Dean Koontz - Strange Highways

The nightmarish vision raised one thick, twisted, powerful, vinelike arm and thrust a rootlike finger at Tommy. "You," it said in a deep whispery voice that called to mind the sound of wet slush pouring down a drain.

Tommy was now less surprised by his inability to move than by his ability to stand erect. His legs felt like rags. He was sure that he was going to collapse in a helpless heap while the thing descended upon him, but somehow he remained on his feet with the flashlight in one hand and the butcher's knife in the other.

The knife. Useless. The sharpest blade in the world could never harm this adversary, so Tommy let the knife slip out of his sweaty fingers. It clattered to the floor.

"You," the black pumpkin repeated, and its voice reverberated moistly throughout the room. "Your vicious brother got what he gave. Your mother got what she gave. Your father got what he gave. I fed on them, sucked the brains out of their heads, chewed up their flesh, dissolved their bones. Now what do you deserve?"

Tommy could not speak. He was shaking and weeping silently and dragging each breath into his lungs only with tremendous effort.

The black pumpkin lurched out of the doorway and into the room, looming over him, eyes blazing.

It stood nearly seven feet tall and had to tilt its lantern head to peer down at him. Curls of sooty black smoke from the candle wick escaped between its fangs and from its leprous nose.

Speaking in a rough whisper, yet with such force that its words vibrated the windowpanes, the thing said, "Unfortunately, you are a good boy, and I've no right or license to feed on you. So… What you deserve is what you've got from now on — freedom."

Tommy stared up into the Halloween face, striving hard to grasp what he had been told.

"Freedom," the demonic beast repeated. "Freedom from Frank and Lois and Kyle. Freedom to grow up without their heels pressing down on you. Freedom to be the best that you can be — which means I'll most likely never get a chance to feed on you."

For a long time they stood face to face, boy and beast, and gradually Tommy achieved complete understanding. In the morning, his parents and his brother would be missing. Never to be found. A great and enduring mystery. Tommy would have to live with his grandparents. You get what you give.

"But maybe," the black pumpkin said, putting one cold hand upon Tommy's shoulder, "maybe there's some rottenness in you too, and maybe someday you'll surrender to it, and maybe in time I'll still have my chance with you. Dessert." Its wide grin grew even wider. "Now get back to your bed and sleep. Sleep."

Simultaneously horrified and filled with strange delight, Tommy crossed the room to the doorway, moving as if in a dream. He looked back and saw that the black pumpkin was still watching him with interest.

Tommy said, "You missed a bit," and pointed to the floor beside his brother's nightstand.

The beast looked at Frank's severed hand.

"Ahhhh," said the black pumpkin, snatching up the hand and stuffing that grisly morsel into its mouth.

The flame within the squashy skull suddenly burned very bright, a hundred times brighter than before, then was extinguished.

THROUGH FROST AND THAW, THROUGH WET AND DRY SEASONS, THE thing on the forest floor had waited many hundreds of years for a chance to live again. Not that it was dead. It was alive, aware, always alert to the passage of warm-blooded creatures in the dense woods around it. But only a small portion of its mind was required to monitor nearby animals for a possible host, while for the most part it was occupied with vivid dreams of previous, ancient lives that it had led on other worlds.

Deer, bears, badgers, squirrels, chipmunks, rabbits, possums, wolves, mice, foxes, raccoons, cougars, quail that had strayed in from the fields, dogs, toads, chameleons, snakes, worms, beetles, spiders, and centipedes had passed near enough to the thing to have been seized if they had been suitable. Some, of course, were not warm-blooded, which was one of the creature's primary requirements of a host. Those that did have warm blood — the mammals and the birds — did not meet the other important requirement: a high order of intelligence.

The thing did not grow impatient. It had found hosts in one form or another for millions upon millions of years. It was confident that it would eventually have an opportunity to ascend from its cold dreams and experience this new world, as it had experienced — and conquered — many others.

JAMIE WATLEY WAS IN LOVE WITH MRS. CASWELL. HE HAD CONSIDERABLE artistic talent, so he filled a tablet with drawings of his dream woman: Mrs. Caswell riding a wild horse; Mrs. Caswell taming a lion; Mrs. Caswell shooting a charging rhinoceros that was as big as a Mack truck; Mrs. Caswell as the Statue of Liberty, holding a torch high. He had not seen her ride a horse, tame a lion, or shoot a rhino; neither had he ever heard of her having performed any of those feats. And she certainly did not look like the Statue of Liberty (she was much prettier), but it seemed to Jamie that these imaginary scenes nevertheless portrayed the real Mrs. Caswell.

He wanted to ask Mrs. Caswell to marry him, although he was not confident about his chances. For one thing, she was well-educated, and he was not. She was beautiful, and he was homely. She was funny and outgoing, but he was shy. She was so sure of herself, in command of any situation — Remember the school fire back in September, when she single-handedly saved the building from burning to the ground? — while Jamie had difficulty coping with even minor crises. She was already married too, and Jamie felt guilty about wishing her husband dead. But if he were to have any hope at all of marrying Mrs. Caswell, the worst problem to be overcome was the difference in their ages; she was seventeen years older than Jamie, who was only eleven.

That Sunday night in late October, Jamie sat at the plank-topped, makeshift desk in his small bedroom, creating a new pencil drawing of Mrs. Caswell, his sixth-grade teacher. He depicted her in their classroom, standing beside her desk, dressed in the white robes of an angel. A wonderful light radiated from her, and all the kids — Jamie's classmates — were smiling at her. Jamie put himself into the picture — second row from the door, first desk — and, after some thought, he drew streams of small hearts rising from him the way fog rose from a block of Dry Ice.

Jamie Watley — whose mother was an alcoholic slattern and whose father was an alcoholic, frequently unemployed mechanic — had never much cared for school until this year, when he had fallen under the spell of Mrs. Laura Caswell. Now, Sunday night was always the slowest night of the week because he was impatient for the start of school.

Downstairs, his mean-spirited, drunken father was arguing with his equally drunken mother. The subject was money, but the argument could as easily have been about the inedible dinner she had prepared, his eye for other women, her sloppy appearance, his poker losses, her constant whining, the lack of snack foods in the house, or which TV program they were going to watch. The thin walls of the decrepit house did little to muffle their voices, but Jamie was usually able to tune them out.

He started a new drawing. In this one, Mrs. Caswell was standing on a rocky landscape, wearing futuristic clothing, and battling an alien monster with a laser sword.

BEFORE DAWN, TEEL PLEEVER DROVE HIS BATTERED, DIRTY, EIGHT-YEAR old jeep station wagon into the hills. He parked along an abandoned logging road deep in the forest. As dawn was breaking, he set out on foot with his deer rifle. The gun was a bolt-action Winchester Model 70 in.270 caliber, restocked in fine European walnut, with a four-power scope on Stith Streamline mounts, incorporating windage.