Winter Moon

aimed at the ceiling.

"The storm's a lot worse than they predicted." Getting behind the

wheel, slamming his door, he said, "It'll be all right. We might push

a little snow here and there with the bumper, but I don't think it's

deep enough yet to be a big problem."

"I wish we'd had that plow attached first thing." Jack jammed the key

in the ignition, twisted the switch, but was rewarded only with

silence, not even the grinding of the starter. He tried again.

Nothing. He checked to be sure the Explorer wasn't in gear. Tried a

third time without success. Heather was no more surprised than she had

been when the phone proved to be dead. Although Jack said nothing and

was reluctant to meet her eyes, she knew he had expected it too, which

was why he had also brought the keys to the Cherokee.

While Heather, Toby, and Falstaff got out of the Explorer, Jack slipped

behind the wheel of the other vehicle. That engine wouldn't turn over,

either. He raised the hood on the Jeep, then the hood on the

Explorer.

He couldn't find any problems. They went back into the house.

Heather locked the connecting door to the garage. She doubted that

locks were of any use in keeping out the thing that now held dominion

over Quartermass Ranch. For all they knew, it could walk through walls

if it wished, but she engaged the dead bolt, anyway.

Jack looked grim. "Let's prepare for the worst."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

Shatters of snow ticked and pinged against the windows in the

ground-floor study. Though the outer world was whitewashed and full of

glare, little daylight filtered into the room. Lamps with parchment

shades cast an amber glow.

Reviewing their own guns and those that Eduardo had inherited from

Stanley Quartermass, Jack chose to load only one other weapon: a Colt

.45 revolver.

"I'll carry the Mossberg and the Colt," he told Heather. "You'll have

the Micro Uzi and the thirty-eight. Use the revolver only as backup to

the Uzi."

"That's it?" she asked. He regarded her bleakly. "If we can't stop

whatever's coming at us with this much firepower, a third gun isn't

going to do either of us a damned bit of good."

In one of the two drawers in the base of the gun cabinet, among other

sporting paraphernalia, he found three game-hunting holsters that

belted around the waist. One was crafted from nylon or rayon--some

man-made fabric, anyway--and the other two were leather. Exposed to

below-zero temperatures for an extended period, nylon would remain

flexible long after the leather holster would stiffen, a handgun might

snag or bind up slightly if the leather contracted around it.

Because he intended to be outdoors while Heather remained inside, he

gave her the most supple of the two leather rigs and kept the nylon for

himself. Their ski suits were replete with zippered pockets. They

filled many of them with spare ammunition, though it might be

optimistic to expect to have a chance to reload after the assault

began. That an assault would occur, Jack had no doubt.

He didn't know what form it would take--an entirely physical attack or

a combination of physical and mental blows. He didn't know whether the

damn thing would come itself or through surrogates, neither when nor

from what direction it would launch its onslaught, but he knew it would

come It was impatient with their resistance, eager to control and

become them. Little imagination was required to see that it would next

want to study them at much closer range, perhaps dissect them and

examine their brains and nervous systems to learn the secret of their

ability to resist. He had no illusions that they would be killed or

anesthetized before being subjected to that exploratory surgery.

Jack put his shotgun on the kitchen table again. From one of the

cupboards he removed a round galvanized-tin can, unscrewed the lid, and

extracted a box of wooden matches, which he put on the table. While

Heather stood watch at one window, Toby and Falstaff at the other, Jack

went down to the basement. In the second of the two lower rooms, along

the wall beside the silent generator, stood eight five-gallon cans of

gasoline, a fuel supply they had laid in at Paul Youngblood's

suggestion. He carried two cans upstairs and set them on the kitchen

floor beside the table.

"If the guns can't stop it," he said, "if it gets inside, and you're

backed into a corner, then the risk of fire might be worth taking."

"Burn down the house?"

Heather asked disbelievingly. "It's only a house. It can be

rebuilt.

If you have no other choice, then to hell with the house. If bullets

don't work--" He saw stark terror in her eyes. "They will work, I'm

sure of that, the guns will stop it, especially that Uzi. But if by

some chance, some one-in-a-million chance, that doesn't stop it, fire

will get it for sure. Or at least drive it back. Fire could be just

what you need to give you time to distract the thing, hold it off, and

get out before you're trapped."

She stared at him dubiously. "Jack, why do you keep saying 'you'

instead of 'we'?" He hesitated. She wasn't going to like this. He