The Dark of Summer

by Dean R. Koontz

  The Dark of Summer

  Dean R. Koontz

  Gothic-romance novel written to meet a publisher's guidelines and "stave off starvation and buy a little time to write what I really cared about."

  Dean R. Koontz

  (as Deanna Dwyer)

  The Dark of Summer

  BOOK ONE

  ONE

  Gwyn was not expecting anything unusual in that day's mail, and was certainly not expecting a letter that would change the course of her entire life…

  She got up at eight o'clock, to the insistent shrill of her radio-alarm, went straightaway into the kitchenette where she tried to coax herself all the way awake with a cup of strong, black coffee. Sunlight streamed through the one large window over the sink and splashed on the tiny, round table where she sat. She squinted and hunched forward like a gypsy woman straining to cast a spell, her face puffy and lined with sleep. She had gone to bed rather late, for she'd stayed up studying for a Creative Drama exam; now, she was quite tired, bone tired. For a moment, as she closed her eyes against the warm fingers of the morning sun, she seriously considered re-setting her alarm to give herself another hour between the sheets, just sixty more minutes of lovely…

  She snapped her head up as if she had been hit, and she forced herself to drink the rest of the bitter coffee. She dared not return to bed. For one thing, she'd miss the exam which she'd spent so much time preparing for. And for another, she knew how easily she could again slip into the sick, unnatural routine which had possessed her for six months after her parents died.

  A temporary breakdown, Dr. Recard had said, an understandable psychological reaction to the tragedy. Yet, no matter how understandable it had been, she did not want to go through something like that again, for that had been the worst period of her life: it had been more horrible than the months after her sister's death when they'd both been twelve years old and inseparable, worse even than the morning the police had come around to tell her about her parents' accident. An understandable psychological reaction to tragedy… She had begun to sleep away the better part of each day. Anything but sleep became a chore, an unbearably arduous task. She began to get out of bed just before lunch, napping away part of the afternoon, retiring early after a meager supper, sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. In sleep, there was no agony, no fear, no desperate loneliness. Her days passed in sleep, until it seemed as if she would never get out of bed, could not get out of bed except when she grew very hungry or thirsty. She had realized that something was terribly wrong with her, but she had not gone to a doctor for nearly six months. Then, when she had gone, it was only because she slept a whole day through without getting up for any meals at all and, the following morning, could not remember anything about the lost day. That terrified her. That sent her, thin and drawn and weeping, to see what Dr. Recard could do for her.

  Now, for eight months, she had been able to resist the lure of lengthy sleep, and she felt she was gradually making solid contacts with life again, achieving, growing, putting her loss and her agony behind her. One moment of weakness, one extra nap when she really needed no nap, would send her spiraling back down into the bleak despair that had made her so cherish that unneeded sleep.

  By nine o'clock, she'd showered, dressed and was on her way to the college campus which lay on a hill only six blocks from her efficiency apartment. The day was warm, bright, almost like a painting entitled “Spring,” with the cherry trees in blossom along Hudson Street, and birds darting like tiny kites between the eaves of the quaint old buildings which, though well-kept and attractive, had ceased to be single family homes and had been divided into student apartments much like her own. The walk, amidst all this bustling life and color, revived her spirits and made her forget about bed altogether.

  The exam went well, and she knew that she had gotten a high grade, one that would insure the A for the course, which she had been working so hard to get. She stopped for a time in the student union building, but she did not remain long after she'd finished her Coke and sandwich. She had many acquaintances, but no real friends, for all her energies had been put toward re-making herself, rehabilitating herself. She had little or no time, these days, for friends. But that would change soon, when a week passed and there was no morning that she wanted to stay in bed unnecessarily long. Then she would know that she was better, was healthy again, and she would be able to open herself more fully to the world around her.

  When she reached the apartment house at quarter past two o'clock, she stopped at the hall table to examine the stack of mail there, and she found only one thing addressed to her: a letter from her Uncle William, an impossible letter that, because it was the last thing in the world she was expecting, left her somewhat tense. She was frightened and shaking by the tune she had let herself into her three room apartment on the third floor of the old house.

  She put the letter on the small kitchen table, went to change clothes, poured herself a tall glass of soda over two ice cubes, and sat down to read the daily paper which she'd picked up on campus.

  She tried not to think about the letter.

  That wasn't easy.

  She finished the paper, folded it and stuffed it into the trashcan, rinsed out her glass and put that on the drainboard of the sink.

  When she turned, the first thing that caught her eye was the white envelope lying in the center of the blue, formica tabletop. It was a beacon, a flare, and it simply would not be ignored.

  Sighing, beginning to tremble a bit again, she sat down at the table, picked up the letter, ripped it open, extracted two sheets of fine vellum paper on which were neatly typewritten lines followed by her uncle's unfamiliar, bold signature. This was the first time in nearly fifteen years she had heard from him — encounters having anything to do with her mother's brother, William Barnaby, were exceedingly rare — and she did not know what to expect, though she expected the worst.

