Full Wolf Moon: A Novel by Lincoln Child

Author:Lincoln Child [Child, Lincoln]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0385531427
Amazon: 0385531427
Publisher: Doubleday
Published: 2017-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

20

As they stepped inside, Dr. Feverbridge—who was still sitting at the lab table—raised his head, looking at Logan with a mild yet proud gaze.

“I suppose my daughter told you all about me,” he said. “The troubled genius, the self-destructive scientist.”

Logan nodded silently as Laura Feverbridge placed the shotgun in a corner.

“I’m not proud that I tried to take my own life, Dr. Logan. But I simply couldn’t stand it any longer—the personal anger, the despair.” He paused. “I suppose I should consider myself the luckiest father in the world: to have a daughter willing to sacrifice so much for my sake. These past six months, I’ve been like a free man. You see, it doesn’t matter to me whether my work is published posthumously, so to speak—it only matters that I get the chance to finish it, free from the constant, the maddening, torrent of hecklers and naysayers. Except it seems we’ve been careless of late. I suppose we’ve allowed our voices to be overheard, our lights to be seen.”

“No doubt.” Laura shook her head bitterly, then glanced at Logan. “And I suppose we have Kevin to thank for your return.”

They had been keeping their voices pitched low, precisely so that—Logan realized—this same Kevin would not overhear them.

“The fact is, my work is extremely important. And I’m close to finishing it—so close.” Feverbridge looked at Logan more intently. “I can sense you’re conflicted. You don’t know whether to alert the authorities about all this. Perhaps if I showed you the full nature of my work, showed you what we’ve truly accomplished, it would help you decide.”

Laura looked at him sharply. “Father? Are you sure—?”

“What choice do we have? Besides, your Dr. Logan here might find our accomplishments enlightening.” He looked back at Logan. “Let me pose a question to you. What do you suppose our early ancestors—the East African hominids—felt when they looked up at a full moon?”

Logan thought for a moment. “Fear.”

“Precisely. To the average humanoid biped of two hundred thousand years ago, the full moon meant open season—and they were the game. For a predator like a saber-toothed tiger, the full moon would be like a spotlight shining on their prey. When people think of the ‘lunar effect,’ if they think of it at all, it’s as a bunch of malarkey, an urban legend easily laughed away: surgeries going wrong, birthrates increasing, spikes in violent behavior, schizophrenics running amok. National Enquirer stuff.” Feverbridge scoffed. “But the more I thought about it and studied it, the more I realized that the moon, especially the full moon, has in fact always exerted a truly unexplainable influence on earthly life, especially for diurnal animals. At first it presented as fear, as you just said yourself. Later, it was thought to cause madness, even lycanthropy.” Here he gave a dismissive wave of a hand. “More recently, that has fallen aside—and today’s science, as it does so often when it comes face-to-face with old beliefs and behaviors not easily understood by modern man, has turned its back.

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