Dean Koontz - (1984)

by The Servants Of Twilight(Lit)

  She crawled to him and hugged him, and he hugged her, too, though weakly. He didn't speak, wouldn't be bribed or teased or encouraged into uttering a single word. And he still wouldn't meet her eyes directly, as if he were not entirely aware that she was here with him; however, she had the feeling that, when she looked away from him, his intense blue eyes turned toward her and lost their slightly glazed and dreamy quality. She wasn't positive. She couldn't catch him at it. But she dared to hope that he was returning to her, slowly feeling his way back from the edge of autism, and she knew she must not rush him or push him too hard.

  Chewbacca had not perked up as much as his young master, though he was a bit less weak and stringy looking than he had been last night. The pooch seemed to grow healthier and more energetic even as Christine watched the boy pet him, responding to each pat and scratch and stroke as if Joey's small hands had healing power. There was sometimes a wonderful, mysterious, deep sharing, an instant bonding in the relationships between children and their animals.

  Joey held his candy bar out in front of him, turned it back and forth, and seemed to be staring at it. He smiled vaguely.

  Christine had never wanted anything more than she had wanted to see him smile, and a smile came to her own face in sympathy with his.

  Behind her, Charlie woke with a start, and she went to him .

  She saw at once that, unlike Joey and the dog, he had not improved. The delirium had left him, but in all other ways his condition had grown worse. His face was the color and texture of bread dough, greasy with sweat. His eyes appeared to have collapsed back into his skull, as if the supporting bones and tissues beneath them had crumpled under the weight of things he had seen. Forceful shivers shook him, and at times they grew into violent tremors only one step removed from convulsions.

  He was partially dehydrated from the fever. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth when he tried to speak.

  She helped him sit up and take more Tylenol with a cup of water ." Better?"

  "A little," he said, speaking only slightly louder than a whisper.

  "How's the pain?"

  "Everywhere," he said.

  Thinking he was confused, she said, "I mean the pain in your shoulder ." "Yeah. That's what..... I mean. It's no longer..... just in my shoulder. It feels like..... it's everywhere now.....all through me . . . head to foot..... everywhere. What time is it?"

  She checked her watch ." Good heavens! Seven-thirty. I must've slept hours without stirring an inch, and on this hard floor ."

  "How's Joey?"

  "See for yourself."

  He turned his head and looked just as Joey fed a last morsel of chocolate to Chewbacca.

  Christine said, "He's mending, I think."

  "Thank God."

  With her fingers, she combed Charlie's damp hair back from his forehead.

  When they'd made love at the cabin, she had thought him by far the most beautiful man she had ever known. She had been thrilled by the contour of each masculine muscle and bone. And even now, when he was shrunken and pale and weak, he seemed beautiful to her: His face was so sensitive, his eyes so caring .

  She wanted to lie beside him, put her arms around him, hold him close, but she was afraid of hurting him.

  "Can you eat something?" she asked.

  He shook his head.

  "You should," she said ." You've got to build up your strength ." He blinked his rheumy eyes as if trying to clear his vision.

  "Maybe later. Is it . . . still snowing?"

  "I haven't been outside yet this morning."

  "If it's cleared up... you've got to leave at once ... without me."

  " Nonsense."

  "This time of year... the weather might clear for only ...

  a day ... or even just... a few hours. You've got to... take advantage of good weather ... the moment it comes... get out of the mountains ... before the next storm."

  "Not without you."

  "Can't walk," he said.

  "You haven't tried."

  "Can't. Hardly ... can talk."

  Even the effort at conversation weakened him. His breathing grew more labored word by word.

  His condition frightened her, and the notion of leaving him alone seemed heartless.

  "You couldn't tend the fire here, all by yourself," she protested.

  "Sure. Move me ... closer to it. Within arm's reach. And pile up ... enough wood ... to last a couple of days. I'll be ... okay ."

  "You won't be able to prepare and heat your food-"

  "Leave me a couple ... candy bars."

