The Mask

ACCLAIMED BESTSELLERS BY

D
EAN
K
OONTZ

T
HE
E
YES OF
D
ARKNESS

“Koontz puts his readers through the emotional wringer!”

—Associated Press

T
HE
K
EY TO
M
IDNIGHT

“A master storyteller…always riveting.”

—
San Diego Union-Tribune

M
R
. M
URDER

“A truly harrowing tale…superb work by a master at the top of his form.”

—
Washington Post Book World

T
HE
F
UNHOUSE

“Koontz is a terrific what-if storyteller.”

—
People

D
RAGON
T
EARS

“A razor-sharp, nonstop, suspenseful story…a first-rate literary experience.”

—
San Diego Union-Tribune

S
HADOWFIRES

“His prose mesmerizes…Koontz consistently hits the bull’s-eye.”

—
Arkansas Democrat

H
IDEAWAY

“Not just a thriller but a meditation on the nature of good and evil.”

—
Lexington Herald-Leader

C
OLD
F
IRE

“An extraordinary piece of fiction…It will be a classic.”

—UPI

T
HE
H
OUSE OF
T
HUNDER

“Koontz is brilliant.”

—
Chicago Sun-Times

T
HE
V
OICE OF THE
N
IGHT

“A fearsome tour of an adolescent’s psyche. Terrifying, knee-knocking suspense.”

—
Chicago Sun-Times

T
HE
B
AD
P
LACE

“A new experience in breathless terror.”

—UPI

T
HE
S
ERVANTS OF
T
WILIGHT

“A great storyteller.”

—
New York Daily News

M
IDNIGHT

“A triumph.”

—
New York Times

L
IGHTNING

“Brilliant…a spine-tingling tale…both challenging and entertaining.”

—Associated Press

T
HE
M
ASK

“Koontz hones his fearful yarns to a gleaming edge.”

—
People

W
ATCHERS

“A breakthrough for Koontz…his best ever.”

—
Kirkus Reviews

T
WILIGHT
E
YES

“A spine-chilling adventure…will keep you turning pages to the very end.”

—
Rave Reviews

S
TRANGERS

“A unique spellbinder that captures the reader on the first page. Exciting, enjoyable, and an intensely satisfying read.”

—Mary Higgins Clark

P
HANTOMS

“First-rate suspense, scary and stylish.”

—
Los Angeles Times

W
HISPERS

“Pulls out all the stops…an incredible, terrifying tale.”

—
Publishers Weekly

N
IGHT
C
HILLS

“Will send chills down your back.”

—
New York Times

D
ARKFALL

“A fast-paced tale…one of the scariest chase scenes ever.”

—
Houston Post

S
HATTERED

“A chilling tale…sleek as a bullet.”

—
Publishers Weekly

T
HE
V
ISION

“Spine-tingling—it gives you an almost lethal shock.”

—
San Francisco Chronicle

T
HE
F
ACE OF
F
EAR

“Real suspense…tension upon tension.”

—
New York Times

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

BERKLEY BOOKS, NEW YORK

THE MASK

Prologue

Part One

1

2

3

4

5

6

Part Two

7

8

9

10

11

12

L
AURA
was in the cellar, doing some spring cleaning and hating every minute of it. She didn’t dislike the work itself; she was by nature an industrious girl who was happiest when she had chores to do. But she was afraid of the cellar.

For one thing, the place was gloomy. The four narrow windows, set high in the walls, were hardly larger than embrasures, and the dust-filmed panes of glass permitted only weak, chalky light to enter. Even brightened by a pair of lamps, the big room held on tenaciously to its shadows, unwilling to be completely disrobed. The flickering amber light from the lamps revealed damp stone walls and a hulking, coal-fired furnace that was cold and unused on this fine, warm May afternoon. On a series of long shelves, row upon row of quart jars reflected splinters of light, but their
contents—home-canned fruit and vegetables that had been stored here for the past nine months—remained unilluminated. The corners of the room were all dark, and the low, open-beamed ceiling was hung with shadows like long banners of funeral crepe.

The cellar always had a mildly unpleasant odor, too. It was musty, rather like a limestone cave. In the spring and summer, when the humidity was high, a mottled gray-green fungus sometimes sprang up in the corners, a disgusting scablike growth, fringed with hundreds of tiny white spores that resembled insect eggs; that grotesquery added its own thin but nonetheless displeasing fragrance to the cellar air.

However, neither the gloom nor the offending odors nor the fungus gave rise to Laura’s fears; it was the spiders that frightened her. Spiders ruled the cellar. Some of them were small, brown, and quick; others were charcoal gray, a bit bigger than the brown ones, but just as fast-moving as their smaller cousins. There were even a few blue-black giants as large as Laura’s thumb.

As she wiped dust and a few cobwebs from the jars of home-canned food, always alert for the scuttling movement of spiders, Laura grew increasingly angry with her mother. Mama could have let her clean some of the upstairs rooms instead of the cellar; Aunt Rachael or Mama herself could have cleaned down here because neither of them worried about spiders. But Mama knew that Laura was afraid of the cellar, and Mama was in the mood to punish her. It was a terrible mood, black as thunderclouds. Laura had seen it before. Too often. It descended over Mama more frequently with every passing year, and when she was in its thrall, she was a different person from the smiling,
always singing woman that she was at other times. Although Laura loved her mother, she did not love the short-tempered, mean-spirited woman that her mother sometimes became. She did not love the hateful woman who had sent her down into the cellar with the spiders.

Dusting the jars of peaches, pears, tomatoes, beets, beans, and pickled squash, nervously awaiting the inevitable appearance of a spider, wishing she were grown up and married and on her own, Laura was startled by a sudden, sharp sound that pierced the dank basement air. At first it was like the distant, forlorn wail of an exotic bird, but it quickly became louder and more urgent. She stopped dusting, looked up at the dark ceiling, and listened closely to the eerie ululation that came from overhead. After a moment she realized that it was her Aunt Rachael’s voice and that it was a cry of alarm.

Upstairs, something fell over with a crash. It sounded like shattering porcelain. It must have been Mama’s peacock vase. If it was the vase, Mama would be in an
extremely
foul mood for the rest of the week.

Laura stepped away from the shelves of canned goods and started toward the cellar stairs, but she stopped abruptly when she heard Mama scream. It wasn’t a scream of rage over the loss of the vase; there was a note of terror in it.

Footsteps thumped across the living room floor, toward the front door of the house. The screen door opened with the familiar singing of its long spring, then banged shut. Rachael was outside now, shouting, her words unintelligible but still conveying her fear.

Laura smelled smoke.

She hurried to the stairs and saw pale tongues of
fire at the top. The smoke wasn’t heavy, but it had an acrid stench.

Heart pounding, Laura climbed to the uppermost step. Waves of heat forced her to squint, but she could see into the kitchen. The wall of fire wasn’t solid. There was a narrow route of escape, a corridor of cool safety; the door to the back porch was at the far end.