He stepped through the swinging gate in the railing that separated the public area from the bull pen, and he was halfway to the door when he heard movement in the office behind him. It wasn’t merely a shriek of excitement or even a cry of alarm it was the sound of terror.įrowning, Henderson got up and headed toward the door, adjusting the holstered revolver on his right hip. As before, it was distant and brief, but this time it sounded like a man’s voice. He sighed, looked down at the magazine that lay on his desk-and heard another scream. But now, in early September, only the Candleglow Inn, one lodge, and two small motels were open, and the natives were quiet, and Henderson-who was just twenty-four years old and conclucling his first year as a deputy-was bored. In the winter, when the town was host to several thousand skiers, there were drunks to be dealt with, fistfights to be broken up, and room burglaries to be investigated at the inns, lodges, and motels where the skiers stayed. He was restless.ĭuring the off season, from April through September, he was the only full-time sheriff’s deputy assigned to the Snowfield substation, and the duty was dull. He almost would have preferred that someone had screamed. Only the trees moved, leaves aflutter in a soft wind.Īfter listening intently for several seconds, Henderson was not sure he had actually heard anything. Through the large front windows, he could see a portion of Snowfield’s main street, Skyline Road, which was perfectly still and peaceful in the golden afternoon sunshine. The only noise was the creak of Henderson’s office chair as he shifted his weight in it.

The thin, red second hand of the wall clock swept soundlessly around the dial. Motes of dust drifted lazily in a bright shaft of sunlight that pierced one of the mullioned windows. A woman’s scream.ĭeputy Paul Henderson looked up from his copy of Time. cannot get rid of a feeling of the uncanny.

Phantoms by Dean Koontz