467
He didn't like that.
As Jack opened the yellow door on perfect blackness, the frantic
scratching of the dog's claws filled the room behind them.
Following his dad down the swaybacked cellar stairs, Toby concentrated
intensely on that little green boat in his mind, which was really well
built, no leaks at all, unsinkable. Its decks were piled high with
bags and bags of silvery Calming Dust, enough to keep the surface of
the angry sea smooth and silent for a thousand years, no matter what it
wanted, no matter how much it raged and stormed in its deepest
canyons.
He sailed on and on across the waveless ocean, scattering his magical
powder, the sun above him, everything just the way he liked it, warm
and safe. The ancient sea showed him its own pictures on its glossy
black surface, images meant to scare him and make him forget to scatter
the dust-- his mother being eaten alive by rats, his father's head
split down the middle and nothing inside it but cockroaches, his own
body pierced by the tentacles of a Giver that was riding on his
back--but he looked away from them quickly, turned his face to the blue
sky instead, and wouldn't let his fear make a coward of him.
The cellar was one big room, with a broken-down furnace, a rusted water
heater--and the real Giver from which the other, smaller Givers had
detached.
It filled the back half of the room, all the way to the ceiling, bigger
than a couple of elephants.
It scared him.
That was okay.
468 DEAN KOONTZ
But don't run. Don't run.
It was a lot like the smaller versions, tentacles everywhere, but with
a hundred or more puckered mouths, no lips, just slits, and all of them
working slowly in its current calm state. He knew what it was saying
to him with those mouths. It wanted him. It wanted to rip him open,
take out his guts, stuff itself into him.
Toby started shaking, he tried very hard to make himself stop but
couldn't.
Little green boat. Plenty of Calming Dust. Putter along and scatter,
putter along and scatter.
As the beams of the flashlights moved over it, he could see gullets the
color of raw beef beyond those mouths. Clusters of red glands oozed
clear syrupy stuff. Here and there the thing had spines as sharp as
any on a cactus. There wasn't a top or bottom or front or back or head
to it, just everything at once, everywhere at once, all mixed up. All
over it, the working mouths were trying to tell him it wanted to push
tentacles in his ears, mix him up too, stir his brains, become him, use
him, because that's all he was, a thing to be used, that's all anything
was, just meat, just meat to be used.
Little green boat.
Plenty of Calming Dust.
Putter along and scatter, putter along and scatter.
