Dean Koontz - (1989)

by Midnight(Lit)

  room, his claws ticking and scraping on the floor. He sniffed in

  corners and examined the rusted furnace. He was satisfied they'd be

  safe. They could curl up secure in the knowledge that they would not be

  found and if, by some chance, they were found, they could cut off the

  only exit and dispense with an intruder quickly.

  In such a deep, dark, secret place, they could become anything they

  wanted, and no one would see them.

  That last thought startled Tucker. Become anything they wanted?

  He was not sure where that thought originated or what it meant. He

  suddenly sensed that by regressing he had initiated some process that

  was now beyond his conscious control, that some more primitive part of

  his mind was permanently in charge. Panic seized him. He had shifted

  to an altered state many times before and had always been able to shift

  back again. But now . . . His fear was sharp only for a moment,

  because he could not concentrate on the problem, didn't even remember

  what he meant by "regressing," and was soon distracted by the female,

  who wanted to couple with him.

  Soon the three of them were in a tangle, pawing at one another,

  thrusting and thrashing. Their shrill, excited cries rose through the

  abandoned house, like ghost voices in a haunted place.

  Sam was tempted to rise, took through the window, and confront the

  creature face to face, for he was eager to see what one of them looked

  like close-up.

  But as violent as these beings evidently were, a confrontation was

  certain to result in an attack and gunfire, which would draw the

  attention of the neighbors and then the police. He couldn't risk his

  current hiding place, for at the moment he had nowhere else to go.

  He clutched his revolver and kept one hand on Moose and remained below

  the windowsill, listening. He heard voices, either wordless or so

  muffled that the words did not come clearly through the glass above his

  head. The second creature, re had joined the first at the side of the

  house. Their grumbling sounded like a low-key argument.

  Silence followed.

  Sam crouched there for a while, waiting for the voices to resume or for

  the amber-eyed beast to tap once more-tick-tickbut nothing happened. At

  last, as the muscles in his thighs and calves began to cramp, he took

  his hand off Moose and eased up to the window. He half expected the

  Boogeyman to be there, malformed face pressed to the glass, but it was

  gone.

  With the dog accompanying him, he went from room to room on the ground

  floor, looking out all the windows on four sides of the house. He would

  not have been surprised to find those creatures trying to force entry

  somewhere.

  But for the sound of rain drumming on the roof and gurgling in the

  downspouts, the house was silent.

  He decided they were gone and that their interest in the house had been

  coincidental. They weren't looking for him in particular, - 253 just

  for prey. They very likely had glimpsed him at the window, and they

  didn't want to let him go if he had seen them. But if they had come to

  deal with him, they apparently had decided that they could no more risk

  the sound of breaking glass and a noisy confrontation than he could, not

  in the heart of town. They were secretive creatures. They might rarely

  cut loose with an eerie cry that would echo across Moonlight Cove, but

  only when in the grip of some strange passion. And thus far, for the

  most part, they had limited their attacks to people who had been

  relatively isolated.

  Back in the living room he slipped the revolver into the holster again

  and stretched out on the sofa.

  Moose sat watching him for a while, as if unable to believe that he

  could calmly lie down and sleep again after seeing what had been on the

  prowl in the rain.

  "Some of my dreams are worse than what's out there tonight," he told the

  dog.

  "So if I spooked easily, I'd probably never want to go to sleep again."

  The dog yawned and got up and went out into the dark hall, where he

  boarded the elevator. The motor hummed as the lift carried the Labrador

  upstairs.

  As he waited for sleep to steal over him again, Sam attempted to shape

  his dreams into a more appealing pattern by concentrating on a few

  images he would not mind dreaming about good Mexican food, barely

  chilled Guinness Stout, and Goldie Hawn. Ideally, he'd dream about

  being in a great Mexican restaurant with Goldie Hawn, who'd look even

  more radiant than usual, and they'd be eating and drinking Guinness and

  laughing.

  Instead, when he did fall asleep, he dreamed about his father, a

  mean-tempered alcoholic, into whose hands he had fallen at the age of

  seven, after his mother had died in the car crash.

  Nestled in the stack of grass-scented burlap tarps in the back of the

  gardener's truck, Chrissie woke when the automatic garage door ascended

  with a groan and clatter. She almost sat up in surprise, revealing

  herself. But remembering where she was, she pulled her head under the

  top half-dozen tarps, which she was using as blankets. She tried to

  shrink into the pile of burlap.

  She heard rain striking the roof. It sliced into the gravel driveway

  just beyond the open door, making a sizzling noise like a thousand

  strips of bacon on an immense griddle. Chrissie was hungry. That sound

  made her hungrier.

  "You got my lunch box, Sarah?"

