Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

More than a foot of new snow had fallen during the night.

The drifts that sloped against the cabin were considerably higher than they had been yesterday, and a couple of first-floor windows were drifted over. The boughs of the evergreens dropped lower under the weight of the new snow, and the world was so silent it seemed like a vast graveyard.

The day was cold, gray, bleak. At the moment no wind blew.

He had fashioned a target out of a square of cardboard and two lengths of twine. He tied the target around the trunk of a Douglas Fir that stood a few yards downhill from the windmill, then backed off twenty-five yards and stretched out on his belly in the snow. Using one of the rolled-up sleeping bags as a makeshift bench rest, he aimed for the center of the target and fired three rounds, pausing between each to make sure the cross hairs were still lined up on the bull's-eye.

The Winchester Model 100 was fitted with a 3-power telescope sight which brought the target right up to him. He was firing 180 grain soft-point bullets, and he saw each of them hit home.

The shots cracked the morning stillness all across the mountain and echoed back from distant valleys.

He got up, went to the target, and measured the point of average impact, which was the center point of the three hits. Then he measured the distance from the point of impact to the point of aim (which was the bull's-eye where he had lined up the cross hairs), and that figure told him how much adjustment the scope required.

The rifle was pulling low and to the right. He corrected the elevation dial first, then the windage dial, then sprawled in the snow again and fired another group of three. This time he was gratified to see that every shot found the center of the target.

Because a bullet does not travel in a straight line but in a curving trajectory, it twice crosses the line of sight-once as it is rising and once as it is falling. With the rifle and ammunition he was using, Charlie could figure that any round he fired would first cross the line of sight at about twenty-five yards, then rise until it was about two and a half inches high of the mark at one hundred yards, then fall and cross the line of sight a second time at about two hundred yards.

Therefore, the Winchester was now sighted-in for two hundred yards.

He didn't want to have to kill anyone.

He hoped killing wouldn't be necessary.

But now he was ready.

Christine and Charlie put on their snowshoes and backpacks and went down the mountain to the lower meadow to finish unloading the Jeep.

Charlie was carrying the rifle, slung over one shoulder.

She said, "You're not expecting trouble?"

"No. But what's the use of having the gun if I don't always keep it close by?"

She felt better about leaving Joey alone this morning than she had last night, but she still wasn't happy about it. His high spirits had been short-lived. He was withdrawing again, retreating into his own inner world, and this change was even more frightening than it had been the last time it happened because, after his recovery yesterday evening, she had thought he was permanently back with them. If he withdrew into silence and despair again, perhaps he would slip even deeper than before, and perhaps this time he would not come out again. It was possible for a once perfectly normal, outgoing child to become autistic, cutting off most or all interaction with the real world. She'd read about such cases, but she'd never worried about it as much as she worried about diseases and accidents because Joey had always been such an open, joyous, communicative child. Autism had been something that could happen to other people's children, never to her extroverted little boy. But now. This morning he spoke little.

He didn't smile at all. She wanted to stay with him every minute, hug him a lot, but she remembered that being left alone for a while last evening had convinced him that the witch must not be near, after all.

Being left to his own resources this morning might have that same salutary effect again.

Christine didn't glance back as she and Charlie headed downhill, away from the cabin. If Joey was watching from a window, he might interpret a look back as an indication that she was afraid for him, and her own fear would then feed his.

Her breath took frosty form and wreathed her head. The air was bitterly cold, but because there was no wind, they didn't need to wear ski masks.

As first she and Charlie didn't speak, just walked, finding their way through the new soft snow, sinking in now and then in spite of the showshoes, searching for a firmer crust, squinting because the glare of the snow was fatiguing to the eyes even under a sunless sky like this one. However, as they reached the woods at the base of the meadow, Charlie said, "Uh. about last night-"

"Me first," she said quickly, speaking softly because the air was so still that a whisper carried as well as a shout." I've been sort of.

well, a little embarrassed all morning."

"About what happened last night?"

"Yes."

"You're sorry it happened?"

"No, no."

"Good. Because I'm sure not sorry."

She said, "I just want you to know… that the way I was last night…

so eager… so aggressive… so.

"Passionate?"

"It was more than passion, wouldn't you say?"

"I'd say."

"My God, I was like… an animal or something. I couldn't get enough of you."

"It was great for my ego," he said, grinning.

"I didn't know your ego was deflated."

"Wasn't. But I never thought of myself as God's gift to women, either

" "But after last night you do, huh?"

"Absolutely."

TWenty yards into the woods, they stopped and looked at each other and kissed gently.

She said, "I just want you to understand that I've never been like that before."

He feigned surprise and disappointment." You mean you're not sex crazy?"

"Only with you."

"That's because I'm God's gift to women, I guess."

She didn't smile." Charlie, this is important to me-that you understand. Last night. I don't know what got into me."

" I got into you."

"Be serious. Please. I don't want you to think I've been like that with other men. I haven't. Not ever. I did things with you last night that I've never done before. I didn't even know I could do them. I was really like a wild animal. I mean. I'm no prude but-"

"Listen," he said, "if you were an animal last night, then I was a beast. It's not like me to completely surrender control of myself like that, and it certainly isn't like me to be that.

well, demanding. rough. But I'm not embarrassed by the way I was, and you shouldn't be, either. We've got something special, something unique, and that's why we both felt able to let go the way we did. At times it was maybe crude-but it was also pretty terrific, wasn't it?"

"God, yes."

They kissed again, but it was a brief kiss interrupted by a distant growling-buzzing.

Charlie cocked his head, listening.

The sound grew louder.

"Plane?" she said, looking up at the narrow band of sky above the tree-flanked lane.

"Snowmobiles," Charlie said." There was a time when the mountains were always quiet, serene. Not any more. Those damned snowmobiles are everywhere, like fleas on a cat."

The roar of engines grew louder.

"They wouldn't come up this far?" she asked worriedly.

G'Might."

"Sounds like they're almost on top of us."

"Probably still pretty far off. Sound is deceptive up here; it carries a long way."

" But if we do run into some snowmobilers — "

"We'll say we're renting the cabin. My name's. Bob. mmm. Henderson. You're Jane Henderson. We live in Seattle. Up here to do some cross-country skiing and just get away from it all. Got it?"

"Got it," she said.