The Servants of Twilight

The engine didn't cut out. Thank God. His heart pounding as fast as the sedan's six

people and that I've eliminated him. Or even if they do suspect I'm being framed, they've still got to talk to me. They've still got to put a warrant out for me."

The whole world was after them now. It seemed hopeless.

Like a toxic chemical, despair settled into her bones, leeching her strength. She just wanted to lie down, close her eyes, and sleep for a while.

Charlie said, "Come on. Let's get the shopping done, take everything back to the motel, and then dump the car. I want to hole up inside before some cop spots our license plates or recognizes me."

"Do you think the police know we headed for Santa Barbara after we left Ventura?"

"They can't know for sure. But they've got to figure we were running from L.A., moving north, so Santa Barbara's a good bet."

As they went up and down the remaining aisles, as they checked out and paid for the groceries, Christine found it difficult to breathe. She felt as if a spotlight were trained on them.

She kept waiting for sirens and alarms.

Joey became even more lethargic and solemn than before. He sensed that they were hiding something from him, and maybe it wasn't good to withhold the truth, but she decided it would be worse to tell him that the witch had burned down their house.

That would convince him they were never going back, never going home again, which might be more than he could handle.

It was almost more than she could handle.

Because maybe it was the truth. Maybe they'd never be able to go home again.

Charlie drove the LTD into the motel lot, parked in the slot in front of their unit-and saw movement at the small window in the kitchenette. It might have been his imagination, of course.

Or it might have been the maid. He didn't think it was either.

Instead of switching the engine off, he immediately threw the LTD into reverse and began backing out of the parking space.

Christine said, "What's wrong?"

"Company," he said.

"What? Where?"

In the rear seat, in a voice that was the essence of terror, Joey said,

"The witch."

In front of them, as they backed away from it, the door to their unit began to open.

How the hell did they find us so soon? Charlie wondered.

Not wanting to waste the time required to turn the car around, he kept it in reverse and backed rapidly toward the avenue in front of the motel.

Out in the street, a white van appeared and swung to the curb, blocking the exit from the Wile-Away Lodge.

Charlie saw it in the rearview mirror, jammed on the brakes to avoid hitting it.

He heard gunfire. Two men with automatic weapons had come out of the motel room.

"Get down!"

Christine looked back at Joey." Get on the floor!" she told him.

"You too," Charlie said, tramping on the accelerator again, pulling on the steering wheel, angling away from the van behind them.

She popped her seatbelt and crouched down, keeping her head below the windows.

If a bullet came through the door, she'd be killed anyway.

There wasn't anything Charlie could do about that. Except get the hell out of there.

Chewbacca barked, an ear-rupturing sound in the closed car.

Charlie reversed across the lot, nearly sideswiping a Toyota, clipping one corner of the wrought-iron fence that encircled the swimming pool.

There was no other exit to the street, but he didn't care. He'd make an exit of his own. He drove backwards, over the sidewalk and over the curb. The undercarriage scraped, and Charlie prayed the fuel tank hadn't been torn open, and the LTD slammed to the pavement with a jolt.

The engine didn't cut out. Thank God. His heart pounding as fast as the sedan's six

cylinders, Charlie kept his foot on the accelerator, roaring backwards into State Street, tires screaming and smoking, nearly hitting a VW that was coming up the hill, causing half a dozen other vehicles to brake and wheel frantically out of his path.

The white Ford van pulled away from the motel exit, which it had been blocking, drove into the street again, and tried to ram them. The truck's grille looked like a big grinning mouth, a shark's maw, as it bore down on them. Two men were visible beyond the windshield. The van clipped the right front fender of the LTD, and there was a tortured cry of shredding metal, a shattering of glass as the car's right headlight was pulverized.

The LTD rocked from the blow, and Joey cried out, and the dog bleated, and Charlie almost bit his tongue.

Christine started to rise to see what was happening, and Charlie shouted at her to stay down as he shifted gears and drove forward, east on State, swinging wide around the back of the white van. It tried to ram him in reverse, but he got past it in time.

He expected the crumpled fender to obstruct the tire and eventually bring them to a stop, but it didn't. There were a few clanging-tinkling sounds as broken pieces of the car fell away, but there was no grinding noise of the sort that an impacted tire or an obstructed axle would make.