Dean Koontz - The Darkest Evening Of The Year

Harrow crosses fissured slabs of weather-smoothed rock to the yard. Over the ages, wind had blown soil into a deep oval declivity in the granite, and later had seeded it.

From the center of the grassy oval rises an eighty-foot Montezuma pine, its great spreading branches filtering the midday sun through tufts of gracefully drooping, ten-inch-long needles.

In feathery shadows and plumes of sunshine, Moongirl sits upon a blanket, aware that she is a vision. Even in this dramatic landscape, she is the focus and lodestar. She draws his gaze as irresistibly as gravity pulls a dropped stone down a well, into the drowning dark.

She is wearing only black panties and a simple but expensive diamond necklace that Harrow gave her. She is ripe but lithe, with sun-bronzed skin and the self-possessed air of a cat. Dappled with shadows and golden light, she reminds him of a leopard at leisure, fresh from a killing, fed and content.

Men have given her so much for so long that she expects gifts in the same way she expects to receive air every time she inhales: as a natural right. She accepts every offering, no matter how extravagant, with no more thanks than she expresses when she turns a spigot and receives water from a tap.

Beside her is a black-lacquered box lined with red velvet, in which she keeps an array of polishes, scissors, files, emery boards, and other instruments for the care of her nails.

Although she never visits a manicurist, her fingernails are exquisitely shaped, though shorter and more pointed than is the fashion these days. She is content to spend hours at this task.

Her fear of boredom turns her inward. To Moongirl, other people seem as flat as actors on a TV screen, and she is unable to imagine that they possess her dimension. The outer world is gray and empty, but her inner world is rich.

Harrow sits on the grass, a few feet from her blanket, as she does not encourage closeness in moments like this. He drinks coffee, watches her as she paints her toenails, and wonders what occupies her mind when she is in such a reverie.

He would not be surprised to learn that no conscious thoughts whatsoever trouble her right now, that she is in a trance.

In an effort to understand her, he discovered a condition called automatism. This is a state during which behavior is not controlled by the conscious mind, and it may or may not apply to her.

Usually, automatisms last a few minutes. But as with all things, there are atypical events, and Moongirl is nothing if not atypical.

In the grip of automatism, perhaps she can spend hours on her toenails without being aware that she is grooming herself. Later, she would have no recollection of trimming, filing, and polishing.

Conceivably, she could kill a man during such a spell, never be conscious of committing violence, and have no memory of murder.

He would like to watch her in an act of automatismic homicide. How breathtakingly terrible her beauty would be then: her eyes blank and her features without expression as she wielded a flensing knife.

He doubts that she has killed in such a condition or ever will, because murder-especially by fire-is the one thing the outer world can offer her that dependably staves off boredom. She does not need to kill in a trance when she can, without compunction and with deep satisfaction, kill while fully conscious.

Frequently she passes the better part of the day in grooming activities. She is eternally fascinated by herself, and her body is her best defense against boredom.

Sometimes she spends an entire afternoon washing her golden hair, applying to it a series of natural-substance rinses, slowly brushing it dry in the sun, and giving herself a long scalp and neck massage.

A restless man by nature, Harrow is nevertheless able to watch her for hours as she grooms herself. He is soothed by her flawless beauty, by her bottomless calm, and by her perfect self-absorption, and she inspires in him a curious hopeful feeling, though he has not yet been able to identify what it is that he hopes for .

Usually Moongirl grooms herself in silence, and Harrow is not sure that she is aware of his presence. This time, after a while, she speaks: “Have you heard from him?”

“No.”

“I’m tired of this place.”

“We won’t stay much longer.”

“He better call soon.”

“He will.”

“I’m tired of the noise.”

“What noise?” he asks.

“The sea breaking on the shore.”

“Most people like it.”

“It makes me think,” she says.

“Think about what?”

“Everything.”

He does not reply.

“I don’t want to think,” she says.

“About what?”

“About anything.”

“When this is done, we’ll go to the desert.”

“It better be done soon.”

“All sand and sun, no surf.”

With slow deliberate strokes of the brush, she paints a toenail purple.

As the earth turns slowly away from the sun, the feathery pine shadows stretch their wings toward the house.

Beyond the pocket yard, out of sight below the shelving slabs of granite, waves pound the beach.

To the west, a gunmetal-blue sea looks hard, cold. It alchemizes the molten-gold sunshine into shiny steel scales, which churn forward like the metal treads of war machines.

After a while she says, “I had a dream.”

Harrow waits.

“There was a dog.”

“What dog?”

“A golden retriever.”

“It would be, wouldn’t it?”

“I didn’t like its eyes.”

“What about them?”

She says nothing.

Then later: “If you see it, kill it.”

“What-the dog?”

“Yes.”

“It was in a dream.”

“But it’s real, too.”

“Not a dangerous breed.”

“This one is.”

“If you say so.”

“Kill it on sight.”

“All right.”

“Kill it good.”

“All right.”

“Kill it hard.”

Afaint onshore breeze washed waves of golden grass up the meadow toward the hilltop, and the elongated oak-tree shadows rippled in the flow.

The sweet grassy scent, the brightness that fell from the air, and the majesty of the oaks was as close as Amy expected to get to Heaven this side of death.

Golden Heart had received these twelve acres from the estate of Julia Papadakis, who had fostered many a golden retriever between its rescue and its forever home.

Julia’s only living relative, a niece named Linnea, unhappy with a thirty-million-dollar inheritance, had challenged the will, seeking to add this valuable land to her portfolio. Linnea had millions for attorney fees. Amy’s counterattack was mounted on a budget.

Currently, even after years of operation, Golden Heart had no office other than Amy’s study, no care facilities for the dogs other than the volunteers’ homes. When she brought in more dogs than could be fostered by their members, she had to board them in the kennels of the animal hospitals that offered her a discount.

She was loath to board a single rescue. Even if they didn’t arrive beaten or tick-infested, even if they were healthy dogs, they were nevertheless anxious and in need of affection in excess of what any ordinary kennel staff could offer.

Here on this hill, in this meadow, with determination and the grace of God, she would oversee the construction of a facility where Golden Heart could receive new rescues, evaluate them, bathe them, and prepare them for their new homes. For those who couldn’t quickly be placed in a forever home or in a foster situation, heated and air-conditioned kennels of generous size, with clean bedding, would be staffed around the clock. There would be a simple clinic, a well-equipped grooming salon, a fenced playground, a training room, a playroom for use in rainy weather…