  " That's not enough."

  He scowled at her and, for a moment, managed to put more volume in his voice, forced a steely tone: "You've got to go without me. It's the only way, dammit. It's best for you and Joey ... and it's best for me, too, because I'm ... not going to get out of here ... without the help of a medical evacuation team."

  " All right," she said ." Okay."

  He sagged, exhausted by that short speech. When he spoke again, his voice was not only a whisper but a quavering whisper that sometimes faded out altogether on the ends of words ." When you get down ... to the lake ... you can send help back ...

  for me."

  "Well, it's all moot until I find out whether the storm has let up or not," she said ." I better go have a look."

  As she began to get up, a man's voice called to them from the mouth of the cave, beyond the double battle of the entrance

  passage: "We know you're in there! You can't hide from us! We know! " Spivey's hounds had found them.

  Acting instinctively, not hesitating to consider the danger of her actions, Christine snatched up the loaded revolver and sprinted across the cave toward the Z-shaped passage that led outside.

  "No!" Charlie said.

  She ignored him, came to the first bend in the passage, turned right without checking to see if anyone was there, saw only the close rock walls and a vague spot of gray light at the next turn, beyond which lay the last straight stretch of tunnel and then the open hillside. She rushed forth with reckless abandon because that was probably the last thing Spivey's people would expect of her, but also because she couldn't possibly proceed in any other fashion; she was not entirely in control of herself. The crazy, vicious, stupid bastards had driven her out of her home, and put her on the run, had cornered her here in a hole in the ground, and now they were going to kill her baby.

  The unseen man shouted again: "We know you're in there!"

  She had never before in her life been hysterical, but she was hysterical now, and she knew it, couldn't help it. In fact, she didn't care that she was hysterical because it felt good, damned good, just to let go, to give in to blind rage and a savage desire to spill their blood, to make them feel some pain and fear.

  With the same irrational disregard for danger that she had shown when turning the first blind corner in the passageway, she now turned the second, and ahead of her was the last stretch of the tunnel, then open air, and a figure silhouetted in the gray morning light, a man in a parka with a hood pulled up on his head. He was holding a rifle-no, a machine gun-but he was pointing it more or less at the ground, not directly ahead into the tunnel, because he wasn't expecting her to rush straight out at him and make such an easy target of herself, not in a million

  years, but that was just what she was doing, like a crazy kamikaze, and to hell with the consequences. She took him by surprise, and as he started to raise the muzzle of the machine gun to cover her, she fired once, twice, three times, hitting him every time, because he was so close that it was almost impossible to miss him.

  The first shot jolted him, seemed to lift him off his feet, and the second shot flung him backwards, and the third shot knocked him down. The machine gun flew out of his hands, and for a moment Christine had a hope of getting hold of it, but by the time she stepped out of the cave, that immensely desirable weapon was clattering down the rocky slope.

  She saw that the snow had stopped falling, that the wind was n
o longer blowing, and that there were three people on the slope behind the man she had killed. One of the three, an incredibly big man, off to her left, was already diving for cover, reacting to the shots that had wasted his buddy, though that first body had just hit the ground and bounced and was not yet still. The other two Twilighters weren't as quick as the giant. A short stocky woman stood directly in front of Christine, no more than ten or twelve feet away, a perfect target, and Christine reflexi'Vely pulled off a shot, and that woman went down, too, her face exploding like a punctured balloon full of red water.

  Although Christine had plunged along the passageway and out of the cave in silence, she began to scream now, uncontrollably, shouting invectives at them, yelling so loud that her throat hurt and her voice cracked, then screaming louder still. She was using words she had never used before, and she was shocked by what she heard spewing from her own lips, yet was unable to stop, because her rage had reduced her to inarticulate noises and mindless obscenities.

  And as she screamed her lungs out, even as she saw the stocky woman's face exploding, Christine turned on the third Twilighter, the one to her right, twenty feet away, and she saw at once that it was Grace Spivey.

