The Moonlit Mind: A Novella

The Moonlit Mind: A Novella
Dean Koontz

In this chilling original stand-alone novella, available exclusively as an eBook, Dean Koontz offers a taste of what’s to come in his novel, 77 Shadow Street, with a mesmerizing tale of a homeless boy at large in a city fraught with threats … both human and otherwise. Includes the first chapter of 77 Shadow Street.Twelve-year-old Crispin has lived on the streets since he was nine – with only his wits and his daring to sustain him, and only his silent dog, Harley, to call his friend. He is always on the move, never lingering in any one place long enough to risk being discovered.Still, there are certain places he returns to, like the hushed environs of St. Mary Salome Cemetery, a place where Crispin can feel at peace – safe, at least for a while, from the fearsome memories that plague him … and seep into his darkest nightmares.But not only his dreams are haunted. Crispin has seen ghosts in the dead of night, and sensed dimensions beyond reason in broad daylight.Alone, drifting, and scavenging to survive is no life for a boy. But the life Crispin has left behind, and is still running scared from, is an unspeakable alternative … that may yet catch up with him.There is more to Crispin’s world, and its darkest corners have yet to be encountered, in this eBook’s special bonus: a spine-tingling excerpt from Dean Koontz’s forthcoming novel, 77 Shadow Street.

Dean Koontz

The Moonlit Mind

A Tale of Suspense

Contents

Title Page (#u43b392b1-5b8c-5151-9f68-3a015d2d2e94)

Chapter 1 (#ulink_b8c98857-af4d-52f3-9e17-a238346a862e)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_d1eeeb0e-a813-54c1-9b86-ea8fd07f44fa)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_2138611a-25ca-59fd-96e3-b0e3f7228946)

Chapter 4 (#ulink_78ef939e-3f8d-5e6f-ac9d-55183a016098)

Chapter 5 (#ulink_3ea93330-284c-560a-b8fb-beb37498da2a)

Chapter 6 (#ulink_4f1e59c5-3846-52dd-b1ae-0803231d9adb)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Excerpt from 77 Shadow Street

1:The North Elevator (#litres_trial_promo)

2:The Basement Security Room (#litres_trial_promo)

3:The Basement Pool (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

1 (#ulink_703e3ada-54bb-501d-842f-506ac313eecf)

Crispin lives wild in the city, a feral boy of twelve, and he has no friend but Harley, though Harley never speaks.

Friendship does not depend on conversation. Sometimes the most important communication is not mouth to ear, but heart to heart.

Harley can’t speak because he is a dog. He understands many words, but he isn’t able to form them. He can bark, but he does not. Neither does he growl.

Silence is to Harley as music to a harp, flowing from him in glissando passages and arpeggios that are melodious to Crispin. The boy has heard too much in his few years. Quiet is a symphony to him, and the profound silence in any hushed place is a hymn.

This metropolis, like all others, is an empire of noise. The city rattles, bangs, and thumps. It buzzes and squeals, hisses and roars. Honks, clangs, tolls, jingles, clicks, clacks, creaks, knocks, pops, and rumbles.

Even in this storm of sound, however, quiet havens exist. Across the vast lawns of St. Mary Salome Cemetery, between tall pines and cedars like processions of robed monks, concentric circles of granite headstones lead inward to open-air mausoleum walls where the ashes of the dead are interred behind bronze plaques. The eight-foot-high, freestanding walls are arranged like spokes in a wheel. On any windless night, the massive evergreens of St. Mary Salome muffle the municipal voice, and the wheel of walls baffles it entirely.

At the hub where the spokes meet lies a wide circle of grass and at its center a great round slab of gray granite that serves as a bench. Here, Crispin sometimes sits in moonlight until the silence soothes his soul.

Then he and Harley move to the grass, where the boy prepares his bedroll. With no guilt to claw at his conscience, the dog sleeps the sleep of an innocent. The boy is not so fortunate.

Crispin suffers nightmares. They are based on memories.

Harley seems to dream of running free, toes spreading and paws trembling as he races across imagined meadows. He does not whimper but makes small thin sounds of delight.

Once, when the boy was ten, he woke well past midnight and saw the silvery shimmering form of a woman in a long dress or robe. She approached between two mausoleum walls, seeming not to walk but rather to glide like a skater on ice.

Crispin sat up, frightened because the woman had no substance. Moonlit objects behind her were visible through her.

She neither smiled nor threatened. Her expression was solemn.

She drifted to a stop about two yards from them, her bare feet a few inches above the grass. For a long moment, she gazed upon them.

Crispin felt that he should speak to her. But he could not.

Although the boy only half rose, Harley stood on all fours. Clearly, the dog saw the woman, too. His tail wagged.