Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

By the time they left the restaurant, carrying two hamburgers for Chewbacca, night had settled in completely, and the rain had let up. A light drizzle was falling, and the humid air was oppressively heavy, but it no longer seemed as if they should start building an ark. The dog smelled the burgers, sensed they were for him, and insisted on being fed before they got back to the garage. He gobbled both sandwiches right there in front of the restaurant, and Christine said, "You know, he even has Brandy's manners."

"You always said Brandy had no manners," Joey reminded her.

"That's what I mean."

Now that the storm seemed to be subsiding, the sidewalks along Westwood Boulevard were filling up with students from UCLA on their way to dinner or a movie, window-shoppers, and theatergoers killing some time before heading to the Playhouse. Californians have little or no tolerance for rain, and after a storm like this one, they always burst forth, eager to be out and around, in an almost festive mood. Charlie was sorry it was time to leave; the Village seemed like an oasis of sanity in a deranged world, and he was thankful for the respite it had provided.

The parking garage had been almost full when they'd arrived this afternoon, and they'd had to leave the car on the lowest level. Now, as they took the elevator down to the bottom of the structure, they were all in a better state of mind than they would have thought possible only a few hours ago. There was nothing like good food, a couple of drinks, and several hours of walking freely on public streets without being shot at to convince you that God was in His heaven and that all was right with the world.

But it was a short-lived feeling. It ended when the elevator doors opened.

The lights immediately beyond the doors were all burned out.

There were lights glowing some distance to the left and others to the right, revealing rows of cars and drab concrete walls and massive roof-supporting pillars, but directly in front of the elevator, there was darkness.

How likely was it that three or four lights would be out all at the same time?

That unsettling question flashed into Charlie's mind the moment the doors slid open, and before he could react, Chewbacca began to bark at the shadows beyond the doors. The dog was shockingly ferocious, as if possessed by a sudden black rage, yet he didn't rush out of the elevator to pursue the object of his anger, and that was a sure sign that something very bad was waiting out there for them.

Charlie reached toward the elevator's control board.

Something whizzed into the cab and slammed into the back wall, two inches from Christine's head. A bullet. It tore a hole through the metal panel. The sound of the shot was almost like an afterthought.

"Down!" Charlie shouted, and hit the CLOSE DOOR button, and another shot slammed into the doors as they started to roll shut, and he punched the button for the top floor, and Chewbacca was still barking, and Christine was screaming, and then the doors were completely shut, and the cage was on its way up, and Charlie thought he heard a last futile shot as they rose out of the concrete depths.

The killers hadn't planned on the dog reacting so quickly and noisily.

They had expected Christine and Joey to come out of the elevator, and they hadn't been prepared to hit their quarry within the cab itself.

Otherwise, the shots would have been more carefully placed, and Joey or his mother-or both-would already be dead.

With any luck, the only gunmen were those on the lowest level of the garage. But if they had planned for this contingency, for the possibility that their prey would be forewarned and would not get out of the elevator, then they might have stationed others on the upper floor.

The cab might stop rising at any level, and the doors might open, and another hit squad might be waiting there.

But how did they find us? Charlie asked himself desperately as Christine picked herself up from the floor. In Christ's name, how?

He was still packing his own gun, which he'd taken to the Church of the Twilight this morning, and he drew it, aimed at the doors in front of them.

The cab didn't stop until it reached the top floor of the garage. The doors opened. Yellowish lights. Gray concrete walls.

Gleaming cars parked in narrow spaces. But no men with guns.

"Come on!" Charlie said.

They ran because they knew the men on the bottom floor of the garage must be coming up quickly behind them.

They ran to Hilgarde Avenue, then beyond it, away from UCLA and the commercial area of Westwood, into an expensive and quiet residential neighborhood. Charlie welcomed each convocation of shadows, but dreaded the pools of light surrounding every streetlamp, because here they were the only people on the sidewalks and easily spotted. They turned several times, seeking concealment in the upper-class warren of lushly landscaped streets. Gradually he began to think they had lost their pursuers, though he knew he wouldn't feel entirely safe for a long time to come.

Although the rain had subsided to little more than a light mist, and although they were all wearing raincoats, they were wet and cold again by the time Charlie began looking for transportation.

Automobiles were parked along the street, and he moved down the block, under the dripping coral trees and palms, stealthily trying doors, hoping no one was watching from any of the houses. The first three cars were locked up tight, but the driver's door on the fourth, a two-year-old yellow Cadillac, opened when he tried it.

He motioned Christine and Joey into the car." Hurry."

She said, "Are the keys in it?"

"No."

"Are you stealing it or what?"

"Yes. Get in."

"I don't want you breaking the law and winding up in prison because of me and-"

"Get in! " he said urgently.

The velour-covered bench seat in front accommodated the three of them, so Christine put Joey in the middle, apparently afraid to let him get even as far away as the rear seat. The dog got in back, shaking the rain off his coat and spraying everyone in the process.

The glove compartment contained a small, detachable flashlight that came with the car and that was kept, except when needed, in a specially designed niche where its batteries were constantly recharged. Charlie used it to look under the dashboard, below the steering wheel, where he located the ignition wires. He hot-wired the Cadillac, and the engine turned over without hesitation.

No more than two minutes after he had opened the car door, they pulled away from the curb. For the first block, he drove without headlights.

Then, confident they had gotten away unnoticed, he snapped on the lights and headed up toward Sunset Boulevard.

Christine said, "What if the cops stop us?"

"They won't. The owner probably won't report it stolen until morning.

And even if he discovers it's gone ten minutes from now, it won't make the police hot sheets for a while."

" But they might stop us for speeding-"

"I don't intend to speed."

— or some other traffic violation-"

"What do you think I am-a stunt driver?"

"Are you?" Joey asked.

"Oh, sure, better than Evel Knievel," Charlie said.

"Who?" the boy asked.

"God, I'm getting old," Charlie said.

"Are we gonna get in a car chase like on TV?" Joey asked.

"I hope not," Charlie said.

" Oh, I'd like that," the boy said.

Charlie checked the rearview mirror. There were two cars behind him. He couldn't tell what make they were or anything about them. They were just pairs of headlights in the darkness.

Christine said, "But sooner or later, the car will end up on the hot sheets-"

"We'll have parked it somewhere and taken another car by then," Charlie said.