  "You!" she shouted, her hysteria stoked by the sight of the crone ." You! You crazy old bitch!"

  How could a woman of her age have the stamina to climb these ridges and battle the life-sapping weather of the high Sierras? Did her madness give her strength? Yes, probably. Her madness blocked all doubt, all weariness, just as it had shielded her from pain when she had punctured her hands and feet to fake crucifixion stigmata.

  God help us, Christine thought.

  The hag stood unmoving, unbent, arrogant, defiant, as if daring Christine to pull the trigger, and even from this distance, Christine felt the strange and riveting power of the old woman's eyes. Immune to the hypnotic effect of that mad gaze, she fired a shot, the revolver bucking in her hands. She missed even though the distance was not great, squeezed the trigger again, was surprised when she missed a second time at such close range, tried a third shot but discovered she was out of ammunition.

  Oh, Jesus.

  No more bullets. No other weapons. Jesus. Nothing but her bare hands.

  Okay, I can do it, I can do it, bare hands, all right, I 71 strangle the bitch, 171 tear her goddamned head off.

  Sobbing, cursing, shrieking, carried forward on a crashing wave of terror, she started toward Spivey. But the other Twilighter, the giant, began shooting at her from behind some boulders, where he had taken cover. Shots exploded and then ricocheted off the rocks around her with a piercing whine. She sensed bullets cutting the air near her head. She realized she couldn't help Joey if she was dead, so she stopped, turned back toward the cave.

  Another shot. Sharp chips of stone sprayed up from the point of impact.

  She was stift hysterical, but all that manic energy was suddenly redirected, away from rage and blood just, toward the survival instinct. With the sound of gunfire behind her, she stumbled back to the cave. The giant left his hiding place and came after her. Slugs whacked into the stone beside her, and she expected to take one in the back. Then she was through the entrance to the caves, into the first stretch of the Z-shaped passageway, out of sight of the gunman, and she thought she was safe. But one last shot ricocheted around the corner from the first length of the tunnel and slammed into her right thigh, kicking her off her feet. She went down, landing hard on her shoulder, and saw darkness reach up for her.

  Refusing to succumb to the numbing effect of the shock that followed being hit, gasping for breath, desperately fending off the welling darkness that pooled up behind her eyes, Christine dragged herself along the passageway.

  She didn't think they would come straight in after her. They couldn't know that she possessed only one gun or that she was out of ammunition. They would be wary.

  But they would come. Cautiously. Slowly.

  Not slowly enough.

  They were relentless, like a posse in a Western movie.

  Sweating in spite of the cold air, heaving and pulling her leg along as if it were a hunk of concrete, she hitched herself into the cave, where Charlie and Joey waited in the capering light of the fire.

  " Oh, Christ, you've been shot," Charlie said.

  Joey said nothing. He was standing by the ledge on which the fire was burning, and the pulsing light gave his face a bloody cast. He was sucking on one thumb, watching her with enormous eyes.

  "Not bad," she said, trying not to let them see how scared she was. She pulled herself up against the wall, standing on one leg.

  She put one hand on her thigh, felt sticky blood. She refused to look at it. If it was bleeding heavily, she'd need a tourniquet .

  But there wasn't time for first aid. If she paused to apply a tourniquet, Spivey or the giant might just walk in and blow her brains out.

  She wasn't dizzy yet, and she was no longer in imminent danger of passing out, but she was beginning to feel weak.

  She was still holding the empty, useless gun. She dropped it.

  "Pain?" Charlie asked.

  "No." That much was true; she felt little or no pain at the moment, but she knew it would come soon.

  Outside, the giant was yelling: "Give us the boy! We'll let you live if you'll just give us the boy."

  Christine ignored him ." I got two of the bastards," she told Charlie.

  "How many are left?" he asked.

  "TWo more," she said, giving no additional details, not wanting Joey to know that Grace Spivey was one of the two.

