Dean Koontz
 Night Chills
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Author's Introduction
  BY THE TIME they have finished this book, many readers will be uneasy, frightened, 
perhaps even horrified. Once entertained, however, they will be tempted to dismiss Night 
Chills as quickly as they might a novel about demonic possession or reincarnation. 
Although this story is intended primarily to be a "good read," I cannot stress strongly 
enough that the basic subject matter is more than merely a fantasy of mine; it is a 
reality and already a major influence on all our lives.
  Subliminal and subaudial advertising, carefully planned manipulation of our 
subconscious minds, became a serious threat to individual privacy and freedom at least as 
long ago as 1957. In that year Mr. James Vicary gave a public demonstration of the 
tachistoscope, a machine for flashing messages on a motion picture screen so fast that 
they can be read only by the subconscious mind. As discussed in chapter two of this book, 
the tachistoscope has been replaced, for the most part, by more sophisticated-and 
shocking-devices and processes. The science of behavior modification, as achieved through 
the use of subliminal advertising, is coming into a Golden Age of technological 
breakthroughs and advancements in theory.
  Particularly sensitive readers will be dismayed to learn that even such details as the 
infinity transmitter (chapter ten) are not figments of the author's imagination. Robert 
Farr, the noted electronic security expert, discusses wiretapping with infinity 
transmitters in his The Electronic Criminals, as noted in the reference list at the end 
of this novel.
  The drug that plays a central role in Night Chills is a novelist's device. It does not 
exist. It is the only piece of the scientific background that I have allowed myself to 
create from whole cloth. Countless behavioral researchers have conceived of it. 
Therefore, when I say that it does not exist, perhaps I should add one cautionary 
word-yet.
  Those who are studying and shaping the future of subliminal advertising will say that 
they have no intention of creating a society of obedient robots, that such a goal would 
be in violation of their personal moral codes. However, as have thousands of other 
scientists in this century of change, they will surely learn that their concepts of right 
and wrong will not restrict the ways in which more ruthless men will use their 
discoveries.
  D. R. K.
   
   THE BEGINNING
   
   
  Saturday, August 6, 1977
  THE DIRT TRAIL was narrow. Drooping boughs of tamarack, spruce, and pine scraped the 
roof and brushed the side windows of the Land Rover.
  "Stop here," Rossner said tensely.
  Holbrook was driving. He was a big, stem-faced man in his early thirties. He gripped 
the wheel so tightly that his knuckles were bloodless. He braked, pulled the Rover to the 
right, and coasted in among the trees. He switched off the headlamps and turned on a dash 
light.
  "Check your gun," Rossner said.
  Each man wore a shoulder holster and carried a SIC-Petter, the finest automatic pistol 
in the world. They pulled the magazines, checked for a full complement of bullets, 
slammed the magazines back into the butts, and holstered the guns. Their movements seemed 
to be choreographed, as if they had practiced this a thousand times.
  They got out and walked to the back of the car.
  At three o'clock in the morning, the Maine woods were ominously dark and still.
  Holbrook lowered the tailgate. A light winked on inside the Rover. He threw aside a 
tarpaulin, revealing two pairs of rubber hip boots, two flashlights, and other equipment.
  Rossner was shorter, slimmer, and quicker than Holbrook.
  He got his boots on first. Then he dragged the last two pieces of their gear from the 
car.
  The main component of each device was a pressurized tank much like an aqualung 
cylinder, complete with shoulder straps and chest belt. A hose led from the tank to a 
stainless-steel, pinspray nozzle.
  They helped each other into the straps, made certain their shoulder holsters were 
accessible, and paced a bit to get accustomed to the weight on their backs.
  At 3:10 Rossner took a compass from his pocket, studied it in his flashlight beam, put 
it away, and moved off into the forest.
  Holbrook followed, surprisingly quiet for such a large man. The land rose rather 
steeply. They had to stop twice in the next half hour to rest.
  At 3:40 they came within sight of the Big Union sawmill. Three hundred yards to their 
right, a complex of two- and three-story clapboard and cinder-block buildings rose out of 
the frees. Lights glowed at all the windows, and arc lamps bathed the fenced storage yard 
in fuzzy purplish-white light. Within the huge main building, giant saws stuttered and 
whined continuously. Logs and cut planks toppled from conveyor belts and boomed when they 
landed in metal bins.
  Rossner and Holbrook circled around the mill to avoid being seen. They reached the top 
of the ridge at four o'clock.
  They had no difficulty locating the man-made lake. One end of it shimmered in the wan 
moonlight, and the other end was shadowed by a higher ridge that rose behind it. It was a 
neat oval, three hundred yards long and two hundred yards wide, fed by a gushing spring. 
It served as the reservoir for both the Big Union mill and the small town of Black River 
that lay three miles away in the valley.
  They followed the six-foot-high fence until they came to the main gate. The fence was 
there to keep out animals, and the gate was not even locked. They went inside.
  At the shadowed end of the reservoir, Rossner entered the water and walked out ten feet 
before it rose nearly to the tops
  of his hip boots. The walls of the lake slanted sharply, and the depth at the center 
was sixty feet.
  He unraveled the hose from a storage reel on the side of the tank, grasped the steel 
tube at the end of it, and thumbed a button. A colorless, odorless chemical exploded from 
the nozzle. He thrust the end of the tube underwater and moved it back and forth, fanning