39 The Mask by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz [Koontz, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9781441817242
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 1981-09-16T05:00:00+00:00

***

Shortly before midnight, in room 316, the girl laughed softly in her sleep.

Outside her window, lightning pulsed, and the night flickered, and the darkness seemed to gallop for a moment, as if it were a huge and eager beast.

The girl turned onto her stomach without waking, murmured into her pillows.

“The ax,” she said with a wistful sigh. “The ax. ..."

On the stroke of midnight, just forty minutes after she had fallen asleep, Carol bolted up from her pillows, trembling violently. As she struggled out of the grip of her nightmare, she heard someone say, “It’s coming! It’s coming!” She stared wildly, blindly into the lightless room until she realized the panic-stricken voice had been her own.

Suddenly she could not tolerate the darkness one second longer. She fumbled desperately for the switch on the bedside lamp, found it, and sagged with relief.

The light didn’t disturb Paul. He mumbled in his sleep but didn’t wake.

Carol leaned back against the headboard and listened to her racing heart as it gradually slowed to a normal beat.

Her hands were icy. She put them under the covers and curled them into warming fists.

The nightmares have got to stop, she told herself. I can’t go through this every night. I need my sleep.

Perhaps a vacation was called for. She had been working too hard for too long. The accumulated weariness was probably partly to blame for her bad dreams. She had also been under a great deal of unusual stress lately: the pending adoption, the near-tragic events in O’Brian’s office on Wednesday, the accident just yesterday morning, the girl’s amnesia for which she felt responsible. .. . Living with too much tension could cause exceptionally vivid nightmares of the sort she was experiencing. A week in the mountains, away from everyday problems, seemed like the perfect medicine.

In addition to all the other sources of stress, that day was approaching, the birthday of the child she had put up for adoption. A week from tomorrow, the

Saturday after next, would mark sixteen years since she had relinquished the baby. Already, eight days in advance of that anniversary, she was burdened by a heavy mantle of guilt. By the time next Saturday rolled around, she would most likely be thoroughly depressed, as usual. A week in the mountains, away from everyday problems, might be the perfect medicine for that ailment, too.

Last year, she and Paul had purchased a vacation cabin on an acre of timbered land in the mountains. It was a cozy place—two bedrooms, one bath, a living room with a big stone fireplace, and a complete kitchen—a retreat that combined all the comforts of civilization with the clean air, marvelous scenery, and tranquility that could not be found in the city.

They had planned to get away to the cabin at least two weekends every month during the summer, but they had made the trip only three times in the past four months, less than half as often as they had hoped.

Paul had labored hard to meet a series

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