Darkfall Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NEW AFTERWORD BY DEAN KOONTZ

  “Swift, entertaining ... A classic race to

  the rescue.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  STRANGE DAYS

  Winter gripped the city. Terror gripped it, too. They found four corpses in four days, each more hideous than the last.

  STRANGE NIGHTS

  At first the cops thought they were dealing with a psychopath. But soon they heard eerie sounds in the ventilation system—and saw unearthly silver eyes in the snow-slashed night.

  FINAL HOURS

  In a city paralyzed by a blizzard, something watches, something stalks ...

  DARKFALL

  The Eyes of Darkness

  “Koontz puts his readers through the emotional wringer!”

  —The Associated Press

  The Key to Midnight

  “A master storyteller ... always riveting.”

  —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  Mr. Murder

  “A truly harrowing tale ... superb work by a master at the top of his form.” —The Washington Post Book World

  The Funhouse

  “Koontz is a terrific what-if storyteller.”—People

  Dragon Tears

  “A razor-sharp, nonstop, suspenseful story ... a first-rate literary experience.”—The San Diego Union-Tribune

  Shadowfires

  “His prose mesmerizes ... Koontz consistently hits the bull’s-eye.”—Arkansas Democrat

  Hideaway

  “Not just a thriller but a meditation on the nature of good and evil.”—Lexington Herald-Leader

  Cold Fire

  “An extraordinary piece of fiction... It will be a classic.”

  —UPI

  The House of Thunder

  “Koontz is brilliant.”—Chicago Sun-Times

  The Voice of the Night

  “A fearsome tour of an adolescent’s psyche. Terrifying, knee-knocking suspense.”—Chicago Sun-Times

  The Bad Place

  “A new experience in breathless terror.”—UPI

  The Servants of Twilight

  “A great storyteller.”—New York Daily News

  Midnight

  “A triumph.”—The New York Times

  Lightning

  “Brilliant... a spine-tingling tale... both challenging and entertaining.”—The Associated Press

  The Mask

  “Koontz hones his fearful yarns to a gleaming edge.”

  —People

  Watchers

  “A breakthrough for Koontz... his best ever.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Twilight Eyes

  “A spine-chilling adventure... will keep you turning pages to the very end.”—Rave Reviews

  Strangers

  “A unique spellbinder that captures the reader on the first page. Exciting, enjoyable, and an intensely satisfying read.”

  —Mary Higgins Clark

  Demon Seed

  “One of our finest and most versatile suspense writers.”

  —Macon Telegraph & News

  Phantoms

  “First-rate suspense, scary and stylist.”—Los Angeles Times

  Whispers

  “Pulls out all the stops... an incredible, terrifying tale.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Night Chills

  “Will send chills down your back.”—The New York Times

  Darkfall

  “A fast-paced tale... one of the scariest chase scenes ever.”

  —Houston Post

  Shattered

  “A chilling tale... sleek as a bullet.”—Publishers Weekly

  The Vision

  “Spine-tingling—it gives you an almost lethal shock.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  The Face of Fear

  “Real suspense... tension upon tension.”

  —The New York Times

  Berkley titles by Dean Koontz

  THE EYES OF DARKNESS

  THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT

  MR. MURDER

  THEFUNHOUSE

  DRAGON TEARS

  SHADOWFIRES

  HIDEAWAY

  COLD FIRE

  THE HOUSE OF THUNDER

  THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT

  THE BAD PLACE

  THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT

  MIDNIGHT

  LIGHTNING

  THE MASK

  WATCHERS

  TWILIGHT EYES

  STRANGERS

  DEMON SEED

  PHANTOMS

  WHISPERS

  NIGHT CHILLS

  DARKFALL

  SHATTERED

  THE VISION

  THE FACE OF FEAR

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagnation or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  DARKFALL

  A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  W. M. Allen & Company edition / February 1984

  First Berkley mass-market edition / October 1984

  Berkley afterword edition / February 2007

  Copyright © 1984 by Dean Koontz. “Afterword” copyright © 2007 by Dean Koontz.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-4406-1933-5

  BERKLEY®

  Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The “B” design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  Because the origi
nal door prize was too hard to accomplish, this book is dedicated to some good neighbors—Oliviero and Becky Migneco, Jeff and Bonnie Paymar

  —with the sincere hope that a mere dedication is an acceptable substitute.

