Door to December, The by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz [Koontz, Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror, Fiction
ISBN: 9780756931230
Publisher: Perfection Learning
Published: 2002-06-15T19:42:34+00:00

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Earl Benton had his gun in his hand, but what came into the kitchen from the darkness outside wasn't something that he could blow away with a few well-placed rounds from his .38. With a resounding crash, the door was thrown against the wall, and a cold whirlwind surged into the kitchen, a wind like a living beast, hissing and growling, sniffing and capering. And if the substance of the beast was wind, then its coat was made of flowers, for the air was suddenly filled with flowers, yellow and red and white roses, stalky impatiens of every hue, scores of blossoms from the garden behind the house, some with stems attached and some without, some that had been snapped off and some that had been torn out by the roots. The wind-beast shook itself; its coat of flowers flapped and, as if shedding loose hairs, threw off torn leaves, bright petals, crushed stems, clumps of moist earth that had been adhering to the roots. The calendar leaped off the wall and darted halfway around the room on wings of paper before settling to the floor. With a soft rustle not unlike the flutter of feathers, the curtains flew up from the windows and fought to free themselves from the anchoring rods, eager to join this demonic dance of the inanimate. Dirt spattered over Earl, and a rose struck his face; he was aware of a thorn lightly nicking his throat as the flower rebounded from him, and he raised one arm to protect himself. He saw Laura McCaffrey shielding her daughter, and he felt helpless and stupid in the face of this amorphous threat.

The door slammed shut as abruptly as it had been forced open. But the churning column of flowers continued to spin, as if this wind was not part of that greater wind which scoured the night outside but was, instead, a self-sustaining offspring. That was impossible, of course. Crazy. But real. The whirling turbulence whined, hissed, spat out more leaves and blossoms and broken stems, shook off more dirt and buds and bright petals. In its many-windowed, ragtag coat of roiling vegetation, the wind-creature stopped just inside the door (though its breath could be felt in every corner) and remained there, as if watching them, as if deciding what it would do next — and then it simply expired. The wind didn't die slowly; it stopped all at once. The remaining flowers, which it hadn't yet cast off, dropped to the kitchen tiles in a heap, with a soft thump and rustle and whoosh. Then silence, stillness.

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