with a snap of the wrist. The disc whizzed past Mia, grazed the bird, and sent it squawking into frightened flight, to the surprise of the girl and to the delight of her brothers. Barney barked, and Howie took a bow.
When they returned to play, he didn’t once search the sky for that bird or any other. Howell Dugley, survivor, hero to some and butt-ugly freak to others, did not fear either the darkness of the night or the darkness under the sun that can sometimes crowd in upon us when we least expect it.
He knew the bird circled above. Twice it came so low that he saw its shadow swoop across the grass. He never looked up.
That night he woke and lay listening to the distinctive calls of a raven: the hollow brronk , the deep resonant prruck , interspersed with bell-clear notes. Judging by the proximity and the direction of the voice, the bird must have been perched on a telephone wire in the nearby street. Howie did not get out of bed to look.
The next morning, he was the first downstairs tomake coffee and to let the dog out to toilet. On the breakfast table in the kitchen lay a single black feather. He buried it at the bottom of the trash can and mentioned it to no one.
When the coffee was brewing, he stepped outside to get the newspaper from the front lawn. Something swooped low overhead, not so low that its talons stroked his scalp, but low enough that he felt the wind of its passage, and it entered the beech tree, causing the leaves to stir noisily.
On the way back into the house, Howie never raised his eyes from the weather report in the paper. Clear and sunny.
In this world of ours, there is always a chance that a day of fire will come, but there is nothing to be gained by extending an invitation to the arsonist, no matter how persistently he hints that he would like to have one.
Read on for a special advance preview of
WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS
by Dean Koontz
A ghost story unlike any you’ve read before…
Available December 28, 2010
1
WHAT YEAR THESE EVENTS TRANSPIRED IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. Where they occurred is not important. The time is always, and the place is everywhere.
Suddenly at noon, six days after the murders, birds flew to trees and sheltered roosts. As if their wings had lanced the sky, the rain fell close behind their flight. The long afternoon was as dim and drowned as twilight in Atlantis.
The state hospital stood on a hill, silhouetted against a gray and sodden sky. The September light appeared to strop a razor’s edge along each skein of rain.
A procession of eighty-foot purple beeches separated the inbound and the outbound lanes of the approach road. Their limbs overhung the car and collected the rain to redistribute it in thick drizzles that rapped against the windshield.
The thump of the wipers matched the slow, heavy rhythm of John Calvino’s heart. He did not play the radio. The only sounds were the engine, the windshield wipers, the rain, the swish of tires turning on wet pavement, and a memory of the screams of dying women.
Near the main entrance, he parked illegally under the portico. He propped the POLICE placard on the dashboard.
John was a homicide detective, but this car belonged to him, not to the department. The use of the placard while off duty might be a minor violation of the rules. But his conscience was encrusted with worse transgressions than the abuse of police prerogatives.
At the reception desk in the lobby sat a lean woman with close-cropped black hair. She smelled of the lunchtime cigarettes that had curbed her appetite. Her mouth was as severe as that of an iguana.
After glancing at John’s police ID and listening to his request, she used the intercom to call an escort for him. Pen pinched in her thin fingers, white knuckles as sharp as chiseled marble, she printed his name and badge number in the visitors’ register.
Hoping for gossip, she wanted to talk about Billy Lucas.
Instead, John went to the nearest window. He stared at the rain without seeing
When they returned to play, he didn’t once search the sky for that bird or any other. Howell Dugley, survivor, hero to some and butt-ugly freak to others, did not fear either the darkness of the night or the darkness under the sun that can sometimes crowd in upon us when we least expect it.
He knew the bird circled above. Twice it came so low that he saw its shadow swoop across the grass. He never looked up.
That night he woke and lay listening to the distinctive calls of a raven: the hollow brronk , the deep resonant prruck , interspersed with bell-clear notes. Judging by the proximity and the direction of the voice, the bird must have been perched on a telephone wire in the nearby street. Howie did not get out of bed to look.
The next morning, he was the first downstairs tomake coffee and to let the dog out to toilet. On the breakfast table in the kitchen lay a single black feather. He buried it at the bottom of the trash can and mentioned it to no one.
When the coffee was brewing, he stepped outside to get the newspaper from the front lawn. Something swooped low overhead, not so low that its talons stroked his scalp, but low enough that he felt the wind of its passage, and it entered the beech tree, causing the leaves to stir noisily.
On the way back into the house, Howie never raised his eyes from the weather report in the paper. Clear and sunny.
In this world of ours, there is always a chance that a day of fire will come, but there is nothing to be gained by extending an invitation to the arsonist, no matter how persistently he hints that he would like to have one.
Read on for a special advance preview of
WHAT THE NIGHT KNOWS
by Dean Koontz
A ghost story unlike any you’ve read before…
Available December 28, 2010
1
WHAT YEAR THESE EVENTS TRANSPIRED IS OF NO CONSEQUENCE. Where they occurred is not important. The time is always, and the place is everywhere.
Suddenly at noon, six days after the murders, birds flew to trees and sheltered roosts. As if their wings had lanced the sky, the rain fell close behind their flight. The long afternoon was as dim and drowned as twilight in Atlantis.
The state hospital stood on a hill, silhouetted against a gray and sodden sky. The September light appeared to strop a razor’s edge along each skein of rain.
A procession of eighty-foot purple beeches separated the inbound and the outbound lanes of the approach road. Their limbs overhung the car and collected the rain to redistribute it in thick drizzles that rapped against the windshield.
The thump of the wipers matched the slow, heavy rhythm of John Calvino’s heart. He did not play the radio. The only sounds were the engine, the windshield wipers, the rain, the swish of tires turning on wet pavement, and a memory of the screams of dying women.
Near the main entrance, he parked illegally under the portico. He propped the POLICE placard on the dashboard.
John was a homicide detective, but this car belonged to him, not to the department. The use of the placard while off duty might be a minor violation of the rules. But his conscience was encrusted with worse transgressions than the abuse of police prerogatives.
At the reception desk in the lobby sat a lean woman with close-cropped black hair. She smelled of the lunchtime cigarettes that had curbed her appetite. Her mouth was as severe as that of an iguana.
After glancing at John’s police ID and listening to his request, she used the intercom to call an escort for him. Pen pinched in her thin fingers, white knuckles as sharp as chiseled marble, she printed his name and badge number in the visitors’ register.
Hoping for gossip, she wanted to talk about Billy Lucas.
Instead, John went to the nearest window. He stared at the rain without seeing
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