  The letter said:

  “Dearest Gwyn,

  “There is but one way to begin a letter of this sort, after all this time — and after all that has happened between us — and that is with a sincere and heartfelt apology. I apologize. I cannot begin to explain how genuine and important to me this apology is, but I must plead that you not pass it off as some shallow devise used to gain your attention. I do apologize. I have been a fool. And though I have required so very, very long to understand my foolishness, I see now that nothing in the past was anyone's fault but my own.

  “You know that I was quite against the marriage of my sister to Richard Keller, your father. At that time, twenty-two years ago now, I was frightfully class conscious, and I felt that your mother was marrying far below her station in life. Indeed, my own father felt this way too, and he eventually cut your mother out of the family inheritance because of her marriage; the family's holdings devolved to me, on Father's death, some ten years ago.”

  Gwyn looked up from the letter, stared out of the window at the incredibly blue spring sky, and she thought, somewhat bitterly, How simple and undramatic he makes it sound — how sterile in the recounting!

  Though the biggest fight and the bitterest scenes between her Grandfather Barnaby and her parents had occurred before Gwyn was five years old, she still remembered those awful events as if they had transpired just last week. A few times, at her mother's insistence, Old Man Barnaby and William, who was eight years his sister's senior, would come to the Keller house for dinner; Louise, Gwyn's mother, was always certain that a good family get-together would help iron out their differences — especially with Gwyn and Ginny, the old man's only granddaughters, to lend an air of enchantment to the afternoon. But the old man never liked Richard Keller, looked upon him as an inferior, and always fomented a serious and roaring argument to end the visit.
Gwyn remembered her mother's tears, and finally, the day the old man had left for good and notified them that they were forever cut out of his will.

  The loss of the money did not upset her mother, though the loss of the old man's love most surely did. Still, she adapted to these new circumstances and devoted more time than ever to her own family, giving them all her love. In four years, she had gotten over her loss — and then her father had died. And her brother, William Barnaby, did not even notify her of the old man's passing until he had been buried for nearly a month. This delay, William insisted on the phone, was at his father's command, a clause in the old man's will. Her mother, aware that old man Barnaby could be extremely vindictive, even carrying a grudge to the grave, was still not satisfied with William's flimsy explanation. But she was more content, after this final insult, to let the estrangement between her and her brother continue — an arrangement that William was not only willing, but eager, to see perpetuated. He still professed a great dislike for Richard Keller and told his sister she would yet one day regret the marriage, despite her lovely twins.

  The letter continued with this:

  “Of course, your father proved himself a man of admirable wit, cunning and rare business acumen. His success, I must admit, was a great surprise to me. But you must believe that it was a pleasant surprise, and that I was always so very glad for Louise.”

  Sitting in her small kitchen, in the pleasant apartment which her trust fund allowances easily paid for, Gwyn smiled sadly at what, without realizing it, her Uncle William had just said. Money makes the man… Keller was worthless, an unpedigreed bum, an outcast compared to the so-daily conscious Barnaby family — until he'd started making big money. With a fortune, he was more acceptable. And, of course, he was easier to accept now that he was dead and gone…

  “I did not learn that Louise and Richard were killed in the airplane accident until six months after they were gone. I was stunned, Gwyn, and horribly depressed for some time afterward. I could not understand why you didn't immediately inform me of the disaster, Gwyn. That was two years ago, but you were seventeen and old enough to understand that relatives should be contacted, that certain priorities in…”

  She skipped over the remainder of that paragraph. She did not think Uncle William was so dense as to misunderstand her motives for not informing him, post haste, of his sister's death. Could he really have forgotten how badly he had hurt Louise when he withheld the news of old man Barnaby's death?

  “I waited six additional months, after getting the belated news of the tragedy, and I finally contacted the bank that I knew would be managing your father's inheritance until you come of age. They graciously provided me with your address, there at school, but I have required nearly another year to gather the nerve to write these few lines.”

  She turned to the second page of the letter:

  “Gwyn, let's let the past bury itself. Let's do what should have been done so long ago; let's reunite what's left of the descendants of my father. I have apologized by letter, a very cowardly beginning, but a beginning nonetheless. If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, and to forgive, by association, my father, perhaps these years of pointless animosity can be done away with.

  “I would like you to spend your summer here in Massachusetts, at the homestead, Barnaby Manor, with me and my wife, Elaine, whom you have never met. I am fifty years old, Gwyn, finally mature enough to admit my mistakes. I pray that you are mature enough to have learned the value of forgiveness, and that we can make a start of repairing old bridges. I will anxiously await your reply.

  “Love to you,

  “Uncle Bill Barnaby.”