  (At least this way, there’s much less chance of a lawsuit!)

  I owe special thanks to Mr. Owen West for giving me the opportunity to publish this variation on a theme under my by-line.

  PROLOGUE

  I

  Wednesday, December 8, 1:12 A.M.

  Penny Dawson woke and heard something moving furtively in the dark bedroom.

  At first she thought she was hearing a sound left over from her dream. She had been dreaming about horses and about going for long rides in the country, and it had been the most wonderful, special, thrilling dream she’d ever had in all of her eleven-and-a-half dream-filled years. When she began to wake up, she struggled against consciousness, tried to hold on to sleep and prevent the lovely fantasy from fading. But she heard an odd sound, and it scared her. She told herself it was only a horse sound or just the rustle of straw in the stable in her dream. Nothing to be alarmed about. But she couldn’t convince herself; she couldn’t tie the strange sound to her dream, and she woke up all the way.

  The peculiar noise was coming from the other side of the room, from Davey’s bed. But it wasn’t ordinary, middle-of-the-night, seven-year-old-boy, pizza-and-ice-cream-for-dinner noise. It was a sneaky sound. Definitely sneaky.

  What was he doing? What trick was he planning this time?

  Penny sat up in bed. She squinted into the impenetrable shadows, saw nothing, cocked her head, and listened intently.

  A rustling, sighing sound disturbed the stillness.

  Then silence.

  She held her breath and listened even harder.

  Hissing. Then a vague, shuffling, scraping noise.

  The room was virtually pitch-black. There was one window, and it was beside her bed; however, the drape was drawn shut, and the alleyway outside was especially dark tonight, so the window provided no relief from the gloom.

  The door was ajar. They always slept with it open a couple of inches, so Daddy could hear them more easily if they called for him in the night. But there were no lights on in the rest of the apartment, and no light came through the partly open door.

  Penny spoke softly: “Davey?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Davey, is that you?”

  Rustle-rustle-rustle.

  “Davey, stop it.”

  No response.

  Seven-year-old boys were a trial sometimes. A truly monumental pain.

  She said, “If you’re playing some stupid game, you’re going to be real sorry.”

  A dry sound. Like an old, withered leaf crunching crisply under someone’s foot.

  It was nearer now than it had been.

  “Davey, don’t be weird.”

  Nearer. Something was coming across the room toward the bed.

  It wasn’t Davey. He was a giggler; he would have broken up by now and would have given himself away.

  Penny’s heart began to hammer, and she thought: Maybe this is just another dream, like the horses, only a bad one this time.

  But she knew she was wide awake.

  Her eyes watered with the effort she was making to peer through the darkness. She reached for the switch on the cone-shaped reading lamp that was fixed to the headboard of her bed. For a terribly long while, she couldn’t find it. She fumbled desperately in the dark.

  The stealthy sounds now issued from the blackness beside her bed. The thing had reached her.

  Suddenly her groping fingers found the metal lampshade, then the switch. A cone of light fell across the bed and onto the floor.

  Nothing frightening was crouched nearby. The reading lamp didn’t cast enough light to dispel all the shadows, but Penny could see there wasn’t anything dangerous, menacing, or even the least bit out of place.

  Davey was in his bed, on the other side of the room, Davey tangled in his covers, sleeping beneath large posters of Chewbacca the Wookie, from Star Wars, and E.T.

  Penny didn’t hear the strange noise any more. She knew she hadn’t been imagining it, and she wasn’t the kind of girl who could just turn off the lights and pull the covers over her head and forget about the whole thing. Daddy said she had enough curiosity to kill about a thousand cats. She threw back the covers, got out of bed, and stood very still in her pajamas and bare feet, listening.

  Not a sound.

  Finally she went over to Davey and looked at him more closely. Her lamp’s light didn’t reach this far; he lay mostly in shadows, but he seemed to be sound asleep. She leaned closer, watching his eyelids, and at last she decided he wasn’t faking.

