63 Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9780553579758
Publisher: Bantam
Published: 1998-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

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Four

DEEP NIGHT

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21

By the time Orson and I walked out of the dunes and reached the sandstone portion of the peninsula, thick clouds swaddled us. The fog bank was hundreds of feet deep, and though a pale dusting of moonlight sifted through the mist all the way to the ground, we were in a gray murk more blinding than a starless, moonless night would have been.

The lights of town were no longer visible.

The fog played tricks with sound. I could still hear the rough murmur of breaking surf, but it seemed to come from all four sides, as though I were on an island instead of a peninsula.

I wasn't confident about being able to ride my bicycle in that cloying gloom. Visibility continuously shifted between zero and a maximum of six feet. Although no trees or other obstacles lay along the curved horn, I could easily become disoriented and ride off the edge of the beach scarp; the bike would pitch forward, and when the front tire plowed into the soft sand of the slope below the scarp, I would come to a sudden halt and take a header off the bike to the beach, possibly breaking a limb or even my neck.

Besides, to build speed and to keep my balance, I would have to steer the bike with two hands, which meant pocketing the pistol. After my conversation with Bobby, I was loath to let go of the Glock. In the fog, something could close to within a few feet of me before I became aware of it, which wouldn't leave me time enough to tear the gun out of my jacket pocket and get off a shot.

I walked at a relatively brisk pace, wheeling the bicycle with my left hand, pretending I was carefree and confident, and Orson trotted slightly ahead of me. The dog was wary, no good at whistling in the graveyard either literally or figuratively. He turned his head ceaselessly from side to side.

The click of the wheel bearings and the tick of the drive chain betrayed my position. There was no way to quiet the bicycle short of picking it up and carrying it, which I could do with one arm but only for short distances.

The noise might not matter, anyway. The monkeys probably had acute animal senses that detected the most meager stimuli; in fact, they were no doubt able to track me by scent.

Orson would be able to smell them, too. In this nebulous night, his black form was barely visible, and I couldn't see if his hackles were raised, which would be a sure sign that the monkeys were nearby.

As I walked, I wondered what it was about these creatures that made them different from an ordinary rhesus.

In appearance, at least, the beast in Angela's kitchen had been a typical example of its species, even if it had been at the upper end of the size range for a rhesus. She'd said only that it had “awful dark

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