Dean Koontz - Winter Moon

Also by DEAN KOONTZ

The Good Guy Brother Odd The Husband Forever OddVelocity Life Expectancy The Taking Odd ThomasThe Face By the Light of the Moon One Door Away From HeavenFrom the Corner of His Eye False Memory Seize the NightFear Nothing Mr. Murder Dragon Tears HideawayCold Fire The Bad Place Midnight LightningWatchers Strangers Twilight Eyes DarkfallPhantoms Whispers The Mask The VisionThe Face of Fear Night Chills ShatteredThe Voice of the Night The Servants of TwilightThe House of Thunder The Key to MidnightThe Eyes of Darkness Shadowfires Winter MoonThe Door to December Dark Rivers of the HeartIcebound Strange Highways Intensity Sole SurvivorTicktock The Funhouse Demon Seed
DEAN KOONTZS FRANKENSTEIN
Book One: Prodigal Son with Kevin J. Anderson
Book Two: City of Night with Ed Gorman

About the Author

DEAN KOONTZ, the author of many #1 New York Times bestsellers, lives with his wife, Gerda, and the enduring spirit of their golden retriever, Trixie, in southern California.

Correspondence for the author should be addressed to:
Dean Koontz
P.O. Box 9529
Newport Beach, CA 92658

DEAN KOONTZ, called by Rolling Stone Americas most popular suspense novelist, invites you to meet Christopher Snow and enter the strange and wondrous world he inhabits in Moonlight Bay, California

When you are different from everyone else, the night is not your enemy, the darkness is not intimidating, the shadows are not terrifying. And if youre different enough, you

FEAR NOTHING

Fear Nothing will make you fear almost everything. San Francisco Examiner

Fear Nothing demonstrates a master of darknesss continuing power to scare the daylights out of us.

People

and now available in hardcover

SEIZE THE NIGHT

Return to Moonlight Bay for a haunting new novel of fear and wonder.

Available from Bantam Books

CHAPTER ONE

Death was driving an emerald-green Lexus. It pulled off the street, passed the four self-service pumps, and stopped in one of the two full-service lanes.

Standing in front of the station, Jack McGarvey noticed the car but not the driver. Even under a bruised and swollen sky that hid the sun, the Lexus gleamed like a jewel, a sleek and lustrous machine. The windows were darkly tinted, so he couldnt have seen the driver clearly even if he had tried.

As a thirty-two-year-old cop with a wife, a child, and a big mortgage, Jack had no prospects of buying an expensive luxury car, but he didnt envy the owner of the Lexus. He often remembered his dads admonition that envy was mental theft. If you coveted another mans possessions, Dad said, then you should be willing to take on his responsibilities, heartaches, and troubles along with his money.

He stared at the car for a moment, admiring it as he might a priceless painting at the Getty Museum or a first edition of a James M. Cain novel in a pristine dust jacketwith no strong desire to possess it, taking pleasure merely from the fact of its existence.

In a society that often seemed to be spinning toward anarchy, where ugliness and decay made new inroads every day, his spirits were lifted by any proof that the hands of men and women were capable of producing things of beauty and quality. The Lexus, of course, was an import, designed and manufactured on foreign shores; however, it was the entire human species that seemed damned, not just his countrymen, and evidence of standards and dedication was heartening regardless of where he found it.

An attendant in a gray uniform hurried out of the office and approached the gleaming car, and Jack gave his full attention, once more, to Hassam Arkadian.

My station is an island of cleanliness in a filthy sea, an eye of sanity in a storm of madness, Arkadian said, speaking earnestly, unaware of sounding melodramatic.

He was slender, about forty, with dark hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. The creases in the legs of his gray cotton work pants were knife-sharp, and his matching work shirt and jacket were immaculate.

I had the aluminum siding and the brick treated with a new sealant, he said, indicating the facade of the service station with a sweep of his arm. Paint wont stick to it. Not even metallic paint. Wasnt cheap. But now when these gang kids or crazy-stupid taggers come around at night and spray their trash all over the walls, we scrub it off, scrub it right off the next morning.

With his meticulous grooming, singular intensity, and quick slender hands, Arkadian might have been a surgeon about to begin his workday in an operating theater. He was, instead, the owner-operator of the service station.

Do you know, he said incredulously, there are professors who have written books on the value of graffiti? The value of graffiti? The value?

They call it street art, said Luther Bryson, Jacks partner.

Arkadian gazed up disbelievingly at the towering black cop. You think what these punks do is art?

Hey, no, not me, Luther said.

At six three and two hundred ten pounds, he was three inches taller than Jack and forty pounds heavier, with maybe eight inches and seventy pounds on Arkadian. Though he was a good partner and a good man, his granite face seemed incapable of the flexibility required for a smile. His deeply set eyes were unwaveringly forthright. My Malcolm X glare, he called it. With or without his uniform, Luther Bryson could intimidate anyone from the Pope to a purse snatcher.

He wasnt using the glare now, wasnt trying to intimidate Arkadian, was in complete agreement with him. Not me. Im just saying thats what the candy-ass crowd calls it. Street art.

The service-station owner said, These are professors. Educated men and women. Doctors of art and literature. They have the benefit of an education my parents couldnt afford to give me, but theyre stupid. Theres no other word for it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. His expressive face revealed the frustration and anger that Jack encountered with increasing frequency in the City of Angels. What fools do universities produce these days?

Arkadian had labored to make his operation special. Bracketing the property were wedge-shaped brick planters in which grew queen palms, azaleas laden with clusters of red flowers, and impatiens in pinks and purples. There was no grime, no litter. The portico covering the pumps was supported by brick columns, and the whole station had a quaint colonial appearance.

In any age, the station would have seemed misplaced in Los Angeles. Freshly painted and clean, it was doubly out of place in the grunge that had been spreading like a malignancy through the city during the nineties.

Come on, come look, look, Arkadian said, and headed toward the south end of the building.

Poor guys gonna blow out an artery in the brain over this, Luther said.

Somebody should tell him its not fashionable to give a damn these days, Jack said.

A low and menacing rumble of thunder rolled through the distended sky.

Looking at the dark clouds, Luther said, Weatherman predicted it wouldnt rain today.

Maybe it wasnt thunder. Maybe somebody finally blew up city hall.

You think? Well, if the place was full of politicians, Luther said, we should take the rest of the day off, find a bar, do some celebrating.

Come on, officers, Arkadian called to them. He had reached the south corner of the building, near where they had parked their patrol car. Look at this, I want you to see this, I want you to see my bathrooms.