The Servants of Twilight

The trees protected her from most of the wind, but she knew it was blowing furiously, for it made a wild and ghoulish sound as it raged through the highest branches. In those places where the forest parted to reveal patches of leaden sky, the snow came down so thick and fast that it almost seemed like rain.

She had gone no more than eighty yards, around two bends in the trail, when she saw Charlie. He was lying face-down in the middle of the path, head turned to one side.

No.

She stopped a few feet from him. She dreaded going closer because she knew what she would find.

He was motionless.

Dead.

Oh, Jesus, he was dead. They had killed him. She had loved him, and he had loved her, and now he had died for her, and she was sick with the thought of it. The somber, sullen colors of the day seeped into her, and she was filled with a cold grayness, a numbing despair.

But grief had to allow room for fear, as well, because now she and Joey

were on their own, and without Charlie she didn't think they would make it out of the mountains. At least not alive.

His death was an omen of their own fate.

She studied the woods around her, decided that she was alone with the body. Evidently, Charlie had been hurt up on the ridge top and had managed to come this far under his own steam.

Spivey's fanatics were apparently still on the other side of the ridge.

Or maybe he had killed them all.

Slipping the shotgun strap over her shoulder, she went to him, reluctant to examine him more closely, not certain she had the strength to look upon his cold dead face. She knelt beside himand realized that he was breathing.

Her own breath caught in her throat, and her heart seemed to miss a beat or two.

He was alive.

Unconscious but alive.

Miracles did happen.

She wanted to laugh but repressed the urge, superstitiously afraid that the gods would be displeased by her joy and would take Charlie from her, after all. She touched him. He murmured but didn't come around. She turned him onto his back, and he grumbled at her without opening his eyes. She saw the torn shoulder of his jacket and realized he had been shot. Around the wound, lumps of dark and frozen blood adhered to the shredded fabric. It was bad, but at least he wasn't dead.

"Charlie?"

When he didn't reply, she touched his face and spoke his name again, and finally his eyes opened. For a moment they were out of focus, but then he fixed on her and blinked, and she saw that he was aware, sluggish and perhaps fuzzy-headed but not delirious.

"Lost it," he said.

"What? "

"The rifle."

"Don't worry about it," she said.

"Killed three of them," he said thickly.

"Good."

"Where are they?" he asked worriedly.

"I don't know."

"Must be near."

"I don't think so."

He tried to sit up.

Apparently, a dark current of pain crackled through him, for he winced and held his breath, and for a moment she thought he was going to pass out again.

He was too pale, corpse-white.

He squeezed her hand until the pain subsided a bit.

He said, "Still others coming," and this time he managed to sit up when he tried.

"Can you move?"

"Weak. "

"We've got to get out of here."

"Was… crawling.

"Can you walk?"

"Not by myself."

"If you lean on me?" "Maybe."

She helped him to his feet, gave him support, and encouraged him to descend the path. They made slow, halting progress at first, then went a bit faster, and a couple of times they slipped and almost fell, but eventually they reached the overhang.

Joey didn't react to their arrival. But as Christine helped Charlie ease to the ground, Chewbacca came over, wagging his tail, and licked Charlie's face.

The rock walls had absorbed a lot of heat from the fire, which was now little more than embers, and warmth radiated from the stone on all sides.

"Nice," Charlie said.

His voice was too dreamy to suit Christine.

"Light-headed?" she asked.

"A little."

"Dizzy?"

"Was. Not now."

"Blurred vision?"

"Nothing like that."

She said, "I want to see that wound," and she began taking off his jacket.

"No time," he said, putting a hand on hers, stopping her from tending to him.

"I'll be quick about it."

"No time!" he insisted.

"Listen," she said, "right now, with all the pain you're in, you can't move fast."

"A damned turtle."

"And you're losing your strength."

"Feel like. a little kid."

"But we have a pretty extensive first-aid kit, so maybe we can patch you up and alleviate some of the pain. Then maybe you can get on your feet and get moving faster. If so, we'll be damned glad we took the time."

He thought about it, nodded." Okay. But… keep your ears open. They might not be… far away."

She removed his quilted jacket, unbuttoned his shirt, slipped it off his injured shoulder, then unsnapped and pulled back the top of his insulated underwear, which was sticky with blood and sweat. There was an ugly hole in him, high in the left side of his chest, just below the shoulder bones. The sight of it gave her the feeling that live snakes were writhing in her stomach.