  Gwyn did not know at what point during the letter she had begun to cry, but now fat tears rolled down her cheeks like jewels of water, fell off the end of her chin, leaving a trace of saltiness at the corners of her mouth. She wiped at them with her hand, and she knew what her answer would be. She hadn't realized, until now, how much alone she was, how cut off from people, how without love and protection. She wanted a family, someone to turn to, someone to confide in, and she was more than willing to forgive old angers, old prejudices.

  She got paper and pen from the desk in the living room and sat down to compose the reply.

  She had no trouble with it. The words came as easily as if they were familiar lines of a favorite verse that she had memorized. In two weeks, when the semester ended, she would go to Calder, Massachusetts, to Barnaby Manor, to her Uncle William.

  And life would start all over again.

  She posted the letter that same afternoon and, in a better mood than any she had experienced since before her parents' death two long years ago, she treated herself to a movie that she'd been wanting to see for some time. And she went shopping for some new summer clothes — light dresses, swim-suits, shorts and airy blouses, sneakers — that might be suitable for the social life and the leisure time on the beach of the Massachusetts seacoast

  That night, she had a nightmare which was old and familiar but which, for the first time did not terrify her. In the dream, she was standing alone on a barren plain with nothing but grotesque, stark rock formations twisting up on every side… The sky was flat gray and high, and she knew that no other living thing existed in all this world… She sat down on the sandy earth of the plain overwhelmed by the soul-deadening emptiness of the world, and she knew that the sky would soon lower (as it always did without fail), and that the rocks would close in (as they always did without fail), eventually crushing her to death while she screamed and screamed — knowing that there would be no answer to her calls for help. This time Uncle William appeared out of nowhere and reached for her smiling broadly. And this time she was not crushed and she was not alone.

  In the morning, waking refreshed, she knew that now she was not without friends, without family or without hope. This one contact, yet so brief, with someone who might love her was enough to drive off the nightmare.

  During the following two weeks, she did not have a single urge to sleep late or to take naps in the afternoon, and she knew that when her nightmare had gone away, her sickness had disappeared too.

  She looked forward to the summer at Barnaby Manor with the enthusiasm of a small child preparing for Christmas morning. In her free time she did more shopping — not only for clothes for herself, but for gifts that she wanted to bring her aunt and uncle, small things given not so much because of their value but because they represented her own ardent desire to give in order to make their relationship a good and lasting one. These were gifts of care, gifts of sentiment, and she shopped especially carefully for each.

  Finally on the first day of June, which was a Thursday, she packed her four large suitcases in her Opel coupe locked her apartment for the summer, paid her landlady three months' rent in advance and set out for the drive from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to the small town of Calder, Massachusetts where a bright, new future awaited her, a chance to re-establish contacts with people who wanted to love her in a world where, she had learned the hard way, love was at a premium.

  TWO

  When she first saw Barnaby Manor, still more than a quarter of a mile away at the top of the narrow and badly paved macadam driveway she stopped her car along the berm. She sat there, peering through the bright windshield against which the afternoon sun reflected, and she took time to carefully examine this place where she would spend the following three months and where, perhaps an old grudge would finally be laid to rest…

  At first the house did not look particularly promising and seemed to threaten rather than to welcome. It was huge, with at least thirty rooms on three different levels, spotted with railed porches and balconies its slate roof precipitously steep and decorated with the blank eyes of attic windows which looked like nothing so much as observation posts in some fortress. The house was painted in those familiarly reversed colors that one sees along the New England seacoast: predominately royal blue, with a bright white trim rather than mostly white. This gave it a rich — an
d a decidedly sinister — look.

  The driveway edged the cliff from the moment it turned off the public road half a mile behind her, and it fed directly into the loop before the mansion's large oaken doors. On the right as she faced the house the lawn sloped down and came to the cliff where it stopped without guard rails or wall. She could see from here that a set of steps had been carved into the cliff to give the people in the house easy access to the beach. To the left of the house, the Barnaby estate thickly forested, ran on out of sight.

  Gwyn had lived in a mansion herself, when her parents were still alive and she was accustomed to money and what money could buy. However, even she was quite impressed with Barnaby Manor, impressed by its formidable dimensions and by the well-kept, ornately planted grounds around it. If the house were not so brooding, so foreboding —

  But then she told herself, she was being foolish. A house was not a living and breathing entity. A house was merely a house. It could not have about it a mood, could project no aura, neither good nor bad. Rather, she was seeing in the house a projection of her own doubts and her own fears. Would her Uncle William be as pleasant in person as he had sounded in his letter? Would he really have forgotten all those years of enmity, and would he truly be sorry for the way he had treated his sister, Gwyn's mother? Because she had no concrete answers to any of these questions, she was seeing only danger in the lines of the perfectly harmless old house. It was she who was to blame, then, not the inanimate dwelling.

  She put the car in gear, pulled onto the driveway, accelerated up along the cliffs edge toward the mansion. She stopped before the massive oaken doors and was surprised to see them open even before the sound of the car's engine had died away.