Dean Koontz - What the Night Knows (with bonus novella Darkness Under the Sun)

I had no way of knowing what those rivers were, but the sight strummed a dark chord of intuition. I suspected that high above me raced torrents of ashes, soot, and fine debris that had once been cities, metropolises pulverized by explosions unprecedented in power and number, then vomited high into the atmosphere, caught and held in orbit by the jet stream, by the many jet streams of a war-transformed troposphere.

My waking visions are even rarer than my prophetic dreams. When one afflicts me, I am aware that it’s an internal event, occurring only in my mind. But this spectacle of wind and baleful light and horrific patterns in the sky was no vision. It was as real as a kick in the groin.

Clenched like a fist, my heart pounded, pounded, as across the yellow vault came a flock of creatures like nothing I had seen in flight before. Their true nature was not easily discerned. They were larger than eagles but seemed more like bats, many hundreds of them, incoming from the northwest, descending as they approached. As my heart pounded harder, it seemed that my reason must be knocking to be let out so that the madness of this scene could fully invade me.

Be assured that I am not insane, neither as a serial killer is insane nor in the sense that a man is insane who wears a colander as a hat to prevent the CIA from controlling his mind. I dislike hats of any kind, though I have nothing against colanders properly used.

I have killed more than once, but always in self-defense or to protect the innocent. Such killing cannot be called murder. If you think that it is murder, you’ve led a sheltered life, and I envy you.

Unarmed and greatly outnumbered by the incoming swarm, not sure if they were intent upon destroying me or oblivious of my existence, I had no illusions that self-defense might be possible. I turned and ran down the long slope toward the eucalyptus grove that sheltered the guesthouse where I was staying.

The impossibility of my predicament didn’t inspire the briefest hesitation. Now within two months of my twenty-second birthday, I had been marinated for most of my life in the impossible, and I knew that the true nature of the world was weirder than any bizarre fabric that anyone’s mind might weave from the warp and weft of imagination’s loom.

As I raced eastward, breaking into a sweat as much from fear as from exertion, behind and above me arose the shrill cries of the flock and then the leathery flapping of their wings. Daring to glance back, I saw them rocking through the turbulent wind, their eyes as yellow as the hideous sky. They funneled toward me as though some master to which they answered had promised to work a dark version of the miracle of loaves and fishes, making of me an adequate meal for these multitudes.

When the air shimmered and the yellow light was replaced by red, I stumbled, fell, and rolled onto my back. Raising my hands to ward off the ravenous horde, I found the sky familiar and nothing winging through it except a pair of shore birds in the distance.

I was back in the Roseland where the sun had set, where the sky was largely purple, and where the once-blazing galleons in the air had burned down to sullen red.

Gasping for breath, I got to my feet and watched for a moment as the celestial sea turned black and the last embers of the cloud ships sank into the rising stars.

Although I was not afraid of the night, prudence argued that I would not be wise to linger in it. I continued toward the eucalyptus grove.

The transformed sky and the winged menace, as well as the spirits of the woman and her horse, had given me something to think about. Considering the unusual nature of my life, I need not worry that, when it comes to food for thought, I will ever experience famine.

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To Gerda ,

who has haunted my heart

since the day we met

BY DEAN KOONTZ

77 Shadow Street • What the Night Knows • Breathless

Relentless • Your Heart Belongs to Me

The Darkest Evening of the Year • The Good Guy

The Husband • Velocity • Life Expectancy

The Taking • The Face • By the Light of the Moon

One Door Away From Heaven • From the Corner of His Eye

False Memory • Seize the Night • Fear Nothing

Mr. Murder • Dragon Tears • Hideaway • Cold Fire

The Bad Place • Midnight • Lightning • Watchers

Strangers • Twilight Eyes • Darkfall • Phantoms

Whispers • The Mask • The Vision • The Face of Fear

Night Chills • Shattered • The Voice of the Night

The Servants of Twilight • The House of Thunder

The Key to Midnight • The Eyes of Darkness

Shadowfires • Winter Moon • The Door to December

Dark Rivers of the Heart • Icebound • Strange Highways

Intensity • Sole Survivor • Ticktock

The Funhouse • Demon Seed

ODD THOMAS

Odd Thomas • Forever Odd • Brother Odd • Odd Hours

FRANKENSTEIN

Prodigal Son • City of Night • Dead and Alive

Lost Souls • The Dead Town

A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog Named Trixie

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEAN KOONTZ is the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers. He lives in Southern California with his wife, Gerda, their golden retriever, Anna, and the enduring spirit of their golden, Trixie.

Correspondence for the author should be addressed to:

Dean Koontz

P.O. Box 9529

Newport Beach, California 92658

Copyright © 2010 by Dean Koontz

Darkness Under the Sun copyright © 2010 by Dean Koontz

Excerpt from Odd Apocalypse copyright © 2012 by Dean Koontz.

All rights reserved.

Jacket art and design: Scott Biel

Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

BANTAM BOOKS and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Title page art from an original photograph by Joseph Hoban

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Koontz, Dean R. (Dean Ray)

What the night knows : a novel / Dean Koontz.

p. cm.

This book contains an excerpt from Odd Apocalypse by Dean Koontz. This excerpt has been set for this edition and may not reflect the final content of the book.

eISBN: 978-0-553-90753-7

1. Serial murders—Fiction. 2. Murder—Investigation—Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3561.O55W48 2011

813'.54—dc22 2010033810

www.bantamdell.com

Cover art and design: Scott Biel

v3.1_r1