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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 11, 2020 8:10:12 GMT
 Snowfield is a northern California town located in the Sierras which is popular with tourists during the summer season, but it's autumn now and the tourist season has yet to begin. Deputy Paul Henderson is the only full time cop in the town, and he's bored out of his skull. Suddenly, he hears a brief, distant scream. Rising to investigate, he hears movement behind him, even though this is impossible as he's been alone in the police station all day. And yet, when he turns, he discovers he isn't alone. Whatever it is he sees, it makes him draw his sidearm... That same day, probably more or less the same instant, we're introduced to physician Dr. Jennifer Paige who is driving home from picking up her little sister, Lisa. Their mother passed away and Jenny now has custody of her sister and is bringing her to live with her in Snowfield. When the two drive into town, though, it seems weirdly quiet and deserted. They encounter no other cars on the streets. Nobody is walking on the sidewalks. And although there are lights on in buildings, they can't see anyone through the windows. They drive to Jenny's house, and, getting out of the car, Jenny is weirded out by how eerily still and quiet the suburb is. When they go inside, Lisa is startled to find her sister's housekeeper Hilda Beck lying on the kitchen floor, very dead. Her body is in a strange, bloated, purply condition that Jenny has never seen before. The strangeness continues. The bloating doesn't seem to be caused by decomposition; there's no bad smell, and the food on the counter, taken from the fridge, is still cold, meaning Hilda had taken it out probably less than an hour before Jenny and Lisa got home. Whatever happened to her happened shockingly sudden, too, and her muscles haven't relaxed, with her facial expression frozen mid-scream... Is it a disease? Jenny isn't sure. She's never seen or even heard of anything even remotely like this. Regardless, she needs to get help, but when she picks up the phone, there's no dial tone. But the line isn't dead, either. In fact, it's actually an open line, and she gets the distinct impression that someone is actually listening. However when she says hello, there is no response. They head to her next door neighbors' house to see if they can use their phone. Ah, the 80s. Before cell phones. The people next door are named the Santini family. By now, night has fallen. The wind blows quietly. Jenny and Lisa can hear music playing inside, but can't see anyone through the windows, and nobody answers when she rings the bell. The front door is unlocked. Figuring, hey, extenuating circumstances and all, Jenny and her sister let themselves in, but nobody's there. They're not dead, they're simply not there. Even though the car is in the driveway and they apparently left in the middle of dinner before touching the food set out on the dining room table. The only signs that anything is amiss (besides the family's absence, anyway) is that one chair is overturned, the salad is spilled everywhere, one fork is on the floor, and a wadded up napkin has been flung into the far corner. Besides this it's picture perfect. Jenny decides to try the phone. It, too, won't give her a dial tone. More of that weird open line crap. She hangs up, and then she and Lisa decide fuck this, let's drive to the sheriff's station. But her car won't start. It's a Pontiac Trans Am in good condition and it just refuses to cooperate. Fortunately, Snowfield is a smallish town, so it's within walking distance. She and Lisa walk to the sheriff's station, where they find Deputy Henderson in the same condition as Hilda. Lying on the floor, dead, his skin purplish and discolored, a look of surprise frozen on his dead face. But whereas whatever happened to Hilda had seen her taken completely by surprise, Henderson had time to draw his gun. In fact, he's still holding it, and got off three shots. People don't shoot at diseases, do they...? |
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Post by andydecker on Apr 11, 2020 11:33:39 GMT
Back in the day I was a major Koontz fan. Phantoms is one of good ones, at least for two thirds. His best for me still is Whispers, which at the time had a terrific twist. He was like candy.
In the mid-nineties I fell out of writer-love, it was always the same, clones, government conspiracys, super-killers, pets who are better than people at times and saccharine relationships on too many pages. Have not read him for 20 years. Even ditched a lot of his novels and still have half a shelf of his works.
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Apr 11, 2020 12:06:54 GMT
Back in the day I was a major Koontz fan. Phantoms is one of good ones, at least for two thirds. I've never read Phantoms, or any other Koontz, but a long time ago I did watch the 1998 film version. It had an interesting cast (including Peter O'Toole, Rose McGowan, Ben Affleck, and Liev Schreiber), and the opening scenes set up a creepy, atmospheric mystery, but it fell apart a third of the way in. |
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 11, 2020 20:04:43 GMT
but a long time ago I did watch the 1998 film version. It had an interesting cast (including Peter O'Toole, Rose McGowan, Ben Affleck, and Liev Schreiber), and the opening scenes set up a creepy, atmospheric mystery, but it fell apart a third of the way in. This seems to be most people's complaint about both the novel and the film. Including mine. Much as I love both, the early bits are my favorite ones, vs. the later sci-fi action-y stuff. |
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 11, 2020 22:43:15 GMT
Naturally, the phone doesn't work here at the sheriff's station, either. At this point, Jenny, who'd earlier worried about looking foolish for yelling out if anyone was there when she first noticed the town's eerie silence, tries just that after they leave the station. There's no answer. Hoping against hope, she and Lisa decide to try the homes and businesses of people she knows. First up is a baker run by Jakob and Aida Liebermann. The front door is locked, indicating that they'd just closed up shop, so Jenny and Lisa head around to the employees' entrance around the back. To get there, though, the duo need to go through a pitch black covered walkway...
