Dean Koontz - Winter Moon

Sitting on the edge of the bed, bending forward to tie the laces of her Nikes, Heather said, "Hey, we've gotta get a couple of sleds." Jack was at his open closet, removing a red-and brown-checkered flannel shirt from a hanger.

"You sound like a little kid."

"Well, it is my first snow."

"That's right. I forgot."

In Los Angeles in the winter, when the smog cleared enough to expose them, white-capped mountains served s a distant backdrop to the city, and that was the closest she had ever gotten to snow. She wasn't a skier. She'd never been to Arrowhead or Big Bear except in the summer, and she was as excited as a kid about the oncoming storm.

Finishing with her shoelaces, she said, "We've got to make an appointment with Parker's Garage to get that plow on the Explorer before the real winter gets here."

"Already did," Jack said. "Ten o'clock Thursday morning."

As he buttoned his shirt, he moved to the bedroom window to look out at the eastern woods and southern lowlands. "This view keeps hypnotizing me. I'm doing something, very busy, then I look up, catch a glimpse of it through a window, from the porch, and I just stand and stare."

Heather moved behind him, put her arms around him, and looked past him at the striking panorama of woods and fields and wide blue sky. "Is it going to be good?" she asked after a while. "It's going to be great.

This is where we belong. Don't you feel that way?" — "Yes," she said, with only the briefest hesitation.

In daylight, the events of the previous night seemed immeasurably less threatening and more surely the work of an overactive imagination. She had seen nothing, after all, and didn't even know quite what she had expected to see.

Lingering city jitters complicated by a nightmare. Nothing more.

"This is where we belong." He turned, embraced her, and they kissed.

She moved her hands in lazy circles on his back, gently massaging his muscles, which his exercise program had toned and rebuilt. He felt so good. Exhausted from traveling and from settling in, they had not made.love since the night before they'd left Los Angeles. As soon as they made the house their own in that way, it would be theirs in every way, and her peculiar uneasiness would probably disappear. He slid his strong hands down her sides to her hips. He pulled her against him.

Punctuating his whispered words with soft kisses to her throat, cheeks, eyes, and the corners of her mouth, he said, "How about tonight… when the snow's falling… after we've had… a glass of wine or two… by the fire… romantic music… on the radio… when we're feeling relaxed… "

"… relaxed," she said dreamily. "Then we get together…"

"… mmmmmmm, together…"

"… and we have a really wonderful, wonderful…"

"… wonderful…"

"Snowball fight." She smacked him playfully on the cheek. "Beast.

I'll have rocks in my snowballs."

"Or we could make love."

"Sure you don't want to go outside and make snow angels?"

"Not now that I've taken more time to think about "Get dressed, smartass. We've got shopping to do."

Heather found Toby in the living room, dressed for the day. He was on the floor in front of the TV, watching a program with the sound off.

"Big snow's coming tonight," she told him from the archway, expecting his excitement to exceed her own — because this also would be his first experience with a white winter. He didn't respond. "We're going to buy a couple of sleds when we go to town, be ready for tomorrow." He was as still as stone. His attention remained entirely on the screen.

From where she stood, Heather couldn't see what show had so gripped him. "Toby?" She stepped out of the archway and into the living room.

"Hey, kiddo, what're you watching?" He acknowledged her at last as she approached him. "Don't know what it is." His eyes appeared to be out of focus, as though he wasn't actually seeing her, and he gazed once more at the television… The screen was filled with a constantly evolving flow of arabic forms, reminiscent of those Lava lamps that had once been so popular. The lamps had always been in two colors, however, while this display progressed in infinite shades of all the primary colors, now bright, now dark. Ever-changing shapes melted together, curled and flexed, streamed and spurted, drizzled and purled and throbbed in a ceaseless exhibition of amorphic chaos, surging at a frenzied pace for a few seconds, then oozing sluggishly, then faster again.

"What is this?" Heather asked. Toby shrugged. Endlessly recomposing itself, the colorful curvilinear abstract was interesting to watch and frequently beautiful.

The longer she stared at it, however, the more disturbing it became, although for no reason she could discern. Nothing in its patterns was inherently ominous or menacing. Indeed, the fluid and dreamy intermingling of forms should have been restful.

"Why do you have the sound turned down?"

"Don't." She squatted next to him, picked up the remote control from the carpet, and depressed the volume button.

The only sound was the faint static hiss of the speakers. She scanned just one channel farther up on the dial, and the booming voice of an excited sportscaster and the cheering of a crowd at a football game exploded through the living room.

She quickly decreased the volume. When she scanned back to the previous channel, the Technicolor Lava lamp was gone. A Daffy Duck cartoon filled the screen instead and, judging by the frenetic pace of the action, was drawing toward a pyrotechnic conclusion.

"That was odd," she said. "I liked it," Toby said. She scanned farther down the dial, then farther up than before, but she could not find the strange display.

She hit the Off button, and the screen went dark.

"Well, anyway," she said, "time to grab breakfast, so we can get on with the day. Lots to do in town. Don't want to run out of time to buy those sleds."

"Buy what?" the boy asked as he got to his feet. "Didn't you hear me before?"

"I guess."

"About snow?" His small face brightened. "It's gonna snow?"

"You must have enough wax built up in your ears to make the world's biggest candle," she said, heading for the kitchen. Following her, Toby said, "When? When's it gonna snow, Mom? Huh? Today?"

"We could stick a wick in each of your ears, put a match to them, and have candlelight dinners for the rest of the decade."."How much snow?"

"Probably dead snails in there too."

"Just flurries or a big storm?"

"Maybe a dead mouse or three."

"Mom?" he said exasperatedly, entering the kitchen behind her. She spun around, crouched in front of him, and held her hand above his knee. "Up to here, maybe higher."

"Really?"

"We'll go sledding."

"Wow."

"Build a snowman."

"Snowball fight!" he challenged. "Okay, me and Dad against you."

"No fair!" He ran to the window and pressed his face to the glass.

"The sky's blue."

"Won't be in a little while. Guarantee," she said, going to the pantry. "You want shredded wheat for breakfast or cornflakes?"

"Doughnuts and chocolate milk."

"Fat chance."

"Worth a try. Shredded wheat."

"Good boy."

"Whoa!" he said in surprise, taking a step back from the window.

"Mom, look at this."

"What is it?"

"Look, quick, look at this bird. He just landed right smack in front of me." Heather joined him near the window and saw a crow perched on the other side of the glass. Its head was cocked, and it regarded them curiously with one eye. Toby said, "He just zoomed right at me, whoooosh, I thought he was gonna smash through the window. What's he doing?"

"Probably looking for worms or tender little bugs."

"I don't look like any bug."

"Maybe he saw those snails in your ears," she said, returning to the pantry… While Toby helped Heather set the table for breakfast, the crow remained at the window, watching. "He must be stupid," Toby said, "if he thinks we have worms and bugs in here."