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

“The sandwiches didn’t give you away. They’re of the finest professional quality. It was the Ziploc bag of ice, too thoughtful a touch for any commercial sandwich shop. And twenty-three dollars change. You can’t buy all this for seven dollars or twice seven, for that matter.”

“Now that you know, I guess you’ll want your seven bucks back.”

“No, no, you’ve earned it. This is a bargain. You did so well, I’m of a mind to make you take at least another ten. What did your mother say, you packing up a picnic like this?”

“Mom’s at work all day. She works hard. She wants me to be with a sitter. But I don’t want a sitter, and she can’t afford one. And anyway, I know how useless a sitter can be.”

“Corrine? That was your sister’s name, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. She has a summer job over at the Dairy Queen. She’s gone all day, too. Nobody saw me making lunch.”

“The chips are good,” Mr. Blackwood said.

“Sour-cream-and-onion flavor.”

“It’s like having the dip built right into the chip.”

“I like Cheetos, too.”

“Who doesn’t like Cheetos?”

“But we didn’t have any,” Howie said.

“These are perfect with beef sandwiches.”

For a while, neither spoke. The chips were salty, the Cokes were cold and sweet, and the sun pouring down on the roof was warm but not too hot. Howie was surprised by how comfortable silence was between them. He didn’t feel the need to think of things to say or the need to be careful of what not to say. Ron Bleeker, Howie’s nastiest and most persistent tormentor among the kids in town, taunted him with a lot of names, including Butt-Ugly Dugley, and said that he was the president for life of the Butt-Ugly Club. Mr. Blackwood had probably been called butt-ugly more times than he could count. So you could say that a meeting of the Butt-Ugly Club was now in session—and it was a cool event, up here on the roof, above everyone, with good eats and good company, and nobody better than anyone else just because of the way he looked.

Eventually Mr. Blackwood said, “When I was a kid, my father told me never to talk to anyone, and when I did, he always caned me.”

“What’s caned?”

“He beat me with a bamboo cane.”

“Just for talking to people?”

“It was really because I was so ugly and he was ashamed of me.”

“That’s not fair,” Howie said, and for the first time, he felt sorry for Mr. Blackwood, who until this moment had seemed to be still a little scary—though Howie couldn’t say why—but who was mostly someone to envy because he was so big and strong and sure of himself.

“When your father does something mean,” Mr. Blackwood said, “you think it must be partly your fault, you disappointed him somehow.”

“Is that what you thought?”

“The first few times he caned me, yeah. But then, no. I saw he was just a bad man. If I was the most obedient boy in the world—and the handsomest—he would have beaten me for some other reason.”

A large black bird circled over the roof twice, then landed on the northwest corner of the parapet, where it stood solemnly.

“That’s not just a crow,” said Mr. Blackwood. “That’s my raven.”

Howie was impressed. “You have a raven for a pet?”

“Not a pet. He’s my guardian. He always stays nearby. He gave me something once … showed me the night, its secrets. But that’s a long story. I’ll tell you some other time. These pickles are good. They have snap.”

“They’re crisp,” Howie said.

“That’s right. That’s the exact word. Crisp.”

The bird didn’t appear to have been drawn by their food. It remained at the distant corner of the building, preening its feathers with its busy beak.

When they finished eating and were packing up the debris, Mr. Blackwood said, “Was it that your dad didn’t want your mother to have custody of you?”

Howie was rendered speechless by the insight that the question revealed.

Into the boy’s silence, Mr. Blackwood said, “If he couldn’t have his son, nobody could have you. That’s pure jealousy, and it’s a sin. There’s envy in it, too. And pride and murderous hatred. Nothing you did or could have done would have changed what happened. My father and your father, with the cane and the fire, they were the same—except yours worse than mine. I assume there was a court order, he couldn’t come near you. So how did he get hold of you?”

After a while, Howie decided he would be better off sharing than holding it inside. “He took me from a babysitter’s house while Mom was working.”

“Took you where?”

“He said an amusement park. But it was this motel. He waited till I fell asleep.”

“Was it gasoline?”

“I woke up.” Howie drew a deep breath, then another. “Couldn’t breathe.” The memory of the gasoline was suffocating. He found it almost as hard to breathe now as then. He said, “Because of the fumes. Gasoline fumes.”

Mr. Blackwood was patient, as though somehow he knew that Howie had never talked about the burning with anyone, not even with his mother.

Watching the raven as it tucked its head under its wing and seemed to sleep in the sun, Howie finally said, “And then the match. Later he told people … he said he meant to burn himself, too. Him and me together. But then he couldn’t do it to himself.”

“He never meant to,” Mr. Blackwood said. “Don’t you ever believe for a minute that he meant to.”

“I don’t. He lies. He’s a liar.” Funny—how it could be true and still hurt to say his father was a liar.

“You saved your vision with your hand, pressed it tight against your left eye as the fire leaped up. You lost fingers, but otherwise, you’d be blind in one eye.”

“All the gas … it was on my left side.”

“You’re a smart boy and brave, to think so fast, keep your self-control in spite of the pain.”

“I’m not brave. I was scared bad. Sometimes I still am. When I think … he’ll get out one day.”

“I’ll bet all I own, he dies in prison, one way or another.”

Howie didn’t want to wish his father dead, but he took some heart from what Mr. Blackwood said, especially since he sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

“The motel guy … he hears me. He comes fast. I’m burning. He has this extinguisher. My dad tries to stop him. He knocks my dad down. The stuff from the extinguisher—it smells cold. He saved me. I passed out. I woke up blind. But it was just wet pads on my eyes. Mom holding my good hand. The hospital, see. No pain at first. So I thought, It’s over . But it was only just the beginning. It was the beginning of … of everything.”

All the lunch trash was stowed in one bag, and they had only their cups of Coke and ice. Leaning against the parapet with their cups of Coke and ice. With the three gnarled fingers of his left hand, Howie held the cold cup against his scarred face.

The raven’s head remained tucked under its wing.

The light traffic noise rising from Maple Street sounded like a lot of people whispering together.

After a while, Mr. Blackwood said, “Are you all right?”

“I’m okay.”

“You’re one tough boy.”

“I wish. But I’m not.”

“I know tough when I see it.”

Embarrassed but also pleased, Howie said nothing at first. And then he was surprised to hear himself say, “See, there’s this little apartment over the garage. Mrs. Norris, she moved out three days ago. Mom hasn’t found a new renter yet. She’ll have to find one, we need the extra money. But you could stay there a couple days. You don’t have to bunk in this old building.”

“Once your mom gets a look at me, maybe she’ll turn out to have found a renter whether she has or not.”