  The noise began again. Behind her.

  She whirled around.

  It was under the bed now. A hissing, scraping, softly rattling sound, not particularly loud, but no longer stealthy, either.

  The thing under the bed knew she was aware of it. It was making noise on purpose, teasing her, trying to scare her.

  No! she thought. That’s silly.

  Besides, it wasn’t a thing, wasn’t a boogeyman. She was too old for boogeymen. That was more Davey’s speed.

  This was just a ... a mouse. Yes! That was it. Just a mouse, more scared than she was.

  She felt somewhat relieved. She didn’t like mice, didn’t want them under her bed, for sure, but at least there was nothing too frightening about a lowly mouse. It was grody, creepy, but it wasn’t big enough to bite her head off or anything major like that.

  She stood with her small hands fisted at her sides, trying to decide what to do next.

  She looked up at Scott Baio, who smiled down at her from a poster that hung on the wall behind her bed, and she wished he were here to take charge of the situation. Scott Baio wouldn’t be scared of a mouse; not in a million years. Scott Baio would crawl right under the bed and grab that miserable rodent by its tail and carry it outside and release it, unharmed, in the alley behind the apartment building, because Scott Baio wasn’t just brave—he was good and sensitive and gentle, too.

  But Scott wasn’t here. He was out there in Holly-wood, making his TV show.

  Which left Daddy.

  Penny didn’t want to wake her father until she was absolutely, positively, one hundred percent sure there actually was a mouse. If Daddy came looking for a mouse and turned the room upside-down and then didn’t find one, he’d treat her as if she were a child, for God’s sake. She was only two months short of her twelfth birthday, and there was nothing she loathed more than being treated like a child.

  She couldn’t see under the bed because it was very dark under there and because the covers had fallen over the side; they were hanging almost to the floor, blocking the view.

  The thing under the bed—the mouse under the bed! —hissed and made a gurgling-scraping noise. It was almost like a voice. A raspy, cold, nasty little voice that was telling her something in a foreign language.

  Could a mouse make a sound like that?

  She glanced at Davey. He was still sleeping.

  A plastic baseball bat leaned against the wall beside her brother’s bed. She grabbed it by the handle.

  Under her own bed, the peculiar, unpleasant hissing-scratching-scrabbling continued.

  She took a few steps toward her bed and got down on the floor, on her hands and knees. Holding the plastic bat in her right hand, she extended it, pushed the other end under the drooping blankets, lifted them out of the way, and pushed them back onto the bed where they belonged.

  She still couldn’t see anything under there. That low space was cave-black.

  The noises had stopped.

  Penny had the spooky feeling that something was peering at her from those oily black shadows... something more than just a mouse... worse than just a mouse...something that knew she was only a weak little girl... something smart, not just a dumb animal, something at least as smart as she was, something that knew
it could rush out and gobble her up alive if it really wanted to.

  Cripes. No. Kid stuff. Silliness.

  Biting her lip, determined not to behave like a helpless child, she thrust the fat end of the baseball bat under the bed. She probed with it, trying to make the mouse squeal or run out into the open.

  The other end of the plastic club was suddenly seized, held. Penny tried to pull it loose. She couldn’t. She jerked and twisted it. But the bat was held fast.

  Then it was torn out of her grip. The bat vanished under the bed with a thump and a rattle.

  Penny exploded backwards across the floor—until she bumped into Davey’s bed. She didn’t even remember moving. One instant she was on her hands and knees beside her own bed; the next instant she banged her head against the side of Davey’s mattress.

  Her little brother groaned, snorted, blew out a wet breath, and went right on sleeping.

  Nothing moved under Penny’s bed.

  She was ready to scream for her father now, ready to risk being treated like a child, more than ready, and she did scream, but the word reverberated only in her mind: Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! No sound issued from her mouth. She had been stricken temporarily dumb.

  The light flickered. The cord trailed down to an electrical outlet in the wall behind the bed. The thing under the bed was trying to unplug the lamp.

  “Daddy!”

  She made some noise this time, though not much; the word came out as a hoarse whisper.

  And the lamp winked off.

  In the lightless room she heard movement. Something came out from under the bed and started across the floor.