Shadow Fires

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Shadow Fires
Cover of Shadow Fires
Author	Dean Koontz
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror novel
Publisher	Berkley Publishing
Publication date	1987
Media type	Print (Paperback)
Pages	528 pp
ISBN	ISBN 0-425-13698-1

Shadow Fires is a novel by the best-selling author Dean Koontz, released in 1987.

[edit] Plot summary

The protagonist of the story is a woman who has just divorced her abusive husband, an intense scientist at a bio-research company. However, the husband is soon killed in a traffic accident.

As it turns out, the husband was doing research into immortality, due to an obsession with cheating death stemming from sexual abuse he suffered as a child and the fear that his abuser is waiting for him in Hell. In fact, he experimented on himself using an untested serum designed to grant incredible regenerative abilities.

The husband wakes up in the morgue, but his "immortality" turns out to be flawed; it cannot properly repair brain damage, as the "mind" is made of electrical signals and not just flesh and protein. The trauma from the traffic accident has resulted in him suffering constant pain and a lack of mental clarity. The husband, now an unstoppable killing machine, proceeds to stalk his wife across the country while slowly descending into madness.

Rachael and her boyfriend Ben Shadway track the reanimated Eric to his secret country hideaway in the hope of killing him before he can regenerate to a level where he would be able to find and kill Rachael, however Eric outwits them and manages to hide in the boot of Rachaels car after overhearing her and Ben in conversation discussing their plan to split up and meet up in Vegas.

As Rachael Leben, (protagonist) the estranged wife of the monster whose name is Eric Leben unwittingly transports Eric toward Las Vegas, she stops off along the way and witnesses Eric emerge from the boot of her car, now hidously transformed into some kind of indescribable mutant. A chase ensues into the desert, Rachael manages to escape from Erics clutches and finds her way back to her car, and sets off again toward Vegas. Some time later Eric flags a car down, kills the driver and he too sets off to Vegas. Ben Shadway is also being chased by federal agent Anson Sharp, who harbours a 20 year old grudge against Shadway after the two served in Vietnam together and Shadway exposed Sharp's corruption and illegal smuggling activities, culminating in Sharp being dishonourably discharged from the US army. Partners in Eric Leben's bio-research company are also on the tail of Shadway and Racheal Leben to try and prevent them exposing the top-secret project that the company was working on, being exposed to the media.

After a lengthy pursuit across Nevada to Las Vegas, the couple eventually manage to turn the tables and corner Eric by the pool of Ben's hotel. They pour gasoline on him and set him on fire causing him to prevent himself from supplying the nutrients he needs to fuel his speeding metabolism and the changes that are making him into a monster. Consumed by fire after being doused with gasoline and set alight, an accelerated reaction in Eric's mutated body causes him to devolve into a mass of smouldering flesh and he dies.

Rachael and Ben get married.

The End