, the path, the truth, the door, joy forever, no more fear of death, no fear of anything, paradise, sought it with increasing desperation, but ran always away from it instead.

Now a voice called to her, strange and wordless, frightening but alluring, trying to show her the way, joy and peace and an end to all sadness. Just accept. Accept. It was reaching out for her, if only she would turn the right way, find it, touch it, embrace it. She stopped running. Abruptly she realized that she didn't have to seek the gift after all, for she was standing in Its presence, in the house of joy, the palace of peace, the kingdom of enlightenment. All that she had to do was let it in, open a door within herself and let it in, let it in, open herself to inconceivable joy, paradise, paradise, paradise, surrender to pleasure and happiness. She wanted it, she really did oh-so-eagerly want it, because life was hard when it didn't have to be But some stubborn part of her resisted the gift, some teful and proud part of her complex self.

She sensed frustration of him who wished to give this gift, the iver in the darkness, felt frustration and maybe anger, she said, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.

Now the gift-joy, peace, love, pleasure-was thrust on her with tremendous force, brutal and unrelenting ressure, until she felt she would be crushed by it. The darkness around her acquired weight, as if she lay deep in a fathomless sea, though it was far heavier and thicker than water, surrounding her, smothing, crushing. Must submit, useless to resist, let it in, submission was peace, submission was joy, paradise, paradise. Refusal to submit would mean pain beyond anything she could imagine, despair and agony as only hose in hell knew it, so she must submit, open the door within herself, let it in, accept, be at peace.

Hammering Dn her soul, ramming and pounding, fierce and irresistible hammering, hammering: Let it in, let it in, in, In… IT… IN.

Suddenly she found the secret door within herself, pathway to joy, gate to peace eternal. She seized the knob, twisted, heard the latch click, pulled inward, shaking with anticipation. Through the slowly widening crack: a glimpse of the Giver.

Glistening and dark. Writhing and quick. Hiss of triumph. Coldness at the threshold. Slam the door, slam the door, slam the door, slamthedoor-…

Heather exploded from sleep, cast back the covers, rolled out of bed onto her feet in one fluid and frantic movement. Her booming heart kept knocking the breath out of her as she tried to inhale. A dream… Only a dream. But no dream in her experience had ever been so intense.

Maybe the thing beyond the door had followed her out of sleep into the real world. Crazy thought. Couldn't shake it.

Wheezing thinly, she fumbled with the nightstand lamp, found the switch. The light revealed no nightmare creatures. Just Jack. Asleep on his stomach, head turned away from her, snoring softly. She managed to draw a breath, though her heart continued to pound. She was damp with sweat and couldn't stop shivering.

Jesus. Not wanting to wake Jack, Heather switched off the lamp-and twitched as darkness fell around her. She sat on the edge of the bed, intending to perch there until her heart stopped racing and the shakes passed, then pull a robe over her pajamas and go downstairs to read until morning. According to the luminous green numbers on the digital alarm clock, it was 3:09 A.M but she was not going to be able to get back to sleep. No way. She might be unable to sleep even tomorrow night. She remembered the glistening, writhing, half-seen presence on the threshold and the bitter cold that flowed from it. The touch of it was still within her, a lingering chill. Disgusting. She felt contaminated, dirty inside, where she could never wash the corruption away.