Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

She told herself it might even be good for him to be left alone with Chewbacca for a while, for it would be a demonstration of her and Charlie's confidence in the safety of their chosen hiding place. He might regain some self-assurance and hope from the experience.

Yet, after she hugged him, kissed him, reassured him, and left him on the green sofa in front of the fireplace, she almost could not find the strength to turn and leave. When she closed the cabin door and watched as Charlie locked it, she was nearly overcome by fear so strong it made her sick to her stomach.

Moving off the porch, descending the snow-covered steps, she felt an aching weakness in her legs that was almost incapacitating. Each step away from the cabin was like a step taken on a planet with five times the gravity of this world.

The weather had deteriorated dramatically since they had come up the mountain from where they had parked the Jeep, and the extreme hostility of the elements gradually began to occupy her thoughts and push her fear toward the back of her mind. The wind was a steady twenty to thirty miles an hour, gusting to at least fifty at times, racing across the mountain with a banshee shriek, shaking the enormous trees. The snowflakes were no longer large and fluffy, but small, hard-driven by the wind, mounting up on the ground at a startling rate. They had not worn ski masks earlier, on the way up to the cabin, but Charlie had insisted they wear them on the way down. And although she initially objected because the mask felt smothering, she was glad she had it, for the temperature had fallen drastically and now must be around zero or lower, even without taking into account the wind-chill factor. With the protection of the mask, icy needles of wind still managed to prick and numb her face; without it, she would surely have suffered frostbite.

When they reached the station wagon, daylight was fading as if the world was in a pot onto which a giant lid was being lowered. Snow was already drifted around the Jeep's tires, and the lock was half frozen and stubborn when Charlie tried the key in it.

They stuffed their backpacks full of cans and boxes of food, canned matches, ammunition for the guns, and other things.

Charlie strung the three tightly rolled sleeping bags on a length of clothesline and tied one end of the line around his waist so he could drag the bags behind him; they were lightweight, made of a cold-resistant vinyl that would slide well on the snow, and he said he was sure they wouldn't give him much trouble. She carried the rifle, which was equipped with a shoulder strap, and Charlie carried the shotgun. Neither of them could handle a single additional item without buckling under the load, yet there was still more in the station wagon.

"We'll come back for it," Charlie said, shouting to be heard above the roaring wind.

"It's almost dark," she protested, having realized how easily you could become lost at night, in a blinding snowstorm.

" Tomorrow," he said." We'll come back tomorrow."

She nodded, and he locked the Jeep, although the foul weather was surely a sufficient deterrent to thieves. No self-respecting criminal, in the habit of living an easy life off the labors of others, would be out on a night like this.

They headed back toward the cabin, moving with considerably less speed than they had on the way down, slowed by the weight of what they carried, by the wind that hammered at them, and by the fact that they were now climbing instead of descending.

Walking in snowshoes had been surprisingly easy-until now.

As they made their way up the first meadow, the muscles in Christine's thighs began to pull, then those in her calves, and she knew that she would be stiff and sore in the morning.

The wind whipped up the snow that was already on the ground, dressed itself in crystalline cloaks and robes that flapped and swirled, formed whirling funnels that danced through the twilight. In the swiftly dying light, the snow devils seemed like spirits, cold ghosts roaming the lonely reaches of the top of the world.

The hills felt steeper than when she and Charlie had first made this trip with Joey and the dog. Her snowshoes were certainly twice as large as they had been then. and ten times heavier.

Darkness fell when they were in the woods, before they even reached the upper meadow. They were in no danger of getting lost because the snow-covered ground had a vague natural luminosity, and the clear swath of the road provided an unmistakable route through the otherwise densely packed trees.

However, by the time they reached the upper meadow, the storm's fury eliminated the advantage of the snow's slight phosphorescence. New snow was falling so heavily, and the wind was kicking up such thick clouds of old snow that, had there not been lights on at the cabin, they would without doubt have become disoriented and would have been in serious risk of wandering aimlessly, back and forth, around in circles, until they collapsed and died, less than four hundred yards from safety.

The dim, diffuse, amber glow at the cabin windows was a welcome beacon.

On those occasions when the gale-driven snow temporarily blocked that beacon, Christine had to resist panic, stop and wait until she glimpsed her target again, for when she kept on without being able to see the lights, she always headed off in the wrong direction within a few steps.

Although she stayed close to Charlie, she frequently could not see him, either; visibility sometimes declined to no more than two or three feet.

The aching in her leg muscles grew worse, and the throbbing in her shoulders and back became unbearable, and the night's chill somehow found its way through all her layers of clothes, but though she cursed the storm she also welcomed it. For the first time in days, she was beginning to feel safe. This wasn't just a storm; it was a damned blizzard! They were shut off from the world now. Isolated. By morning they would be snowbound.

The storm was the best security they could have. At least for the next day or so, Grace Spivey would not be able to reach them even if, by some miracle, she learned their whereabouts.

When they finally reached the cabin, they found Joey in a better mood than when they'd left. There was color in his face again. He was energetic and talkative for the first time in a couple of days. He even smiled. The change in him was startling and, for a moment, mysterious, but then it became clear that he took the same comfort from the storm as Christine did. He said, "We'll be okay now, huh, Mom? A witch can't fly a broom in a blizzard, can she, huh?"

"Nope," Christine assured him as she took off the backpack she'd been carrying." All the witches are grounded tonight."

" FWA rules," Charlie said.

Joey looked at him quizzically." What's FWA?"

"Federal Witch Administration," Charlie said, pulling off his boots."

That's the government agency that licenses witches."

"You gotta have a license to be a witch?" the boy asked.

Charlie feigned surprise." Oh, sure, whatd you think-just anybody can be a witch? First, when a girl wants to be a witch, she's got to prove she has a mean streak in her. For instance, your mom would never qualify. Then a would-be witch has got to be ugly because witches are always ugly, and if a pretty lady like your mom wants to be a witch she's got to go have plastic surgery to make herself ugly."

" Wow," Joey said softly, wide-eyed." Really?"

"But that's not the worst of it," Charlie said." The hardest thing if you want to be a witch is finding those tall, pointy black hats."

" It is?"

"Well, just think about it once. You've gone shopping with your mom when she was buying clothes. You ever see any of those tall, pointy black hats in any stores you were ever in?"

The boy frowned, thinking about it.