45 Strangers by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9780425233597
Publisher: Berkley Trade
Published: 1986-12-31T06:00:00+00:00

Chicago, Illinois.

By allowing no slightest hairline crack to appear in his resolve, by showing no equivocation whatsoever, Brendan managed to obtain Father Wycazik's permission to go to Nevada alone on Monday, without Monsignor Janney trailing him in expectation of miracles.

By ten-ten, he was in bed with the lights out, lying on his side in blackness, staring at the window, where the palest light glistered softly in the frost that skinned the pane. The window looked out upon the courtyard, where no lights burned at this hour, so Brendan knew that he was seeing indirect moonglow refracted by the thin layer of ice that had welded itself to the glass. It had to be indirect light because the moon was traversing the sky on a course that had made it visible from the study windows earlier in the evening, and the study was on the other side of the rectory; the moon could not now be over the courtyard unless it had made a sudden ninety-degree turn in the path it had previously been following, which was not possible. As he patiently lay waiting for sleep, he became increasingly intrigued by the subtle patterns made by the second-hand moonbeams that had been trapped in the frost; light splintered at every point where one ice crystal interfaced with another, each beam shattering into a hundred beams, a hundred more.

"The moon," he whispered, surprised by his voice. "The moon."

Gradually, Brendan realized that something uncanny was happening.

At first he was merely fascinated by the harmonious interaction of frost and moonlight, but soon fascination evolved into a more intense attraction. He could not look away from the pearly window. It offered an indefinable promise, and he was drawn as a sailor by a siren's song. Before he knew what he intended, he had slipped one arm out from beneath the blankets and was reaching toward the window, though it was ten feet away and could not be touched from where he lay. The black silhouette of his spread-fingered hand was clearly defined against the niveous pane of glass that glowed softly beyond, and his futile straining was the essence of yearning. Brendan longed to be within the light, not the light that lived in the frost but that other golden light of his dreams.

"The moon," he whispered, again surprised that he had spoken.

His heartbeat accelerated. He began to tremble.

Suddenly, upon the glass, the sugary-looking frost underwent an inexplicable change. As Brendan watched, the thin rime melted away from the edges of the pane, toward the center. In a few seconds, when the melting stopped, there remained only a perfect circle of ice, about ten inches in diameter, glowing eerily in the middle of an otherwise clear, dry, dark rectangle of glass.

The moon.

Brendan knew it was a sign, though he did not know from whom or what or where it came, nor did he understand it.

On Christmas night, when he had stayed at his parents' house in Bridgeport, Brendan had apparently had a dream featuring the moon, for he had awakened his mother and father with his loud and panicky cries.

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