Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

She was going to be buried alive.

She had read newspaper stories about workmen buried alive, suffocated or crushed to death, in caved-in ditches, no deeper than this. Of course, snow wasn't as heavy as dirt or sand, so she wouldn't be crushed, and she would be able to claw her way through it, and even if she couldn't get all the way out, she would still be able to breathe under the snow, for it wasn't as compact and suffocating as earth, but that realization did not alleviate her panic.

She jackknifed onto her feet an instant after hitting bottom, in spite of the pain in her leg, and she clawed for firm handholds, for the hidden side of the gully or pit into which she had stepped.

But she couldn't find it. Just snow. Soft, yielding snow, infuriatingly insubstantial.

She was still screaming. A clump of snow fell into her open mouth, choking her. The pit was caving in above her, on all sides, pouring down around her, up to her shoulders, then up to her chin, Jesus, and she kept pushing the snow away from her head, desperate to keep her face and arms free, but it closed over her faster than she could dig it away.

Above, Charlie's face appeared. He was lying on the ground, leaning over the edge of the drop, looking down at her. He was shouting something. She couldn't understand what he was saying.

She flailed at the snow, but it weighed down on her, an ever increasing cascade, pouring in from the drift all around, until at last her aching arms were virtually pinned at her sides. No! And still the snow collapsed inward, up to her chin again, up to her mouth. She sealed her lips, closed her eyes, sure that she was going under altogether, that it would cover her head, that Charlie would never be able to get her out, that this would be her grave.

But then the cave-in ceased before her nose was buried.

She opened her eyes, looked up from the bottom of a white funnel, toward Charlie. The walls of snow were still, but at any moment they might tremble and continue to collapse on top of her.

She was rigid, afraid to move, breathing hard.

Joey. What about Joey?

She had released the tether (and Joey) as soon as she'd felt herself going into the pit. She hoped Charlie had stopped Joey before he, too, had plunged over the edge. In his trancelike state, the boy would not necessarily have halted just because she had gone under. If he had fallen into the drift, they would probably never find him. The snow would have closed over him, and they wouldn't be able to locate him by listening to his screams, not in this howling wind, not when his cries would be muffled by a few feet of snow.

She wouldn't have believed her heart could beat this fast or hard without bursting.

Above, Charlie reached down with his good arm, his hand open, making a come-tome gesture with his fingers.

If she dug her arms free of the snow that now pinned them, she could grab hold of him, and together they could try to work her up and out of the hole. But in freeing her arms, she might trigger another avalanche that would cover her head with a couple of feet of snow. She had to be careful, move slowly and deliberately.

She twisted her right arm back and forth under the snow, packing the snow away from it, making a hollow space, then turned her palm up and clawed at the stuff with her fingers, loosening it, letting it slide back into the hollow by her arm, and in seconds she had made a tunnel up to the surface. She snaked her arm through the tunnel, and it came into sight, unhampered from fingertips to above the elbow. She reached straight up, gripped Charlie's extended hand. Maybe she would make it, after all. She clawed her other arm free, grabbed Charlie's wrist.

The snow around her shifted. Just a little.

Charlie began to pull, and she heaved herself up.

The white walls started falling in again. The snow sucked at her as if it were quicksand. Her feet left the ground as Charlie hauled her up, and she kicked out, frantically searching for the wall of the gully, struck it, tried to dig her feet in against it and use it to shove herself toward the top. He eased backwards, pulling her farther up.

This must be agony for him, as the strain passed through his good arm and shoulder into his wounded shoulder, sapping whatever strength he had left. But it was working. Thank God. The sucking snow was letting go of her. She was now high enough to risk holding on to Charlie's arm with only one hand, while she grabbed at the brink of the gully with the other. Ice and frozen earth gave way under her clutching fingers, but she grabbed again, and this time she gripped something solid. With both Charlie and solid earth to cling to, she was able to lever herself up and out and onto her back, gasping, whimpering, with the unnerving feeling that she was escaping the cold maw of a living creature and had nearly been devoured by a beast composed of ice and snow.

Suddenly she realized that the shotgun, which had been stung from her shoulder when she'd fallen into the trap, had slipped off, or the strap had broken. It must still be in the pit. But the hole had closed up behind her when Charlie had pulled her out.

It was lost.

It didn't matter. Spivey's people wouldn't be following them through the blizzard.

She got onto her hands and knees and crawled away from the snow trap, looking for Joey. He was there, on the ground, curled on his side, in a fetal position, knees drawn up, head tucked down.

Chewbacca was with him, as if he knew the boy needed his warmth, though the animal seemed to have no warmth to give.

His coat was crusted with snow and ice, and there was ice on his ears.

He looked at her with soulful brown eyes full of confusion, suffering, and fear.

She was ashamed she had blamed him, in part, for Joey's withdrawal and that she had wished she'd never seen him. She put one hand on his large head, and, even as weak as he was, he nuzzled her affectionately.

Joey was alive, conscious, but hurting bad. Impacted snow clogged his ski mask. If she didn't get him out of this wind soon, he would be frost-bitten. His eyes were even more distant than before.

She tried to get him to stand, but he couldn't. Although she was exhausted and shaky, although her left leg still hurt from the fall she had taken, she would have to carry him.

She dug the compass out of her pocket, studied it, and turned to face east-northeast, toward the section of woodland where the caves ought to be. She could see only five or six feet, and then the storm fell like a heavy drapery.

Surprised by the extent of her own stamina, she scooped Joey up, held him in both arms. A mother's instinct was to save her child, regardless of the cost to herself, and her maternal desperation had loosed some last meager store of adrenaline.

Charlie moved in beside her. He was on his feet, but he looked bad, almost as terrible as Joey.

"Got to get into the forest!" she shouted." Out of this wind!"

She didn't think he could have heard her, not with the banshee storm shrieking across the meadow, but he nodded as if he understood her intention, and they moved into the white-out, trusting in the compass to lead them to the comparative shelter of the mammoth trees, shuffling with exaggerated caution to avoid falling into another snow trap.

Christine looked back at Chewbacca. The dog was getting up to follow, but creakily. Even if he could regain his feet, there was almost no chance that he would make it to the trees with them. This would probably be the last glimpse she ever had of him; the storm would swallow him just as the snow-filled pit had tried to swallow her.

Each step was an ordeal.

Wind. Snow. Cruel cold.

Dying would be easier than going on.

That thought scared her and gave her the will to take a few more steps.

One good thing: There was no doubt that their trail would be completely erased. The raging wind and arctic-fierce snowfall would make it impossible for Spivey's fanatics to follow them.