Dean Koontz - Winter Moon

"In what bodies?"

The small face was without expression, as placid as still water, yet the words burst from the boy in a tone of ice-cold rage.

Jack had the eerie feeling that he was conversing with a ventriloquist's dummy that could not match its wooden features to the tenor of its words.

"In what bodies?"

This wasn't a breakdown. A mental collapse didn't happen this suddenly, completely, without warning signs.

"In what bodies?"

This wasn't Toby. Not Toby at all. Ridiculous. Of course it was Toby. Who else?

Someone talking through Toby. Crazy thought, weird. Through Toby?

Nevertheless, kneeling there in the graveyard, gazing into his son's eyes, Jack no longer saw the blankness of a mirror, although he was aware of his own frightened eyes in twin reflections. He didn't see the innocence of a child, either, or any familiar quality. He perceived-or was imagining-another presence, something both less and more than human, a strangeness beyond comprehension, peering out at him from within Toby… "In what bodies?"

Jack couldn't work up any saliva. Tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Couldn't swallow, either. He was colder than the wintry day could explain. Suddenly much colder. Beyond freezing.

He'd never felt anything like it before. A cynical part of him thought he was being ridiculous, hysterical, leting himself be swept away by primitive superstition- because he could not face the thought of Toby having a psychotic episode and slipping into mental chaos. On the other hand, it was precisely the primitive nature of the perception that convinced him another presence shared the body of his son: he felt it on a primal level, deeper than he had ever felt anything before, it was a knowledge more certain than any that could be arrived at by intellect, a profound and irrefutable animal instinct, as if he'd captured the scent of an enemy's pheromones, his skin was tingling with the vibrations of an inhuman aura. His gut clenched with fear. Sweat broke out on his forehead the flesh crimped along the nape of his neck.

He wanted to spring to his feet, scoop Toby into his arms, run down the hill to the house, and remove him from the influence of the entity that held him in its thrall. Ghost, demon, ancient Indian spirit?

No, ridiculous. But something, damn it. Something.

He hesitated, partly because he was transfixed by what he thought he saw in the boy's eyes, partly because he feared that forcing a break of the connection between Toby and whatever was linked with him would somehow harm the boy, perhaps damage him mentally. Which didn't make any sense, no sense at all. But then none of it made sense.

A dreamlike quality characterized the moment and the place. It was Toby's voice, yes, but not his usual speech patterns or inflections:

"In what bodies did they go on from here?"

Jack decided to answer.

Holding Toby's empty glove in his hand, he had the terrible feeling that he must play along or be left with a son as limp and hollow as the glove, a drained shell of a boy, form without content, those beloved eyes vacant forever.

And how insane was that? His mind spun. He seemed poised on the brink of an abyss, teetering out of balance. Maybe he was the one having the breakdown.

He said, "They didn't need bodies, Skipper. You know that. Nobody needs bodies in heaven."

"They are bodies," the Toby-thing said cryptically. "Their bodies are."

"Not any more. They're spirits now."

"Don't understand."."Sure you do. Souls. Their souls went to heaven."

"Bodies are."

"Went to heaven to be with God."

"Bodies are."

Toby stared through him. Deep in Toby's eyes, however, like a coiling thread of smoke, something moved. Jack sensed that something was regarding him intensely.

"Bodies are. Puppets are. What else?" Jack didn't know how to respond.

The breeze coming across the flank of the sloped yard was as cold as if it had skimmed over a glacier on its way to them. The Toby-thing returned to the first question that it had asked: "What are they doing down there?"

Jack glanced at the graves, then into the boy's eyes, deciding to be straightforward. He wasn't actually talking to a little boy, so he didn't need to use euphemisms. He was crazy, imagining the whole conversation as well as the inhuman presence. Either way, what he said didn't matter.

"They're dead."

"What is dead?"

"They are. These three people buried here."

"What is dead?"

"Lifeless."

"What is lifeless?"

"Without life."

"What is life?"

"The opposite of death."

"What is death?"

Desperately, Jack said, "Empty, hollow, rotting."

"Bodies are."

"Not forever."

"Bodies are."

"Nothing lasts forever."

"Everything lasts."."Nothing."

"Everything becomes."

"Becomes what?" Jack asked.

He was now beyond giving answers himself, was full of his own questions.

"Everything becomes," the Toby-thing repeated.

"Becomes what?"

"Me. Everything becomes me."

Jack wondered what in the hell he was talking to and whether he was making more sense to it than it was making to him. He began to doubt that he was even awake. Maybe he'd taken a nap. If he wasn't insane, perhaps he was asleep.

Snoring in the armchair in the study, a book in his lap.

Maybe Heather had never come to tell him Toby was in the cemetery, in which case all he had to do was wake up.

The breeze felt real. Not like a dream wind. Cold, piercing. And it had picked up enough speed to give it a voice. Whispering in the grass, soughing in the trees along the edge of the higher woods, keening softly, softly.

The Toby-thing said, "Suspended."

"What?"

"Different sleep."

Jack glanced at the graves. "No."

"Waiting."

"No."

"Puppets waiting."

"No. Dead."

"Tell me their secret."

"Dead."

"The secret."

"They're just dead."

"Tell me."."There's nothing to tell."

The boy's expression was still calm, but his face was flushed. The arteries were throbbing visibly in his temples, as if his blood pressure had soared off the scale.

"Tell me!"

Jack was shaking uncontrollably, increasingly frightened by the cryptic nature of their exchanges, worried that he understood even less of the situation than he thought he did and that his ignorance might lead him to say the wrong thing and somehow put Toby into even greater danger than he already was.

"Tell me!"

Overwhelmed by fear and confusion and frustration, Jack grabbed Toby by the shoulders, stared into his strange eyes.

"Who are you?"

No answer.

"What's happened to my Toby?"

After a long silence: "What's the matter, Dad?"

Jack's scalp prickled. Being called

"Dad" by this thing, this hateful intruder, was the worst affront yet.

"Dad?"

"Stop it."

"Daddy, what's wrong?"

But he wasn't Toby. No way. His voice still didn't have its natural inflections, his face was slack, and his eyes were wrong.

"Dad, what're you doing?"

The thing in possession of Toby apparently hadn't realized that its masquerade had come undone. Until now it had thought that Jack believed he was speaking with his son. The parasite was struggling to improve its performance.

"Dad, what did I do? Are you mad at me? I didn't do anything, Dad, really I didn't."

"What are you?" Jack demanded.

Tears slid from the boy's eyes. But the nebulous something was behind the tears, an arrogant puppetmaster confident of its ability to deceive… "Where's Toby? You sonofabitch, whatever the hell you are, give him back to me."

Jack's hair fell across his eyes. Sweat glazed his face. To anyone coming upon them just then, his extreme fear would appear to be dementia. Maybe it was. Either he was talking to a malevolent spirit that had taken control of his son or he was insane. Which made more sense?