Nightmare Journey Read online

  Nightmare Journey

  Dean R. Koontz

  One hundred thousand years in the future, after man has been fatally humbled by his exploration of the stars and discovery of far more intelligent beings, civilization is struggling to return to the planet's surface. After man fled the stars, he tried to explore his own genetic frontier, creating horrible races of deformed beings — some scaled, some furred, tiny, winged and huge. Now Jask, a Pure who retains the original human genetic code, and Tedesco, a great bear with a human brain, are thrown together by their one shared and fatal trait — telepath. Hunted like animals by the fearful populace, they go in search of The Black Presence — which may be the key to mankind's place in the cosmos.

  Dean Koontz

  Nightmare Journey

  The First Journey: The Black Glass

  1

  In the crisp morning, before the worst of the fog had lifted, the Pure humans came into the village, descending the narrow winding road from their fortress, which perched on the edge of the alabaster cliff. In the lead was their General, dressed in milky robes and seated on one of the soundless floating sledges that only the Pures possessed. Two guards sat before him, two behind, all of them well armed.

  Yet, from a distance, it was not the General who commanded attention, but the ranks behind him. Fifty Pures walked after the craft, not of the station to warrant the expenditure of a sledge's irreplaceable power plant for their own ease. Their cloaks were not radiantly white like their General's clothes, but a chalky, color that hinted of blue. Their capes flapped about them in the perpetual wind that scoured the cliff wall, and their boots crunched on cinders and gravel. The size of this contingent was what fascinated the people of the village, for no more than a dozen Pures had ever congregated in public before. They numbered so few these days that they could not risk massing in too confined an area beyond the unbreachable fortress walls.

  The procession reached the bottom of the descending trail and struck across the half-mile of open land separating it from the village, which nestled in a hollow between two arms of dense forest. It moved past the monstrous formation of bacteria jewels, whose light guided travelers by night, and each of the marchers was stained fantastically by the glittering fingers of violet and emerald that reached two hundred yards in all directions from the landmark. The Pures seemed, in the instant, like mechanically gay puppets, chameleon dancers with a certain military grace.

  More than 25,000 years earlier a nation whose name was now as unknown as the name Ozamandius had engineered a lethal bacteriophage related to the botulinus family but flourishing in a crystalline form. In such a state it could not infect men. However, a second bacterium, utterly harmless in itself, was engineered to break down the crystal and release the killing botulinus in a second state that was deadly to mankind. They seeded their enemy's land with crystals, allowed them to grow, then infiltrated the catalyst to bring destruction. Because the lethal bacterium had not been given reproductive capabilities in its noncrystalline form, and because the catalyst was a shortlived, sterile organism, biological warfare could be conducted as cleanly as if a gun had been used. Plague death could be applied in doses, destroying just so many of the enemy as necessary to bring them to their knees — leaving most of them to be ruled after the occupation.

  The faces of the marching Pures were shattered glass images, a thousand shades of green and blue. Their cloaks exploded with rich luminescence.

  Jask watched them from the second-floor room he had taken in the village inn, his face concealed by the shadows of the thrusting eaves on the many-gabled structure, further obscured by heavy umber drapes, which he had pushed open only far enough to have a view. He monitored the progression of the Pures both with a sense of wonder at the stately picture they made and with a growing terror at the understanding that they had descended from their fortress to find him and destroy him.

  His respect for his own kind was such that he knew they could not fail to find him. In hours he would be captured. Certain of this but still unable to abandon all hope, he drew further back from the window and continued to watch.

  From a distance it had been the ranks behind the sledge that had been arresting, but as the party moved closer, the General was the focus that drew the eye. He was larger than most Pures, a full six feet and weighing perhaps two hundred pounds. His shoulders were broad, supporting a head at once imperial and barbaric. His eyes were set under a shelf of bone that was actually slight but nonetheless primitive in effect. His face was wide, deeply creased and tough, though his nose, delicately boned, was an anachronism that softened the brutal force of that countenance. His mouth was tight, thin-lipped; when he spoke, Jask knew, his voice was harsh and deep. The man carried an air of authority with him like expensive baggage; inside those bags was the lingering odor of death.

  The procession halted outside the inn itself, almost directly below Jask's window. To choose the inn for their first stop was only common sense, for an inn was the center of the town and the source of information. Still, Jask could not shake the conviction that the General was an unnatural precog who had sensed his game.

  The General and soldiers made no sound to announce their arrival. The visual spectacle alone was sufficient to draw forth a representative of the village.

  The innkeeper, a creature named Belmondo, came outside, wiping his hands on his apron and watching the General with a mixture of contempt and fear. His eyes, as large around as Jask's palm, rolled independently of each other in a long, lupine skull. Belmondo's appearance was the result of previous generation gene damage caused by radiation rather than the product of the genetic engineers, for he did not follow any of the patterns most favored by patrons of the Artificial Wombs. Children of Wombs were always beautiful, despite their tainted heritage; Belmondo was simply ugly. His thin, bony hands — with three fingers and two thumbs each — pulled greasy, yellow hair away from his forehead. He licked his lips with a raspy, black tongue and said, “Yes?” His tone suggested a dislike of Pures, which was natural but dangerous in this situation.

