o In the deep lair of the beast, with its monstrous hulk looming over
him, Jack splashed gasoline across the paralyzed python-like
appendages, across other more repulsive and baroque features, which he
dared not stare at if he ever hoped to sleep again.
WINTER MOON 469
He trembled to think that the only thing caging the demon was a small
boy and his vivid imagination.
Maybe, when all was said and done, the imagination was the most
powerful of all weapons. It was the imagination of the human race that
had allowed it to dream of a life beyond cold caves and of a possible
future in the stars.
He looked at Toby. So wan in the backsplash of the flashlight beams.
As if his small face had been carved of pure white marble. He must be
in emotional turmoil, half scared to death, yet he remained outwardly
calm, detached. His placid expression and marble-white skin was
reminiscent of the beatific countenances on the sacred figures
portrayed in cathedral statuary, and he was, indeed, their only
possible salvation.
A sudden flurry of activity from the Giver. A ripple of movement
through the tentacles.
Heather gasped, and Harlan Moffit dropped his half emptied can of
gasoline.
Another ripple, stronger than the first. The hideous mouths opened
wide as if to shriek. A thick, wet, repugnant shijting.
Jack turned to Toby.
Terror disturbed the boy's placid expression, like the shadow of a
warplane passing over a summer meadow. But it flickered and was
gone.
His features relaxed.
The Giver grew still once more.
'Hurry,' Heather said.
o
Harlan insisted on being the last one out. He poured the trail of
gasoline to which they would touch a match
470
DEAN KOONTZ
from the safety of the yard. Passing through the front room, he doused
the corpse and its slavemaster.
He had never been so scared in his life. He was so loose in the bowels
that he was amazed he hadn't ruined a good pair of corduroys. No
reason why he had to be the last one out. He could have let the cop do
it. But that thing down there ...
He supposed he wanted to be the one to lay down the fuse because of
Cindi and Luci and Nanci, because of all his neighbors in Eagle's Roost
too, because the sight of that thing had made him realize how much he
loved them, more than he'd ever thought. Even people he'd never much
liked before--Mrs. Kerry at the diner, Bob Falkenberg at Hensen's Feed
and Grain--he was eager to see again, because suddenly it seemed to him
that he had a world in common with them and so much to talk about.
