Intensity
Published: Nov 1995 (UK) - Jan 1996 (US)
Author: Dean Koontz
Genre: American, Fiction, Ghost, Horror, Literature, Mystery, Psychological, Serial Killer, Suspense, Thriller
Check out the review of this book here:
Summary
Chyna Shepherd is a college student who is spending the holiday weekend with the family of her friend Laura Templeton.
Chyna, who was beaten and abandoned as a youngster by her mother, discovers that the Templeton mansion delivers what she has longed for acceptance. This is violently ended when serial murderer Edgler Vess gets into the house in the middle of the night and murders all of the inhabitants save Laura and Chyna.
Chyna flees after finding Laura has been bound and raped, vowing to return. Chyna walks upstairs after hearing Laura cry, planning to stab Vess with a knife. Vess murders Laura and takes her to his motor home before she can interfere. Chyna goes on board the motor home, unaware Laura is dead and discovers her friend's body. Vess drives away before she can flee.
Chyna hides in a back room, preparing to flee as soon as possible. When Vess comes to a halt at a petrol station, she gets out of the RV and hunts for a payphone.
Chyna discreetly observes Vess boasting to the gas station workers that he is holding a little girl, Ariel, captive in his basement before killing them and driving away.
She feels obliged to pursue Vess and assist in the release of Ariel, seizing a clerk's automobile. Chyna passes Vess while driving through a state park and deliberately smashes into a redwood tree.
Chyna climbs onto the motor home as Vess goes out to investigate. Vess, unknowing to Chyna, notices her. Fascinated, he chooses not to murder her right away in order to see what she would do. They eventually arrive at Vess's secluded home.
Vess observes Chyna exiting the motor home. When she enters the home, she discovers a catatonic Ariel trapped in a basement chamber.
Vess tackles Chyna in the kitchen before she can release Ariel, striking her senseless and restraining her with a chain. For a while, he teases her, disclosing facts of his previous misdeeds. Obsessed with the "intensity" of every sensory or existential experience, Vess describes himself as a "homicidal adventurer" and has been killing since boyhood.
He agrees to let Chyna live if she helps him torture Ariel out of her catatonia. Chyna manages to break free from the table to which she is bound and slams her chair into a wall when Vess goes to work. She frees Ariel from her confinement.
Vess has trained a gang of lethal Dobermann pinschers to defend his land and murder anyone who tries to enter or exit. Chyna sprays ammonia on the dogs while dressed in Vess's dog-training attire and makes it to the motor home with Ariel.
Soon after, Chyna notices a police cruiser and pulls over to signal it, only to learn that the driver is Vess, the local sheriff. Chyna attacks his police car in the subsequent brawl, but he rolls clear and uses a shotgun to disable the motor home, forcing it to turn over.
Chyna and Ariel flee the crash, but Vess follows and knocks Chyna to the ground while Ariel carries on, distracting Vess long enough for Chyna to grab a lighter from her pocket. She ignites Vess's gasoline-soaked footwear with it.
She slides away to safety just as the puddle of gas encircling Vess catches fire. She turns and witnesses Vess burn to death after catching up with Ariel. A passing driver offers assistance. Chyna adopts Ariel and finds a lovely man a few months later.
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