future in the stars.
He looked at Toby. So wan in the backsplash of the flashlight beams.
As if his small face had been carved of pure white marble. He must be
in emotional turmoil, half scared to death, yet he remained outwardly
calm, detached. His placid expression and marble-white skin was
reminiscent of the beatific countenances on the sacred figures
portrayed in cathedral statuary, and he was, indeed, their only
possible salvation.
A sudden flurry of activity from the Giver. A ripple of movement
through the tentacles.
Heather gasped, and Harlan Moffit dropped his half emptied can of
gasoline.
Another ripple, stronger than the first. The hideous mouths opened
wide as if to shriek. A thick, wet, repugnant shijting.
Jack turned to Toby.
Terror disturbed the boy’s placid expression, like the shadow of a
warplane passing over a summer meadow. But it flickered and was
gone.
His features relaxed.
The Giver grew still once more.
“Hurry,” Heather said.
o
Harlan insisted on being the last one out. He poured the trail of
gasoline to which they would touch a match
470
DEAN KOONTZ
from the safety of the yard. Passing through the front room, he doused
the corpse and its slavemaster.
He had never been so scared in his life. He was so loose in the bowels
that he was amazed he hadn’t ruined a good pair of corduroys. No
reason why he had to be the last one out. He could have let the cop do
it. But that thing down there …
He supposed he wanted to be the one to lay down the fuse because of
Cindi and Luci and Nanci, because of all his neighbors in Eagle’s Roost
too, because the sight of that thing had made him realize how much he
loved them, more than he’d ever thought. Even people he’d never much
liked before–Mrs. Kerry at the diner, Bob Falkenberg at Hensen’s Feed
and Grain–he was eager to see again, because suddenly it seemed to him
that he had a world in common with them and so much to talk about.
Hell of a thing to have to experience, hell of a thing to have to see,
to be reminded you’re a human being and all it meant to be one.
o
His dad struck the match. The snow burned. A line of fire streaked
back through the open door of the caretaker’s house.
The black sea heaved and rolled.
Little green boat. Putter and scatter. Putter and scatter.
The explosion shattered the windows and even blew off some of the big
squares of plyboard that had covered them. Flames crackled up the
stone walls.
The sea was black and thick as mud, churning and rolling and full of
hate, wanting to pull him down, call WINTER MOONING him out of the
boat, out of the boat and into the darkness below, and a part of him
almost wanted to go, but he stayed in the little green boat, holding
tight to the railing, holding on for dear life, scattering the Calming
Dust with his free hand, weighing down the cold sea, holding on tight
and doing what had to be done, just what had to be done.
Later, with sheriff’s deputies taking statements from Heather and
Harlan in patrol cars, with other deputies and firemen sifting for
proof in the ruins of the main house, Jack stood with Toby in the
stables, where the electric heaters still worked. For a while they
just stared through the half-open door at the falling snow and took
turns petting Falstaff when he rubbed against their legs.
Eventually Jack said, “Is it over?”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“Right near the end,” the boy said, “when it was burning up, it made
some of itself into little boring worms, bad things, and they tunneled
into the cellar walls, trying to get away from the fire. But maybe
they were all burned up, anyway.”
“We can look for them. Or the right people can, the military people
and the scientists who’ll be here before long. We can try to find
every last one of them.”
“Because it can grow again,” the boy said.
The snow was not falling as hard as it had been all through the night