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Strangers

Strangers

Titel: Strangers Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Dean Koontz
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to the door. "There's one thing maybe supports the notion that my problem's psychological, not intellectual. I've been having these dreams… actually the same dream every time."
        "A recurring dream. That's very Freudian."
        "I've had it several times a month since August. But this week it's become a regular occurrence-three out of the last four nights. It's a bad one, too - a short dream that I have over and over again in one night. Short, but… intense. It's about these black gloves."
        "Black gloves?"
        Brendan grimaced. "I'm in a strange place. Don't know where. I'm lying in bed, I think. I seem to be… restrained. My arms are held down. And my legs. I want to move, run, get out of there, but I can't. The light is dim. Can't see much. Then these hands…" He shuddered.
        "Hands wearing black gloves?" Father Wycazik prompted.
        "Yes. Shiny black gloves. Vinyl or rubber. Tightly fitted and shiny, not like ordinary gloves." Brendan let go of the doorknob, took two steps toward the middle of the room, and stood with his hands raised before his face, as if the sight of them would help him recollect the details of the menacing hands in his dream. "I can't see whose hands they are. Something wrong with my vision. I can see the hands… the gloves… but only up to the wrists. Beyond that, it's all… blurry."
        By the offhanded way that Brendan had mentioned the dream, almost as an afterthought, he obviously wanted to believe that it was of no consequence. However, his face was paler than before, and there was a vague but unmistakable flutter of fear in his voice.
        A burst of winter wind rattled a loose window pane, and Stefan said, "The man with black gloves - does he say anything to you?"
        "He never speaks." Another shudder. Brendan lowered his hands, thrust them in his pockets. "He touches me. The gloves are cold, slick." The curate looked as if he could feel those gloves even now.
        Acutely interested, Father Wycazik leaned forward in his chair and said, "Where do these gloves touch you?"
        The young priest's eyes glazed. "They touch… my face. Forehead. Cheeks, neck… chest. Cold. They touch me almost everywhere."
        "They don't hurt you?"
        "No."
        "But you're afraid of these gloves, of the man wearing them?"
        "Terrified. But I don't know why."
        "One can't help but see how Freudian a dream it is."
        "I suppose," the curate said.
        "Dreams are a way for the subconscious mind to send messages to the conscious, and in this case it's easy to see Freudian symbolic meanings in these black gloves. The hands of the devil, reaching out to pull you down from grace. Or the hands of your own doubt. Or they could be symbols of temptations, of sins seeking your indulgence."
        Brendan seemed grimly amused by the possibilities. "Especially sins of the flesh. After all, the gloves do touch me all over." The curate returned to the door and put his hand on the knob, but paused again. "Listen, I'll tell you something odd. This dream… I'm half-sure it's not symbolic." Brendan let his gaze slide away from Stefan's, down to the worn rug. "I think those gloved hands represent nothing more than gloved hands. I think… somewhere, someplace, at some time or other, they were real."
        "You mean you were once in a situation like the one in your dream?"
        Still looking at the rug, the curate said, "I don't know. Perhaps in my childhood. See, this might not have anything to do with my crisis of faith. The two things might be - probably are - unconnected."
        Stefan shook his head. "Two unusual and serious afflictions - a loss of faith and a recurring nightmare - troubling you at the same time, and you want me to think they've no relation? Too coincidental. There must be some connection. But tell me, at what point in your childhood would you've been menaced by this unseen, gloved figure?"
        "Well, I had a couple of serious illnesses as a boy. Maybe during a fever I was examined by a doctor who was a little rough or scary-looking. And maybe the experience was so traumatic that I repressed it, and now it's coming back to me in a dream."
        "When doctors wear gloves for an examination, they use throwaway white latex. Not black. And not heavy rubber or vinyl gloves."
        The curate took a deep breath, blew it out. "Yeah, you're right. But I just can't shake the feeling that the

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