By the light of the moon Read Online Free PDF

save yourself and gives me
a chance to be long gone before you can get your hands on me.'
    Shreds of the red skins from peanuts and pale bits of nut meat
mortared the spaces between Doc's teeth, but evidence of his
madness could not be found as easily as could proof of his recent
snack. His faded-denim eyes brimmed with nothing more identifiable
than sorrow.
    He stood erect once more, stared at the pocketknife stuck in the
arm of the chair, and sighed. 'They really aren't bad people. In
their position, I'd kill you, too. There's only one bad man in all
this, and that's me. I've no illusions about myself.'
    He stepped behind the chair, out of sight. Judging by the sounds
he made, Doc was gathering up his mad-scientist gear, shrugging
into his suit coat, getting ready to split.
    So you're driving to an arts festival in Santa Fe, New Mexico,
where in previous years you've sold enough paintings to pay
expenses and to bank a profit, and you stop for the night at a
clean and respectable motel, subsequent to which you purchase a
bagged dinner of such high caloric content that it will knock you
into sleep as effectively as an overdose of Nembutal, because all
you want is to spend a quiet evening putting your brain cells at
risk watching the usual idiotic TV programs in the company of your
puzzle-working brother, and then spend a restful night disturbed by
as little cheeseburger-induced flatulence as possible, but the
modern world has fallen apart to such an extent that you wind up
taped to a chair, gagged, injected with God knows what hideous
disease, targeted by unknown assassins... And yet your friends
wonder why you're becoming a young curmudgeon.
    From behind Dylan, as though he were as telepathic as he was
crazy, Doc said, 'You're not infected. Not in the sense you think.
No bacteria, no virus. What I've given to you... it can't be passed
along to other people. Son, I assure you, if I weren't such a
coward, I'd inject myself.'
    That qualified assurance didn't improve Dylan's mood.
    'I'm ashamed to say cowardice is another of my character flaws.
I'm a genius, certainly, but I'm not a fit role model for
anyone.'
    The man's self-justification through self-deprecation had lost
what little fizz it might at first have possessed.
    'As I explained, the stuff produces a different effect in each
subject. If it doesn't obliterate your personality or totally
disrupt your capacity for linear thinking, or reduce your IQ by
sixty points, there's a chance it'll do something to greatly
enhance your life.'
    On further consideration, this guy didn't have the bedside
manner of Dr. Frankenstein. He had the bedside manner of Dr. Satan .
    'If it enhances your life, then I'll have paid some reparations
for what I've done. Hell's got a bed waiting for me, sure enough,
but a successful result here would compensate at least a little for
the worst crimes I've committed.'
    On the motel-room door, the security chain rattled and the
dead-bolt lock scraped steel against steel as Doc disengaged
them.
    'My life's work depends on you. It now is you. So stay
alive if you can.'
    The door opened. The door closed.
    With less violence than on arrival, the maniac had departed.
    At the desk, Shep no longer waved. He worked the jigsaw puzzle
with both hands. Like a blind man before a Braille book, he seemed
to read each piece of pasteboard with his sensitive fingertips,
never glancing at any scrap of the picture for longer than a second
or two, occasionally not even bothering to use his eyes, and with
uncanny speed, he either placed each fragment of the image in the
rapidly infilling mosaic or discarded it as not yet being of
use.
    Foolishly hoping that recognition of the desperate danger would
transmit by some miraculous psychic bond between brothers, Dylan
tried to shout 'Shepherd.' The soggy gag filtered the cry, soaked
up most of the sound, and let through only a stifled bleat that
didn't resemble his brother's name. Nevertheless, he shouted again,
and a third time, a