  Chewbacca had gotten io his feet and was growling in the back of his throat. Christine was surprised the dog could stand up, but he was far from recovered; he looked sick and wobbly. He wouldn't be able to do much fighting or protect Joey.

  She spotted the knife from the mess kit, which lay between Joey and Charlie, at the far end of the room. She asked Joey to bring it to her, but he only stared, unmoving, and would not be coaxed into helping.

  "No more ammo?" Charlie asked.

  "None. I I From outside: "Give us the boy!"

  Charlie tried to inch toward the knife, but he was too weak and too tortured by pain to accomplish the task. The effort made him wheeze, and the wheezing developed into a wracking cough, and the cough left him limp with exhaustion-and with bloody saliva on his lips.

  Christine had a frantic sense of time running out like sand pouring from the bottom of a funnel.

  "Give us the Antichrist!"

  Although Christine couldn't move fast, she began to make her way to the other end of the room, following the wall and bracing herself against it, hopping on her uninjured leg. If she could get to the knife, then return to this end of the chamber, she could wait just this side of the passageway, around the corner, and when they came in she might be able to lurch forward and stab one of them.

  She finally reached the supp lies and bent down and picked up the knife-and realized how short the blade was. She turned it over and over in her hand, trying to convince herself that it was just the weapon she needed. But it would have to penetrate a parka and the clothes underneath before doing any damage, and it wasn't long enough. If she had a chance to stab at their faces . . . but they would have guns, and she didn't have much hope of carrying out a successful frontal assault.

  Damn.

  She threw the knife down in disgust.

  "Fire," Charlie said.

  At first she didn't understand.

  He raised one hand to his mouth and wiped at the bloody saliva that he continued to cough up ." Fire. It's ... a good ...

  weapon ."

  Of course. Fire. Better than a knife with a stubby little blade.

  Suddenly she thought of something that, used in conjunction with a burning brand, would be almost as effective as a gun.

  In her wounded leg, a dull pain had begun to throb in time with her rapid pulse, but she gritted her teeth and stooped down beside the pile of supplies. Stooping was not easy, an involved and painful mane
uver, and she dreaded having to stand up again, even though she had the wall against which to support herself .

  She poked through the items she had emptied out of the backpack yesterday, and in a few seconds she turned up the squeezecan of lighter fluid, which they had bought in case they had trouble starting a fire in the fireplace at the cabin. She stashed the can in the right-hand pocket of her pants.

  When she stood, the stone floor rolled under her. She grabbed the edge of the raised hearth and waited until the dizziness passed.

  She turned to the fire, snatched a burning branch from between two larger logs, afraid it would sputter out when she removed it from the blaze, but the branch continued to burn, a bright torch.

  Joey did not move or speak, but he watched with interest. He was depending on her. His life was entirely in her hands now.

  She hadn't heard any shouting from outside in quite some time. That silence wasn't welcome. It might mean Spivey and the giant were on their way inside, already in the Z-shaped passage . . .

  She embarked upon a return trip around the room, past Charlie, toward the passageway through which the Tvilighters might come at any moment, taking the long route because in her condition it was safest. She was agonizingly aware of the precious seconds she was wasting, but she couldn't risk going straight across the room because if she fell she might pass out or extinguish the torch. She held the burning brand in her left hand, using the other to steady herself against the wall, limping instead

  of hopping because limping was faster, daring to use the injured leg a little, though pain shot all through her when she put much weight on her right foot. And although the pain still throbbed in sympathy with her pounding pulse, it was no longer dull; it was a burning-stinging-stabbing-pinching-twisting pain that was getting worse with each punishing beat of her heart.

  She briefly wondered how much blood she was losing, but she told herself it didn't matter. If she wasn't losing a lot, she might be able to take one last stand against the Twilighters. If she was losing too much, if it was pouring from a major vein or spurting from a nicked artery, there was no use checking on it, anyway, because a tourniquet would not save her, not out here, miles from the nearest medical assistance.