Darkfall

Table of Contents

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

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.

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

The Eyes of Darkness

“Koontz puts his readers through the emotional wringer!”

—The Associated Press

“A master storyteller ... always riveting.”

—
The San Diego Union-Tribune

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

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

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

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

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

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

—UPI

“Koontz is brilliant.”—
Chicago Sun-Times

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

“A new experience in breathless terror.”—UPI

“A great storyteller.”—
New York Daily News

“A triumph.”—
The New York Times

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

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

—
People

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

—
Kirkus Reviews

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

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

—Mary Higgins Clark

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

—
Macon Telegraph & News

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

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

—
Publishers Weekly

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

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

—
Houston Post

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

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

—
San Francisco Chronicle

“Real suspense... tension upon tension.”

—
The New York Times

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

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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.

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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eISBN : 978-0-425-21459-6

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

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?”

“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.