The Servants of Twilight

By the time she made her way to the far end of the chamber and stopped next to the mouth of the entrance tunnel, she was light-headed and nauseated. She gagged and tasted vomit at the back of her throat, but she managed to choke it down. The rippling light of the fire, lapping at the walls, imparted an amorphous feeling to the cave, as if the chamber's dimensions and contours were in a constant state of flux, as if the stone were not stone at all but some strange plastic that continuously melted and reformed: the walls receded, now drew closer, too close, now receded again; a convexity of rock suddenly appeared where there had been a concavity; the ceiling bulged downward until it almost touched her head, then snapped back to its former height; the floor churned and rose and then slid down until it seemed it would drop out from under her completely.

In desperation she closed her eyes, squeezed them tight, bit her lip, and breathed deeply until she felt less faint. When she opened her eyes again, the chamber was solid, unchanging. She felt relatively stable, but she knew it was a fragile stability.

She pressed against the wall, into a shallow depression to one side of the passageway. Holding the torch in her left hand, she fumbled in her pocket with her right hand and withdrew the squeeze-can of lighter fluid. Gripping it with three fingers and her palm, she used her thumb and forefinger to screw off the cap, uncovering the rigid plastic nozzle. She was ready. She had a plan. A good plan. It had to be good because it was the only plan she could come up with.

The big man would probably be the first into the cave. He would have a gun, probably the same semi-automatic rifle he had been using outside.

The weapon would be thrust out in front of him, pointed straight ahead, waist-high. That was the problem: dousing him before he could turn the muzzle on her and pull the triger. Which was something he could do in-what?maybe two seconds. Maybe one. The element of surprise was her best and only hope. He might be expecting gunfire, knives but not this.

If she squirted him with lighter fluid the instant he appeared, he might be sufficiently startled to lose a full second of reaction time, might lose another second or so in shock as he smelled the fluid and realized he had been sprayed with something highly flammable. That was all the time she would need to set him afire.

She held her breath, listened.

Nothing.

Even if she didn't get any fuel on the giant's skin, only managed to douse his parka, he would almost certainly drop the rifle in horror and panic, and slap at the fire.

She took a deep breath, held it, listened again.

Still nothing.

If she was able to squirt his face, it wouldn't be panic alone that caused him to drop the gun. He would be rocked by intense pain as his skin blistered and peeled off, and as fire ate into his eyes.

Smoke roiled up from her torch and fanned out along the ceiling, seeking escape from the confining rock.

At the other end of the room, Charlie, Joey, and Chewbacca waited in silence. The weary dog had slumped back on his hindquarters.

Come on, Spivey! Come on, damn you.

Christine did not have unqualified faith in her ability to use the lighter fluid and the torch effectively. She figured, at best, there was only one chance in ten that she could pull it off, but she wanted them to come anyway, right now, so she could get it over with. The waiting was worse than the inevitable confrontation.

Something cracked, snapped, and Christine jumped, but it was only the fire at the other end of the room, a branch crumbling in the flames.

Come on.

She wanted to peek around the corner, into the passageway, and end this suspense. She didn't dare. She'd lose the advantage of surprise.

She thought she could hear the soft ticking of her watch. It must have been imagination, but the sound counted off the seconds, anyway: tick, tick, tick.

If she doused the big man and set him afire without getting herself shot, she would then have to handle Spivey. The old woman was sure to have a gun of her own.

Tick, tick.

If the bag was right behind the giant, maybe the flash of fire and all the screaming would disconcert her. The old woman might be confused enough for Christine to be able to strike again with more lighter fluid.

Tick, tick.

The natural flue sucked away the smoke from the main fire, but the smoke from Christine's torch rose to the ceiling and formed a noxious cloud.

Now the cloud was slowly settling down into the room, fouling the air they had to breathe, hitching a ride on every vagrant current but not moving away fast enough.

The stink wasn't bad yet, but in a few minutes they would start choking.

The caverns were so drafty that there was little chance of suffocation, though an ordeal by smoke would only further weaken them. Yet she couldn't extinguish the torch; it was her only weapon.

Something better happen soon, she thought. Damned soon.

Tick, tick, tick.