The Bad Place - Couverture souple

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Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0755356241 ISBN 13 : 9780755356249

Editeur : Headline Book Publishing, 1998

A propos du livre

Extrait :

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

 

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

 

“THIS IS WHITE-KNUCKLE, HAIR-CURLING-ON-THE-BACK-OF-THE-NECK READING—as close to actual physical terror as the printed word can deliver.”

—Los Angeles Times

 

Frank Pollard is afraid to fall asleep. Every morning he awakes, he discovers something strange—like blood on his hands—a bizarre mystery that tortures his soul. Two investigators have been hired to follow the haunted man. But only one person—a young man with Down’s syndrome—can imagine where their journeys might end. That terrible place from which no one ever returns ...

 

THE BAD PLACE

 

“Koontz’s skill at edge-of the-seat writing has improved with each book. HE CAN SCARE OUR SOCKS OFF.”

—Boston Herald

Praise for The Bad Place

“Psychologically complex characters... fast-paced... a masterly and satisfying denouement.”

—The New York Times

 

“The intricate plot races along. Koontz also creates characters of unusual richness and depth ... a level of perception and sensitivity that is not merely convincing; it’s astonishing.”

—The Seattle Times

 

“At times lyrical without ever being naive or romantic. This is a grotesque world, much like that of Flannery O’Connor or Walker Percy... Scary, worthwhile reading.”

—The Times-Picayune

 

“A taut suspenseful novel that transcends genres. Total entertainment.”

—The Macon Telegraph & News

 

“Thoroughly absorbing and wonderfully entertaining, a real leave-the-light-on effort.”

—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

“Koontz puts his readers through the emotional wringer. There are scenes... that stick in the mind long after the thriller has been laid aside.”

—The Associated Press

 

“Fascinating. Even his minor characters seem to live. A roller-coaster ride.”

—The Boston Globe

 

“Strange. Weird. Eerie. Macabre. Terrifying.”

—New York Daily News

 

“A compelling plot... excellent characters.”

—The Baltimore Sun

 

“Koontz soars... shriek-worthy suspense.”

—Publishers Weekly

 

“A roller-coaster ride.”

—Seattle Post-Intelligencer

 

“The pace accelerates like an avalanche. By the time the reader reaches the denouement, he’s emotionally exhausted, shaken.”—

The Baton Rouge Advocate

 

“A celebration of the imagination—and every bit as creepy as you hope it will be!”

—Chattanooga News-Free Press

 

“Just when you think you’ve got everything figured out, Koontz tosses in yet another surprise. He masterfully weaves [many] elements into a plot that is totally involving.”

—Hartford Courant

 

“Completely satisfying. His prose is rich and evocative. His characters are among the warmest—also the most despicable—in fiction.”

—Ottawa Citizen

 

“Highly entertaining.”

—The Indianapolis Star

 

“By the time you reach the end, you’ll feel as if you’ve just stepped off a roller coaster.”

—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

 

“A stylishly terrifying adventure... characters the reader can care for, and a mystery that is truly mysterious.”

—South Bend Tribune

 

“You can’t stop reading. It takes you on a chilly roller-coaster ride of stomach-gripping suspense that throws you breathlessly against a brick wall at the end.”

—UPI

 

“Hard to put down, absorbing... Each character comes alive.”

—The Memphis Commercial Appeal

 

“Koontz is a master.”

—Calgary Herald

 

“Dean Koontz is on a roll. Each new novel... has brought more respect and more popularity. He creates sympathetic characters who are very human, and [the story races] from page to page.”

—Rockdale Citizen

 

“This may be Koontz’s best book yet. He deftly juggles several subplots while keeping the suspense turned on high. A rousing conclusion.”

—Tulsa World

 

“Driving, character-rich, panoramic... a marvelously boisterous, scare-and-suspense-packed entertainment.”

—Kirkus Reviews

 

“Fast and furious... surprise piled upon surprise...highly entertaining.”