  “We are looking for a man,'' the General said. “His name is Jask. Have you heard of him?”

  “No,” Belmondo lied.

  “Have you seen him?”

  The General was aware of what tricks could be played with words.

  Belmondo considered for a moment, then said, “Perhaps it would be better if you could tell me what manner of man you seek. Is he furred or scaled? There have been a few fishy cousins in town of late. Is he one of the cyclopses? They find themselves in disfavor with everyone sooner or later — as if having one eye narrows their mental vision as well. Perhaps he is a feline man? If you could be a bit more specific, you see, I could more likely tell you of him. I know all the business of the town.”

  Belmondo, Jask thought, was either foolish or brave — or possessed of a bravery generated by foolishness. He knew as well as anyone that when a Pure used the word “man"' he meant another Pure, not a creature with altered genes. A Pure refused to acknowledge that the quasi-men of mutation — whether accidental or made by design — were men at all. If Pure theology were to remain intact, such mutated specimens could be considered nothing but animals.

  Though Jask, raised in the teachings of the Pure church, would normally have despised Belmondo for his impudence, he welcomed it now that the quasi-man was protecting him. The saucer-eyed Belmondo knew only that Jask had fallen into disfavor with the other Pures of his enclave; that was all the mutant needed to know to justify lying for the sake of a man who might in any other circumstances be considered an enemy.

  “I'll tell you one thing,” the General said. “You may feel quite smug and superior in your cunning now — but if this Jask should go his way unhampered, we wi
ll all eventually suffer, Pure and mutated alike.”

  Belmondo looked skeptical, but his curiosity had been aroused by the sudden confidential tone in the General's voice.

  Upstairs, at the open window, Jask felt ill, chilled by a premonition of disaster. He had not believed that the General would divulge the reason for his flight and for their pursuit of him. The Pures were too closely knit, too snobbish ever to share their inner secrets and shames with those they thought of as a lower species. If they broke the rule of silence now, if they told Belmondo, it was only a measure of how desperately the General wanted to get his hands on Jask.

  “The man we seek… is an esper,” the General said.

  In the quiet, fog-shrouded morning, the words fled the length of the street like a knife drawn across the wet cobblestones, echoing, echoing, hard and urgent.

  Standing by the window, Jask received the distant echoes of fear in the minds of the Pure soldiers and in the minds, as well, of the mutated villagers who listened from doorways and windows in other buildings. He could not block the receival of such agonizingly sharpened emotions.

  “You're certain?” Belmondo asked.

  Already, as he stood there, his eyes began to stray betrayingly toward Jask's open window.

  A ripped open brain… cracked like a nut… with long, pale fingers stirring through the meat and picking out the choicest morsels…

  Jask received the terrified visions radiating from Belmondo and knew the mutant feared espers too much to protect one of them. Turning, stumbling clumsily over an ottoman, he fell, taking the floor square against his chin. He almost passed out as a hard twist of pain ground through him, and he tasted blood as his lower lip split open.

  He stood, holding to the bedpost, tried to regain his usual calm. This charging off like a damaged power sledge was no good at all. He was a Pure, one of the Chosen, and he must always remember to act with dignity that his heritage demanded, even if he had been rejected by his own kind.

  He opened the door of his room and looked both ways down the musty hall of the inn's sleeping quarters. When the search party had arrived, Belmondo had been downstairs preparing the dough for breakfast pastries. If he had accomplished no more than that in readying to feed his boarders, the average guest would not yet have arisen — unless stirred by the General outside. The corridor was empty.

  He stepped out of the room, closed the door quietly. Reaching out with his esp power, he touched the minds of the Pures and of the General, found that they had not yet entered the inn but that they would do so in a few moments. He walked swiftly to the stairs. Holding to the rail, prepared to retreat if necessary, he went down each squeaking riser as if there were a poisonous snake coiled upon it: cautiously.

  The steps ended in the public room. No lanterns had been lighted here, and the candles were cold as well. Most of the large, brick-floored chamber was in a soft, purple darkness. The grimy, stained-glass windows filtered the poor morning light even further; amber light spilled through one pane, crimson through another, green through a third. But it was all cathedral decoration, not genuine illumination. The heavy wooden tables, gleaming now and then with a reflection of foggy, early light in their waxed surfaces, the chairs racked atop them, seemed like a strange array of alien sentinels waiting to be entertained by the chase and the kill.

  Abruptly, as Jask was trying to decide which of the doors behind the bar might lead to the kitchen and the rear entrance to the inn, his mind was innundated with a fury of emotions, images of blood and death. Belmondo had told them: The flush of emotion he registered with his psionic brain was evidence that the General and the soldiers knew he was trapped. He had killed three men already, had given them special reason to be careful — since those first three had died without a mark on them. No Pure could say what ethereal weapon Jask had brought to bear, though all were aware that it was part of his telepathic talents.

  He walked toward the counterman's gate in the long mahogany bar, wondering if he could sneak out the kitchen door.