While passing through it, Jenny suddenly becomes aware of a very startling sensation. They're not alone anymore. She isn't quite sure how, or even when, exactly, she became aware of it, but about halfway through the passageway, it went from definitely feeling empty aside from her and Lisa to suddenly being occupied by a third presence.
Whatever it is, it seems to be up in the rafters. The darkness seems... different there, somehow.
Lisa experiences a similar sensation, except whatever it is she senses is actually up against the wall. Something smaller than a human but larger than a dog or a cat. Something alive.
The sisters run through the rest of the way. Jenny had taken a gun from the police station, despite the fact it clearly hadn't done Deputy Henderson any good, and she aims it at the covered walkway. Nothing comes after them. And the feeling the two experienced has passed. They're alone again. They head into the bakery. They quickly wish they hadn't, as they discover Jakob Liebermann's severed hands clutching the rolling pin on the countertop, and his and Aida's heads in the ovens.
There isn't much blood, either. There's some, but not very much. You'd think there'd be tons of it everywhere, splattered all over the kitchen, but nope. They try the phone with no luck. Suddenly, it runs. Jenny answers. After hearing nothing but indistinct murmuring, as if many people and animals were talking and making noises from a great distance, she slams the phone back down, and she and Lisa leave the bakery, emphatically letting themselves out through the front door by unlocking it rather than go through the back passage again.
Jenny's only remaining idea is the Oxley house, where her friends Tom and Karen live. They own a shortwave radio. As before, the door is locked, and no one answers when she knocks. Silence. So she breaks a window that she knows opens into the den where the radio is, and, climbing inside, she and Lisa discover Tom and Karen Oxley in the same state as Hilda Beck and Paul Henderson. Karen is on the floor, and Tom is sitting at the desk where the radio is. And, of course, it doesn't work. Weirder still is the fact the den has been barricaded. Stuff was piled in front of the door. And since Jenny had to smash a window to get in, the windows are locked.
So how did whatever got the Oxleys get in?
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Post by kooshmeister on Apr 16, 2020 9:35:09 GMT
The phone rings again. As before, it's that weird murmuring, but this time, Jenny remains on the line instead of hanging up. Her demands that the presence identify itself are ignore. Suddenly, however, the murmurs stop, and there's a click, followed by a dial tone. It's a miracle! She hastily dials the sheriff's office in the next town, Santa Mira.
Cut to the police department in Santa Mira. Sheriff Bryce Hammond and Lieutenant Talbert Whitman are trying to get to the bottom of a crime that's a lot more grounded in reality than what's going on up in Snowfield, but in its own way just as incomprehensibly evil. Little Danny Kale has been brutally murdered, and his mother, Joanna Kale, shot to death by her husband. Real estate agent Fletcher Kale claims that he came home and found his wife strung out on PCP, having murdered their son, and that he shot her in self-defense.
Bryce suspects otherwise, for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact Kale is the most offputting man he's ever encountered. Everything about the guy is just... wrong. But he has more concrete reasons. Firstly, Joanna Kale has no history of drug use, but that Kale does, and regularly buys drugs from a biker gang called the Demon Chrome. Secondly, Kale owes a lot of money to a development firm called High Country Investments, and Danny Kale had a huge life insurance policy on him, giving his father quite the motive. And thirdly, while the autopsy showed that Joanna did have PCP in her stomach, there was none in her bloodstream. She died before the drug took effect.
Bryce concludes that what Mr. Kale did was spike his wife's food with PCP, then shot her and Danny so he could get the boy's life insurance.
Kale pretty much confirms he's guilty when he tries to flee, but is chased down and apprehended by Bryce and Talbert Whitman. Kale's lawyer, Bob Robine, pretty much quits on the spot in disgust. That seen to, Bryce is approached and told that they got a frantic phone call from a Dr. Jennifer Paige in Snowfield, claiming everyone but she and her sister are either dead or missing...
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