—Orange County Register

 

“Memorable characters. Koontz has written another page-turner.”

—Gannett News Service

 

“Complex and fascinating characters. The character of Thomas is a tour de force of stylistics that more than anything suggests Koontz’s remarkable skill.”

—Mystery Scene

 

“Give me more of this man’s fiction anytime. The Bad Place [is] unrelenting in its purpose to thrill, challenge, and charm. It is one of the new breed of mystery thrillers... with such explosive panache that you don’t need explosive sex or violence to keep a reader’s interest.”

—Fear

Berkley titles by Dean Koontz

THE EYES OF DARKNESS
THE KEY TO MIDNIGHT
MR. MURDER
THE FUNHOUSE
DRAGON TEARS
SHADOWFIRES
HIDEAWAY
COLD FIRE
THE HOUSE OF THUNDER
THE VOICE OF THE NIGHT
THE BAD PLACE
THE SERVANTS OF TWILIGHT
MIDNIGHT
LIGHTNING
THE MASK
WATCHERS
TWILIGHT EYES
STRANGERS
DEMON SEED
PHANTOMS
WHISPERS
NIGHT CHILLS
DARKFALL
SHATTERED
THE VISION
THE FACE OF FEAR

 

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

THE BAD PLACE

 

A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with
the author

 

PRINTING HISTORY

 

Berkley mass-market edition / December 1990

 

Copyright © 1990 by Nkui, Inc.

“Afterword” copyright © 2004 by Dean Koontz.

 

All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet
or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal
and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic
editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of
copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-00719-8

 

BERKLEY®

Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

BERKLEY and the “B” design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

Teachers often affect our lives more than they realize. From high school days to the present, I have had teachers to whom I will remain forever indebted, not merely because of what they taught me, but because they provided the invaluable examples of dedication, kindness, and generosity of spirit that have given me an unshakable faith in the basic goodness of the human species. This book is dedicated to:

David O’Brien

Thomas Doyle

Richard Forsythe

John Bodnar

Carl Campbell

Steve and Jean Hernishin

Every eye sees its own special vision;
every ear hears a most different song.
In each man’s troubled heart, an incision
would reveal a unique, shameful wrong.

 

Stranger fiends hide here in human guise
than reside in the valleys of Hell.
But goodness, kindness and love arise
in the heart of the poor beast, as well.

 

—The Book of Counted Sorrows

1

THE NIGHT was becalmed and curiously silent, as if the alley were an abandoned and windless beach in the eye of a hurricane, between the tempest past and the tempest coming. A faint scent of smoke hung on the motionless air, although no smoke was visible.

Sprawled facedown on the cold pavement, Frank Pollard did not move when he regained consciousness; he waited in the hope that his confusion would dissipate. He blinked, trying to focus. Veils seemed to flutter within his eyes. He sucked deep breaths of the cool air, tasting the invisible smoke, grimacing at the acrid tang of it.

Shadows loomed like a convocation of robed figures, crowding around him. Gradually his vision cleared, but in the weak yellowish light that came from far behind him, little was revealed. A large trash dumpster, six or eight feet from him, was so dimly outlined that for a moment it seemed ineffably strange, as though it were an artifact of an alien civilization. Frank stared at it for a while before he realized what it was.

He did not know where he was or how he had gotten there. He could not have been unconscious longer than a few seconds, for his heart was pounding as if he had been running for his life only moments ago.

Fireflies in a windstorm....

That phrase took flight through his mind, but he had no idea what it meant. When he tried to concentrate on it and make sense of it, a dull headache developed above his right eye.

Fireflies in a windstorm...

He groaned softly.

Between him and the dumpster, a shadow among shadows moved, quick and sinuous. Small but radiant green eyes regarded him with icy interest.

Frightened, Frank pushed up onto his knees. A thin, involuntary cry issued from him, almost less like a human sound than like the muted wail of a reed instrument.

