The Hunger

Whitley Strieber

Chapters (17)

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THE WHITLEY STRIEBER HORROR CLASSIC THAT STARTED IT ALL

CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THEWHITLEYSTRIEBER HORROR CLASSIC THAT STARTED IT ALL

THE HUNGER

“Vivid, skillfully written.”

—The Washington Post

“Fast paced . . . intriguing.”

—Publishers Weekly

“Read this one with all the lights on.”

—Hudson Sun (MA)

THE LAST VAMPIRE

And for the long-awaited follow-up

THE LAST VAMPIRE

“Whitley Strieber has done more than recapture the magic that made him a modern master of horror literature—he has surpassed himself. This is a wonderfully imaginative book, one that defies the reader to put it down.”

—Peter Straub

“With a sensual ascent to an erotic crescendo, this vigorous sequel restores the vampire’s power and mystique. Strieber’s luxuriously soulless realm of the undead is disturbingly plausible.”

—Katherine Ramsland

Also by Whitley Strieber

Fiction

The Forbidden Zone

Unholy Fire

Billy

Majestic

Catmagic

The Wild

Nature’s End

Warday

Wolf of Shadows

The Night Church

Black Magic

The Hunger

The Wolfen

Short Stories (Private Publication)

Evenings With Demons: Stories From Thirty Years

Nonfiction

Confirmation

The Secret School

Breakthrough

The Communion Letters

Transformation

Communion

The Coming Global Superstorm

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-3644-X

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

For M.A.

Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,

And after many a summer dies the swan.

Me only cruel immortality

Consumes . . .

Tithonus, ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:

We knew her woof, her texture; she is given

In the dull catalogue of common things.

Lamia, JOHN KEATS

PROLOGUE

JOHN BLAYLOCK CHECKED his watch again. It was exactly three A.M.—time to move. The small Long Island town was so quiet he could hear the light change at the end of the tree-lined street. John put his watch back in his pocket and stepped softly from his place of concealment in the shrubs. He paused a moment in the cool, private air of the empty street.