The Servants of Twilight

He heard more gunfire. Bullets thudded into the car, but none of them entered the passenger compartment. Then the LTD was moving fast, pulling out of range.

Charlie was grinding his teeth so hard that his jaws hurt, but he couldn't stop.

Ahead, at the corner, on the cross-street, another white Ford van appeared on their right, swiftly moving out from the shadows beneath a huge oak.

Jesus, they're everywhere!

The new van streaked toward the intersection, intent on blocking Charlie. To stay out of its way, he pulled recklessly into oncoming traffic. A Mustang swung wide of the LTD, and behind the Mustang a red Jaguar jumped the curb and bounced into the parking lot of a Burger King to avoid a collision.

The LTD had reached the intersection. The car was responding too sluggishly, though Charlie pressed the accelerator all the way to the floor.

From the right, the second van was still coming. It couldn't block him now; it was too late for that, so it was going to try to ram him instead.

Charlie was still in the wrong lane. The driver of an oncoming Pontiac braked too suddenly, and his car went into a slide. It turned sideways, came straight at them, a juggernaut.

Charlie eased up on the accelerator but didn't hit the brakes because he would lose his flexibility if he stopped completely and would only be delaying the moment of impact.

In a fraction of a second, he considered all his options. He couldn't swing left into the cross-street because it was crowded with traffic. He couldn't go right because the car was bearing down on him from that direction. He couldn't throw the van into reverse because there was lots of traffic behind him, and, besides, there was no time to shift gears and back up. He could only go forward as the Pontiac slid toward him, go forward and try to dodge the hurtling mass of steel that suddenly loomed as large as a mountain.

A strip of rubber peeled off one of the Pontiac's smoking tires, spun into the air, like a flying snake.

In another fraction of a second, the situation changed: The Pontiac was no longer coming at him broadside, but was continuing to turn, turn, turn, until it had swiveled one hundred and eighty degrees from its original position. Now its back end pointed at the LTD, and, though it was still sliding, it was a smaller target than it had been. Charlie wrenched the steering wheel to the right, then left again, arcing around the careening Pontiac, which shrieked past with no more than an inch to spare.

The van rammed them. Fortunately, it caught only the last couple inches of the LTD. The bumper was torn off with a horrendous sound, and the whole car shuddered and was puslied sideways a couple of feet. The steering wheel abruptly had a mind of its own; it tore itself out of Charlie's grasp, spun through his clutching hands, burning his palms, and he cried out in pain but got hold of it again. Cursing, blinking back the tears of pain that briefly blurred his vision, he got the car pointed eastward again, stood on the accelerator, and kept going. When they were

through the intersection, he swung back into his own lane. He hammered the horn, encouraging the cars in front of him to get out of his way.

The second white van-the one that had ripped away their bumper-had gotten out of the mess at the intersection and had followed them. At first it was two cars back of them, then one; then it was right behind the LTD.

With the subsidence of gunfire, both Christine and Joey sat up again.

The boy looked out the rear window at the van and said, "It's the witch!

I can see her! I can see her!"

"Sit down and put your seatbelt on," Charlie told him." We might be making some sudden stops and turns."

The van was thirty feet back but closing.

Twenty feet.

Chewbacca was barking again.

Belted in, Joey held the dog close and quieted it.

Traffic in front of them was closing up, slowing down.

Charlie checked the rearview mirror.

The van was only fifteen feet back of them.

Ten feet.

"They're going to ram us while we're moving," Christine said.

Barely touching the brakes, Charlie whipped the car to the right, into a narrow cross-street, leaving the heavy traffic and commercial development of State Street behind. They were in an older residential neighborhood: mostly bungalows, a few two story houses, lots of mature trees, cars parked on one side.

The van followed, but it dropped back a bit because it couldn't make the turn as quickly as the LTD. It wasn't as maneuverable as the car.

That's what Charlie was counting on.

At the next corner he turned left, cutting his speed as little as possible, almost standing the LTD on two wheels, almost losing control in a wild slide, but somehow holding on, nearly clipping a car parked too close to the intersection. A block later he turned right, then left, then right, then right again, weaving through the narrow streets, putting distance between them and the van.