The Darkest Evening of the Year. Dean Koontz

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СКАЧАТЬ of the body and the intellect, her undisciplined emotion can be concealed. Her face remains placid, her voice soft. Always she walks without a single

      footfall thae is lithe, graceful, with no telltale twitch of tension in her stride or gestures.

      Occasionally Harrow swears that he can smell her fury: the faintest scent of iron, like that rising from ferrous rock scorched by relentless desert sun.

      Only light can vaporize this particular anger.

      If they lie together in the windowless room in the daytime, she wants afterward to be in the light. Sometimes she goes outside half clothed or even naked.

      On those days, she stands with her face turned to the sky, her mouth open, as if inviting the light to fill her.

      Although a natural blonde, she takes the sun well. Her skin is bronze even into the creases of her knuckles, and the fine hairs on her arms are bleached white.

      By contrast to her skin, the whites of her eyes are as brilliant as pure arctic snow, and the bottle-green irises dazzle.

      Most often she and Harrow make loveless love at night. Afterward, neither the stars nor the moon is bright enough to steam away her distilled fury, and though she sometimes refers to herself as a Valkyrie, she does not have wings to fly into the higher light.

      Usually a bonfire on the beach will reduce her anger to embers, but not always. Occasionally she needs to burn more than pine logs and dried seaweed and driftwood.

      As though Moongirl can will the world to meet her needs, someone ideal for burning may come to her at the opportune moment. This has happened more than once.

      On a night when a bonfire is not enough and when fate does not send her an offering, she must go out into the world and find the fire she needs.

      Harrow has driven her as far as 120 miles before she has located what requires burning. Sometimes she does not find it before dawn, and then the sun is sufficient to boil off her rage.

      This night, he drives thirty-six miles on winding roads through rural territory before she says, “There. Let’s do it.”

      An old one-story clapboard house, the only residence in sight, sits behind a well-tended lawn. No lamps brighten any window.

      The headlights reveal two birdbaths in the yard, three garden gnomes, and a miniature windmill. On the front porch are a pair of bentwood rocking chairs.

      Harrow proceeds almost a quarter of a mile past the place until, prior to a bridge, he comes to a narrow dirt lane that slants off the blacktop. He follows this dusty track down to the base of the bridge and parks near the river, where sluggish black water purls in the moonlight.

      Perhaps this short path serves fishermen who cast for bass from the bank. If so, none is currently present. This is an hour made more for arsonists than for anglers.

      From the two-lane county road above, the Mercedes cannot be seen here at the river. Although few motorists, if any, are likely to be abroad at this hour, precautions must be taken.

      Harrow retrieves the two-gallon utility can from the luggage space behind the seats.

      He does not ask her if she has remembered to bring matches. She always carries them.

      Cicadas serenade one another, and toads croak with satisfaction each time they devour a cicada.

      Harrow considers going overland to the house, across meadows and through a copse of oaks. But they will gain no advantage by taking the arduous route.

      The target house is only a quarter-mile away. Along the county road are tall grasses, gnarls of brush, and a few trees, always one kind of cover or another to which they can retreat the moment they glimpse distant headlights or hear the faraway growl of an engine.

      They ascend from the riverbank to the paved road.

      The gasoline chuckles in the can, and his nylon jacket produces soft whistling noises when one part of it rubs against another.

      Moongirl makes no sound whatsoever. She walks without a single footfall that he can hear.

      Then she says, “Do you wonder why?”

      “Why what?”

      “The burning.”

      “No.”

      “You never wonder,” she presses.

      “No. It’s what you want.”

      “That’s good enough for you.”

      “Yes.”

      The early-autumn stars are as icy as those of winter, and it seems to him that now, as in all seasons, the sky is not deep but dead, flat, and frozen.

      She says, “You know what’s the worst thing?”

      “Tell me.”

      “Boredom.”

      “Yes.”

      “It turns you outward.”

      “Yes.”

      “But toward what?”

      “Tell me,” he says.

      “Nothing’s out there.”

      “Nothing you want.”

      “Just nothing,” she corrects.

      Her madness fascinates Harrow, and he is never bored in her company. Originally, he had thought they would be done with each other in a month or two; but they have been seven months together.

      “It’s terrifying,” she says.

      “What?”

      “Boredom.”

      “Yes,” he says sincerely.

      “Terrifying.”

      “Gotta stay busy.”

      He shifts the heavy gasoline can from his right hand to his left.

      “Pisses me off,” she says.

      “What does?”

      “Being terrified.”

      “Stay busy,” he repeats.

      “All I’ve got is me.”

      “And me,” he reminds her.

      She does not confirm that he is essential to her defenses against boredom.

      They have covered half the distance to the clapboard house.

      A winking light moves across the frozen stars, but it is nothing more than an airliner, too high to be heard, bound for an exotic port that at least some perceptive passengers will discover СКАЧАТЬ