The Servants of Twilight

Distracted by the problem of the smoke and by the imaginary but nonetheless maddening sound of time slipping away, Christine almost didn't react to the important sound when it came. A single click, a scraping noise. It passed before Christine realized it had to be Spivey or the big man.

She waited, tense, torch raised high, the can of lighter fluid extended in front of her, fingers poised to depress and pump the sides of the container.

More scraping noises.

A soft metallic sound.

Christine leaned forward from the shallow depression in which she had taken refuge, praying her bad leg would hold up-and abruptly realized the noises hadn't come from the Z-shaped passageway but from the chamber that adjoined this one, from deeper'in the hillside.

She glimpsed a hooded flashlight in the next cave, the beam spearing past a stalactite. Then it winked out.

No. This wasn't possible!

She saw movement at the brink of darkness where the other cavern joined this one. An incredibly tall, broad-shouldered, hideously ugly man stepped from the gloom, into the edge of the wavering firelight, twelve or fourteen feet from Christine.

Too late, she understood that Spivey was coming at them through the network of caverns rather than through the more easily defended entrance tunnel. But how? How could they know which caves led toward this one?

Did they have maps of the caves? Or did they trust to luck? How could they be that lucky?

It was crazy.

It wasn't fair.

Christine lurched forward, one step, two, out of the shadows in which she had been hiding.

The giant saw her. He brought up his rifle.

She squirted the lighter fluid at him.

He was too far away. The flammable liquid arced out seven or eight feet, but then curved down and spattered onto the stone floor, two or three feet short of him.

It must have been instantly clear to him that she wouldn't be attacking with such a crude weapon unless she had no more ammunition for the gun.

"Drop it," he said coldly.

Her great plan suddenly seemed pathetic, foolish.

Joey. He was depending on her. She was his last defense. She tottered one step closer.

"Drop it! " Before he could shoot, her bad leg gave out. She collapsed.

With despair and anguish hanging heavily on the single word, Charlie said, "Christine!"

The can of lighter fluid spun across the floor, away from her and Charlie and Joey, coming to rest in an inaccessible corner.

She landed on her wounded thigh and screamed as a hand grenade of pain went off in her leg.

Even as she was collapsing, the torch fell from her hand and landed on the trail of fluid that she had squirted at the huge, ugly man. A line of fire whooshed up, briefly filling the cave with dazzling light, then fluttered and went out, causing no harm to anyone.

Snarling, teeth bared, Chewbacca charged the big man, but the dog was too weak to be effective. He got jawsful of parka, but the giant raised the semiautomatic rifle in both hands and brought it down butt-first into the dog's skull. Chewbacca emitted a short, sharp yelp and slumped at the giant's feet, either unconscious or dead.

Christine clung to consciousness, though tides of blackness lapped at her.

Grinning like a creature out of an old Frankenstein movie, the big man advanced into the room.

Christine saw Joey backing into the corner at the far end of the cave.

She had failed him.

No! There must be something she could do, Jesus, some decisive action she could still take, something that would dramatically turn the tables, something that would save them. There must be something. But she couldn't think of anything.

71

The huge man stepped farther into the cave. It was the monster Charlie had met at Spivey's rectory, the giant with the twisted face. The one the hag had called Kyle.

As he watched Kyle swagger into the chamber, and as he watched Christine cower from the grotesque intruder, Charlie was filled with equal measures of fear and self-loathing. He was afraid because he knew he was going to die in this dank and

lonely hole, and he loathed himself for his weakness and incompetence and ineffectual performance. His parents had been weak and ineffectual, had retreated into a haze of alcohol to console themselves for their inability to cope with life, and from the time he was very young Charlie had promised himself that he would never be like them. He had spent a lifetime learning to be strong, always strong. He never backed away from a challenge, largely because his parents had always backed away.

And he seldom lost a battle. He hated losing, his parents were losers, not him, not Charlie Harrison of Klemet-Harrison. Losers were weak in body and mind and spirit, and weakness was the greatest sin.