  Chrissie didn't know Mr. Eulane well enough to recognize his voice, but

  she supposed that was him, fo- Sarah Eulane, whose voice Chrissie did

  recognize, answered at once "Ed, I wish you'd just come back home after

  you drop me at the school. Take the day off. You shouldn't work in

  such foul weather. Well, I can't cut grass in this downpour," he said.

  "But I can do some other chores. I'll just pull on my vinyl anorak.

  Keeps me dry as bone. Moses could've walked through the Red Sea in that

  anorak and wouldn't have needed God's miracle to help him."

  Breathing air filtered through the coarse, grass-stained cloth, Chrissie

  was troubled by a tickling sensation in her nose, all the way into her

  sinuses. She was afraid that she was going to sneeze.

  STUPID YOUNG GIRL SNEEZES, REVEALING HERSELF TO ravenous ALIENS; EATEN

  ALIVE; "SHE WAS A TASTY LITTLE morsel," SAYS ALIEN NEST QUEEN, "BRING US

  MORE OF YOUR ELEVEN-YEAR-OLD BLOND FEMALES."

  Opening the passenger door of the truck, a couple of feet from - 255

  Chrissie's hiding place, Sarah said, "You'll catch your death, Ed."

  You think I'm some delicate violet?" he asked playfully as he opened

  the driver's door and got into the truck.

  I think you're a withered old dandelion."

  He laughed.

  "You didn't think so last night."

  ,Yes, I did. But you're my withered old dandelion, and I don't want YOU

  to just blow away on the wind."

  one door slammed shut, then the other.

  Certain that they could not see her, Chrissie pulled back the burlap,

  exposing her head. She pinched her nose and breathed through her mouth

  until
the tickling in her sinuses subsided.

  As Ed Eulane started the truck, let the engine idle a moment, then

  reversed out of the garage, Chrissie could hear them talking in the cab

  at her back. She couldn't make out everything they were saying, but

  they still seemed to be bantering with each other.

  Cold rain struck her face, and she immediately pulled her head under the

  tarps again, leaving just a narrow opening by which a little fresh air

  might reach her. If she sneezed while in transit, the sound of the rain

  and the rumble of the truck's engine would cover it.

  Thinking about the conversation she had overheard in the garage and

  listening to Mr. Eulane laughing now in the cab, Chrissie thought she

  could trust them. If they were aliens, they wouldn't be making dumb

  jokes and lovey talk. Maybe they would if they were putting on a show

  for non-aliens, trying to convince the world that they were still Ed and

  Sarah Eulane, but not when they were in private. When aliens were

  together without unconverted humans nearby, they probably talked about .

  . .

  well, planets they had sacked, the weather on MarS, the price of

  flying-saucer fuel, and recipes for serving human beings. Who knew? But

  surely they didn't talk as the Eulanes were talking.

  On the other hand . . .

  Maybe these aliens had only taken control of Ed and Sarah Eulane during

  the night, and maybe they were not yet comfortable in their human roles.

  Maybe they were practicing being human in private so they could pass for

  human in public. Sure as the devil, if Chrissie revealed herself,

  they'd probably sprout tentacles and lobster pincers from their chests

  and either eat her alive, without condiments, or freeze-dry her and

  mount her on a plaque and take her to their home world to hang on their

  den wall, or pop her brain out of her skull and plug it into their

  spaceship and use it as a cheap control mechanism for their inflight

  coffeemaker.

  In the middle of an alien invasion, you could give your trust only with

  reluctance and considerable deliberation. She decided to stick to her

  original plan.

  The fifty-pound, plastic sacks of fertilizer and mulch and snail bait,

  piled on both sides of her burlap niche, protected her from some rain,

  but enough reached her to soak the upper layers of tarps. She was

  relatively dry and toasty warm when they set out, but soon she was

  saturated with grass-scented rainwater, cold to the bone.

  She peeked out repeatedly to determine where they were. When she saw

  that they were turning off the county route onto Ocean Avenue, she

  peeled back the soggy burlap and crawled out of her hiding place.

  The wall of the truck cab featured a window, so the Eulanes would see

  her if they turned and looked back. Mr. Eulane might even see her in

  the rearview mirror of she didn't keep very low. But she had to get to

  the rear of the truck and be ready to jump off when they passed Our Lady

  of Mercy.

  On her hands and knees, she moved betweenand over-the supplies and

  gardening equipment. When she reached the tailgate, she huddled there,

  head down, shivering and miserable in the rain.

  They crossed Shasta Way, the first intersection at the edge of town, and

  headed down through the business district of Ocean Avenue. They were

  only about four blocks from the church.

