Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

In spite of the sub-zero air, he was perspiring. Inside his ski suit, sweat trickled down from his armpits.

Could you call this self-defense? None of them had a gun on him at the moment. He wasn't in imminent danger of his life.

Of course, if he didn't eliminate a few of them before they got closer, they would overwhelm him. Yet he hesitated. He had never before done anything this. cold blooded. A small inner voice told him that, if he resorted to an ambush of this sort, he would be no better than the monsters against which he found himself pitted. But if he didn't resort to it, he would eventually die-as would Christine and Joey.

The cross hairs were on Spivey's forehead.

Charlie squeezed the trigger but didn't take up all the pull in one tug because the initial pressure would throw the rifle off target just a little, so he kept the trigger mostly depressed, on the wire-edge of firing, until he brought the cross hairs back onto target, and then, almost as an after-thought but with a clean quick squeeze, he took up the last few ounces of pull. The rifle fired, and he flinched but not in anticipation of the blast, only in delayed reaction to it, by which time it was too late for the bullet to be deflected, for it was already out of the barrel. An anticipatory flinch was what you had to avoid, and the two-stage pull always fooled the subconscious a little, just enough that the muzzle blast was a slight surprise.

There was another surprise, a bad one, when he thought he saw Spivey lean forward in the snowmobile, reaching for something, lowering her profile, just as he let off the shot. Now, lining up the scope again, he couldn't see her, which meant either that he had hit her and that she had collapsed below the windscreen of the snowmobile-or that she had, indeed, bent down at the penultimate moment, saved by fate, and was now crouching out of the line of fire.

He immediately brought the rifle around on one of the others.

A man standing by the Jeep. Just turning this way in reaction to the shot. Not gifted with split-second reactions, confused, not fully aware of the danger.

Charlie fired. This time he was rewarded by the sight of his target pitching back, sprawling in the snow, dead or mortally wounded.

Moving at the edge of the woods, Christine had reached the bend in the open land and, out of sight of those below, had moved out onto the easier ground, when she heard a shot and then, a second or two later, another. She wanted to go back to Charlie, wanted to be there helping him, knew she couldn't do a damn thing for him. She didn't even have time to look back. Instead she doubled her efforts, huffing out a fog of breath, trying to walk lightly on the snow, breaking through the crust because of her haste, searching frantically for wind-scoured stretches of ground where she could make better time.

But what if something happened to Charlie? What if he was never able to rejoin her and Joey?

She wasn't an outdoors type. She wouldn't know how to survive in these wintry wastes. If they had to leave the cabin without Charlie, they'd get lost in the wilderness, either starve or freeze to death.

Then, as if nature was intent on honing Christine's fear to a razor's edge, as if in mocking glee, snow flurries began to fall again.

When the first man was hit and went down, most of the others dived for cover alongside the Jeep wagon, but two men started toward the snowmobiles, making perfect targets of themselves, and Charlie lined up on one of them. This shot, too, was well placed, taking the man high in the chest, pitching him completely over one of the snowmobiles, and when he went down in a drift he stayed there, unmoving.

The other- nan dropped, making a hard target of himself.

Charlie fired anyway. He couldn't tell if he had scored this time because his prey was now hidden by a mound of snow.

He reloaded.

He wondered if any of them were hunters or ex-military men with enough sawy to have pinpointed his position. He considered moving along the tree line, finding another good vantage point, and he knew the shadows under the trees would probably cover his movement. But he had a hunch that most of them were not experienced in this sort of thing, were not cut out for guerrilla warfare, so he stayed where he was, waiting for one of them to make a mistake.

He didn't have to wait long. One of those who had taken shelter by the Jeep proved too curious for his own good. When half a minute had passed with no gunfire, the Trose slightly to look around, still in a half-crouch, ready to drop, probably figuring that a half-crouch made him an impossible target when, in fact, he was giving Charlie plenty at which to aim. Most likely, he also figured he could fall flat and hug the ground again at the slightest sound, but he was hit and dead before the sound of the shot could have reached him.

Three down. Seven left. Six-if he had also killed Spivey.

For the first time in his life, Charlie Harrison was glad that he had served in Vietnam. Fifteen years had passed, but battlefield cunning had not entirely deserted him. He felt the hearttwisting terror of both the hunter and the hunted, the battle stress that was like no other kind of stress, but he still knew how to use that tension, how to take advantage of that stress to keep himself alert and sharp.

The others remained very still, burrowing into the snow, hugging the Jeep and the snowmobiles. Charlie could hear them shouting to one another, but none of them dared move again.

He knew they would remain pinned down for five or ten minutes, and maybe he should get up now, head back to the cabin, use that lead time. But there was a chance that if he outwaited them he would get another clear shot the next time they regained a little confidence. For the moment, anyway, there was no danger of losing any advantage by staying put, so he remained at the perimeter of the woods. He reloaded again. He stared down at them, exhilarated by his marksmanship but wishing he wasn't so proud of it, savagely delighted that he had brought down three of them but also ashamed of that delight.

The sky looked hard, metallic. Light snow flurries were falling.

No wind yet. Good. Wind would interfere with his shooting.

Below, Spivey's people had stopped talking. Preternatural silence returned to the mountain.

Time ticked by.

They were scared of him down there.

He dared to hope.

At the cabin, Christine found Joey standing in the living room. His face was ashen. He had heard the shooting. He knew." It's her."

"Honey, get your ski suit on, your boots. We're going out soon."

"Isn't it?" he said softly.

"We've got to be ready to leave as soon as Charlie comes."

"Isn't it her? "

"Yes," Christine said. Tears welled up in the boy's eyes, and she held him." It'll be okay. Charlie will take care of us."

She was looking into his eyes, but he was not looking into hers. He was looking through her, into a world other than this one, a place of his own, and the emptiness in his eyes sent a chill up her spine.

She had hoped that he could dress himself while she stuffed things into her backpack, but he was on the verge of catatonia, just standing there, face slack, arms slack. She grabbed his ski suit and dressed him, pulling it on over the sweater and jeans he already wore. She pulled two pair of thick socks onto his small feet, put his boots on for him, laced them up. She put his gloves and ski mask on the floor by the door, so she wouldn't forget them when it was time to leave.

As she went into the kitchen and began choosing food and other items for the backpack, Joey came with her, stood beside her. Abruptly he shook off his trance, and his face contorted with fear, and he said, "Brandy? Where's Brandy?"

"You mean Chewbacca, honey."