The green-eyed observer scampered away. A cat. Just an ordinary black cat.

Frank got to his feet, swayed dizzily, and nearly fell over an object that had been on the blacktop beside him. Gingerly he bent down and picked it up: a flight bag made of supple leather, packed full, surprisingly heavy. He supposed it was his. He could not remember. Carrying the bag, he tottered to the dumpster and leaned against its rusted flank.

Looking back, he saw that he was between rows of what seemed to be two-story stucco apartment buildings. All of the windows were black. On both sides, the tenants’ cars were pulled nose-first into covered parking stalls. The queer yellow glow, sour and sulfurous, almost more like the product of a gas flame than the luminescence of an incandescent electric bulb, came from a streetlamp at the end of the block, too far away to reveal the details of the alleyway in which he stood.

As his rapid breathing slowed and as his heartbeat decelerated, he abruptly realized that he did not know who he was. He knew his name—Frank Pollard—but that was all. He did not know how old he was, what he did for a living, where he had come from, where he was going, or why. He was so startled by his predicament that for a moment his breath caught in his throat; then his heartbeat soared again, and he let his breath out in a rush.

Fireflies in a windstorm...

What the hell did that mean?

The headache above his right eye corkscrewed across his forehead.

He looked frantically left and right, searching for an object or an aspect of the scene that he might recognize, anything, an anchor in a world that was suddenly too strange. When the night offered nothing to reassure him, he turned his quest inward, desperately seeking something familiar in himself, but his own memory was even darker than the passageway around him.

Gradually he became aware that the scent of smoke had faded, replaced by a vague but nauseating smell of rotting garbage in the dumpster. The stench of decomposition filled him with thoughts of death, which seemed to trigger a vague recollection that he was on the run from someone—or something—that wanted to kill him. When he tried to recall why he was fleeing, and from whom, he could not further illuminate that scrap of memory; in fact, it seemed more an awareness based on instinct than a genuine recollection.

A puff of wind swirled around him. Then calm returned, as if the dead night was trying to come back to life but had managed just one shuddering breath. A single piece of wadded paper, swept up by that insufflation, clicked along the pavement and scraped to a stop against his right shoe.

Then another puff.

The paper whirled away.

Again the night was dead calm.

Something was happening. Frank sensed that these short-lived whiffs of wind had some malevolent source, ominous meaning.

Irrationally, he was sure that he was about to be crushed by a great weight. He looked up into the clear sky, at the bleak and empty blackness of space and at the malignant brilliance of the distant stars. If something was descending toward him, Frank could not see it.

The night exhaled once more. Harder this time. Its breath was sharp and dank.

He was wearing running shoes, white athletic socks, jeans, and a long-sleeved blue-plaid shirt. He had no jacket, and he could have used one. The air was not frigid, just mildly bracing. But a coldness was in him, too, a gelid fear, and he shivered uncontrollably between the cool caress of the night air and that inner chill.

The gust of wind died.

Stillness reclaimed the night.

Convinced that he had to get out of there—and fast—he pushed away from the dumpster. He staggered along the alley, retreating from the end of the ...

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Frank Pollard awakens in an alley, knowing nothing but his name and that he is in danger. Over the next few days he develops a fear of sleep because when he wakes he finds blood on his hands and bizarre and terrifying objects in his pockets. Distraught and desperate, Frank begs husband-and wife detective team Bobby and Julie Dakota to get to the bottom of his mysterious, amnesiac fugues. It seems a simple job, but they are drawn into ever-darkening realms where they encounter the nightmare, hate-filled figure stalking Frank. And their lives are threatened, as is that of Julie's gentle, Down's-syndrome brother, Thomas.

To Thomas, death is the 'bad place' from which there is no return. But as each of them ultimately learns, there are equally bad places in the world of the living, places so steeped in evil that, in contrast, death seems almost to be a relief...

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Headline Book Publishing
• Date d'édition: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0755356241
• ISBN 13: 9780755356249
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 512