  Outside, someone barked short, harsh commands; others ran to obey, the sound of their footsteps hollow and cold.

  Without time to round the bar now, Jask placed his hands flat on top of it, muscled up and crashed over it ungracefully. His thin, weakly bred Pure body ached with the effort and gave him an ugly premonition of just how long he could expect to survive if the chase grew hot. He lay with the smell of sawdust and the taste of blood, quite aware of how lucky he had been not to break any bones. Then he pushed up and staggered weakly through the nearest door behind the bar.

  The kitchen lay immediately behind the public room, a blazing fire chattering in its stone hearth. Sheets filled with pastries were lined on heavy, crude tables, cooking instruments scattered about. The odor of flour, sugar and cooked apples permeated the air. Jask did not pause to enjoy it, but crossed to the rear door and looked onto the dirt alleyway behind the inn. To either side Pures ran to cut off this avenue of escape.

  His deadly esp ability, with which he had killed three men in the fortress during the night, could not help him here. It worked slowly, very slowly. At least two of these soldiers would bear him down before he could take care of all of them. Besides, he was weary of murder, sickened by the transgression of molesting Pure lives.

  Turning away from the door, he looked around the kitchen, willing to make do with whatever he could find. If there were knives here, he might be able to fight his way free without wreaking any permanent damage. He hefted a weighty, wickedly curved butcher knife, then dropped it, angry with himself for his slow-wittedness. He could no more fight Pures and their guns with a knife than he could fight the Wildland beasts with bare fists. And, unlike himself, the soldiers would feel no reluctance when the time came to destroy him; he was, after all, nothing but an animal, tainted now, unfit.

  On his right, near the fireplace, an open door revealed descending stairs. He hurried to them, looked into the gloom of the hotel's cellar. He hesitated, certain that this could not lead him anywhere. At most he would find a tiny, street-level window that looked onto an alleyway that the Pures already controlled.

  Then he heard the soldiers in the public room. The Pures in the back alley had reached the locked kitchen door and were rattling it experimentally.

  Without pausing to consider his fate any longer, he stepped through the door, shut it behind, and went quickly down the wooden steps.

  2

  The cellar was nearly lightless. A single window faced an alleyway, perhaps large enough to leave by though effectively barred by thick iron pipes. What little light there was found its way through the dirty glass beyond the bars, casting impenetrable shadows in the subterranean chamber. In this chiaroscuro chaos, it was impossible to find a way out in time. Even if there were a way out. Which was doubtful.

  He was about to turn and leave, to take his chances in the occupied upper floors, when he felt light, teasing mental fingers working along the surface of his own mind, the fingers of an esper. They were weightless fingers, yet sharp and insistent, like the spidery cracks in crimson pottery glaze.

  He turned and examined the shadows, frightened and yet curious. He knew that his only chance of survival lay in the unexpected, and he had certainly never expected to meet another esper here, now.

  On your left, the voiceless voice said, the crisp metallic whisper of telepathic conversation.

  Jask turned, squinted into darkness.

  Someone waited there, though he could not discern the nature of the man.

  Come closer.

  He went closer, and his eyes adjusted to the intense blackness. But the moment he saw the creature, he stepped rapidly backward, his throat constricted and his heart thumping in terror.

  You have nowhere to run. Help me instead.

  “Can you speak?” Jask inquired.

  “You do have it bad, don't you? You're as prejudiced and snottily superior as those upstairs hunting for you!” The voice was deeper, harsher than even the General's voi
ce, and it made Jask sound like a woman by comparison.

  “What are you?” Jask asked.

  “Don't you mean — who am I?”

  Jask did not reply. So many years of theology and custom did not fall away so easily. If he used the word, “who,” it implied that he considered the beast a man, that he had rejected all he knew to be holy and certain.

  The mutant snorted. “I'm a man.”

  More silence.

  Jask saw that it was his place to speak, though he could not find the right words. His eyes roamed the creature. Flickering impressions in the dim light: huge, seven feet tall… thick of body, with arms like branches, legs like trunks of oak… chest as big around as a barrel… a dark and almost snoutlike nose… broad face… deep-set eyes… a well-matted, rich cover of fur all over a body otherwise naked…

  “Like a bear,” the creature said.

  “Yes.”

  “I'm a man, nevertheless.”

  Jask said, “The Artificial—”

  “—Wombs.”

  Jask nodded. The beauty was there, even in the dim light, the pleasant line and functional structure that random mutation lacked. Still, this was not a man, could never be a man.

  “Damn it!” the bruin growled in frustration. He spat on the floor with a great, wet hawking noise, shook his head in disgust at Jask's hesitation. “Can't you hear them up there?” He spoke in an inordinately vicious whisper.

  “What do you want?” Jask inquired.

  He had momentarily forgotten the threat of the hunters above, far more concerned with the hulking being that stood in the shadows so close at hand.

  “Set me loose, and I'll get us both free from this predicament,” the bruin promised.

  It was the sort of guarantee made in a moment of desperation with no possibility of fulfillment. Yet he sounded sincere enough.