  Chrissie was surprised that no people were on the sidewalks and that no

  cars traveled the streets. It was early-she checked her watch, 703-but

  not so early that everyone would still be home in bed. She supposed the

  weather also had something to do with the town's deserted look; no one

  was going to be out and about in that mess unless he absolutely had to

  be.

  There was another possibility Maybe the aliens had taken over such a

  large percentage of the people in Moonlight Cove that they no longer

  felt it necessary to enact the charade of daily life; with complete

  conquest only hours away, all their efforts were bent on seeking the

  last of the unpossessed. That was too unsettling to think about.

  - 257 When they were one block from Our Lady of Mercy, Chrissie climbed

  onto the white-board tailgate. She swung one leg over the top, then the

  other leg, and clung to the outside of the gate with both hands, her

  feet on the rear bumper. She could see the backs of the Eulanes' heads

  through the rear window of the cab, and if they turned her way-or if Mr.

  Eulane glanced at his rearview mirror-she'd be seen.

  She kept expecting to be spotted by a pedestrian who would yell, "Hey,

  you, hanging on that truck, are you nuts?" But there were no

  pedestrians, and they reached the next intersection without incident.

  The brakes squealed as Mr. Eulane slowed for the stop sign.

  As the truck came to a stop, Chrissie dropped off the tailgate.

  Mr. Eulane turned left on the cross street. He was heading toward

  Thomas Jefferson Elementary School on Palomino, a few blocks south,

  where Mrs. Eulane worked and where, on an ordinary Tuesday morning,

  Chrissie would soon be going to her sixth-grade classroom.

  She sprinted across the intersection, splashed through the dirty

  streaming water in the gutter, and ran up the steps to the front doors

  of Our Lady of Mercy. A flush of triumph warmed her, for she felt that

  she had reached sanctuary against all odds.

  With one hand on the ornate brass handle of the carved-oak door, she

  paused to look uphill and down. The windows of shops, offices, and

  apartments were as frost-blank as cataracted eyes. Smaller trees leaned

  with the stiff wind, and larger trees shuddered, which was the only

  movement other than the driving rain. The wind was inconstant,

  blustery; sometimes it stopped pushing the rain relentlessly eastward

  and gathered it into funnels, whirling them up Ocean Avenue, so if she

  squinted her eyes and ignored the chill in the air, she could almost

  believe that she was standing in a desert ghost town, watching dust

  devils whirl along its haunted streets.

  At the corner beside the church, a police car pulled up to the stop

  sign. Two men were in it. Neither was looking toward her.

  She already suspected that the police were not to be trusted. Pulling

  open the church door, she quickly slipped inside before they glanced her

  way.

  The moment she stepped into the oak-paneled narthex and drew in a deep

  breath of the myrrh- and spikenard-scented air, Chrissie felt safe. She

  stepped through the archway to the nave, dipped her fingers in the holy

  water that filled the marble font on the right, crossed herself, and

  moved down the center aisle to the fourth pew from the rear. She

  genuflected, crossed herself again, and took a seat.

  She was concerned about getting water all over the polished oak pew, but

  there was nothing she could do about that. She was dripping.

  Mass was under way. Besides herself, only two of the faithful were

  present, which seemed to be a scandalously poor turnout, Of course, to

  the best of her memory, though her folks always attended Sunday Mass,

  they had brought her to a weekday se
rvice only once in her life, many

  years ago, and she could not be sure that weekday Masses ever drew more

  worshipers. She suspected, however, that the alien presence-or demons,

  whatever-in Moonlight Cove was responsible for the low attendance. No

  doubt space aliens were godless or, worse yet, bowed to some dark deity

  with a name like Yahgag or Scoghlatt.

  She was surprised to see that the priest celebrating Mass, with the

  assistance of one altarboy, was not Father Castelli. It was the young

  priest-the curate, they called him-whom the archdiocese had assigned to

  Father Castelli in August, His name was Father O'Brien. His first name

  was Tom, and following his rector's lead, he sometimes insisted that

  parishioners call him Father Tom. He was nice-though not as nice or as

  wise or as amusing as Father Castelli-but she could no more bring

  herself to call him Father Tom than she could call the older priest

  Father Jim. Might as well call the Pope Johnny. Her parents sometimes

  talked about how much the church had changed, how less formal it had

  become over the years, and they spoke approvingly of those changes. In

  her conservative heart, Chrissie wished that she had been born and

  raised in a time when the Mass had been in Latin, elegant and

  mysterious, and when the service had not included the downright silly

  ritual of "giving peace" to worshipers around you. She had gone to Mass

  at a cathedral in San Francisco once, when they were on vacation, and

  the service had been a special one, in Latin, conducted according to the