Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

She made him take the pills, and he greedily swallowed the water, washing them down. He was asleep again even as she took the cup from his lips.

He continued to groan and mutter for a while, and although he was sweating heavily, he also began to shiver. His teeth chattered.

She wished they had some blankets. She piled more wood on the fire. The cave was relatively warm, but she figured it couldn't be too warm right now.

Around 10:00, Charlie grew quiet again. He stopped tossing his head, stopped sweating, slept peacefully.

At least, she told herself it was sleep that had him. But she was afraid it might be a coma.

Something squeaked.

Christine grabbed the revolver and bolted to her feet as if the squeak had been a scream.

Joey and Charlie slept undisturbed.

She listened closely, and the squeak came again, more than one short sound this time, a whole series of squeaks, a shrill though distant chittering.

It wasn't a sound of stone or earth or water, not a dead sound.

Something else, something alive.

She picked up the flashlight. Heart pumping furiously, holding the revolver out in front of her, she edged toward the sound. It seemed to be coming from the cavern that adjoined this one.

Soft as they were, the shrill cries nevertheless lifted the hairs on the back of her neck because they were so eerie, alien.

At the entrance of the next chamber, she stopped, probing ahead with the beam of the flashlight. She saw the waxy-looking stalactites and stalagmites, the damp rock walls, but nothing out of the ordinary. The noises now seemed to be coming from farther away, from a third cavern or even a fourth.

As she cocked her head and listened more intently, Christine suddenly understood what she was hearing. Bats. A lot of them, judging by their cries.

Evidently, they always nested in another chamber, elsewhere in the mountain, always entered and exited by another route, for there was no sign of them here, no bat corpses or droppings.

Okay. She didn't mind sharing the caves with them, just as long as they kept to their own neighborhood.

She returned to Charlie and Joey and sat down between them, put the gun aside, switched off the flashlight.

Then she wondered what would happen if Spivey's people showed up, blocked off the entrance to this cave, and left them no option but to head deeper into the mountain in search of another way out, a back door to safety. What if she and Charlie and Joey were forced to flee from cave to cave and eventually had to pass through that chamber in which the bats nested? It would probably be knee-deep in bat shit, and there would be hundreds-maybe thousands-of them hanging overhead, and a few of them or even all of them might have rabies, because bats were excellent carriers of rabiesStop it! she told herself angrily.

She had enough to worry about already. Spivey's lunatics. Joey.

Charlie's wound. The weather. The long journey back to civilization.

She couldn't add bats to the list. That was crazy. There was only a chance in a million that they would ever have to go nearer the bats.

She tried to relax.

She put more wood on the fire.

The squeaking faded.

The caves became silent again except for Joey's labored breathing and the crackle of the fire.

She was getting drowsy.

She tried every trick she could think of to keep herself awake, but sleep continued to close in on her.

She was afraid to let herself go under. Joey might take a turn for the worse while she was dozing. Or Charlie might need her, and she wouldn't know.

Besides, someone ought to stand guard.

Spivey's people might come in the night.

No. The storm. Witches weren't allowed to fly on their brooms in storms like this.

She smiled, remembering the way Charlie had joked with Joey.

The flickering firelight was mesmerizing.

Someone ought to stand guard, anyway.

Just a quick nap.

Witches…..

Someone….. ought to.

It was one of those nightmares in which she knew she was asleep, knew that what was happening was not real, but that didn't make it any less frightening. She dreamed that all the caves in the valley wall were connected in an elaborate maze, and that Grace Spivey and her religious terrorists had entered this particular cave from other chambers farther along the hillside. She dreamed they were preparing a human sacrifice, and the sacrifice was Joey. She was trying to kill them, but each time she shot one of them, the corpse divided into two new fanatics, so by murdering them she was only adding to their numbers.

She became increasingly frantic and terrified, increasingly outnumbered, until all the caves within the valley wall were swarming with Spivey's people, like a horde of rats or cockroaches.

And then, aware that she was dreaming, she began to suspect that Grace Spivey's followers were not only in the caves of the dream but in the real caves in the real world beyond sleep, and they were conducting a human sacrifice in both the nightmare and in reality, and if she didn't wake up and stop them, they were going to kill Joey for real, kill him while she slept. She struggled to free herself of sleep's iron grip, but she could not do it, could not wake up, and now in the dream they were going to cut the boy's throat. And in reality, beyond the dream'?

When Christine woke in the morning, Joey was eating a chocolate bar and petting Chewbacca.

She watched him for a moment, and she realized tears were streaming down her cheeks. This time, however, she was crying because she was happy.

He seemed to be returning from his self-imposed psychological exile. He was in better physical shape, too. Maybe he was going to be all right.

Thank God.

The swelling was gone from his face, replaced by a better though not really healthy-color, and he was no longer having difficulty breathing.

His eyes were still blank, and he continued to be withdrawn, but not nearly as far-off and pathetic as he had been yesterday.

The fact that he had gone to the supplies, had rummaged through them, and had found the candy for himself was encouraging. And he had apparently added wood to the fire, for it was burning brightly, though after being untended during the night it should have cooled down to just a bank of hot coals.

She crawled to him and hugged him, and he hugged her, too, though weakly. He didn't speak, wouldn't be bribed or teased or encouraged into uttering a single word. And he still wouldn't meet her eyes directly, as if he were not entirely aware that she was here with him; however, she had the feeling that, when she looked away from him, his intense blue eyes turned toward her and lost their slightly glazed and dreamy quality. She wasn't positive. She couldn't catch him at it. But she dared to hope that he was returning to her, slowly feeling his way back from the edge of autism, and she knew she must not rush him or push him too hard.

Chewbacca had not perked up as much as his young master, though he was a bit less weak and stringy looking than he had been last night. The pooch seemed to grow healthier and more energetic even as Christine watched the boy pet him, responding to each pat and scratch and stroke as if Joey's small hands had healing power. There was sometimes a wonderful, mysterious, deep sharing, an instant bonding in the relationships between children and their animals.

Joey held his candy bar out in front of him, turned it back and forth, and seemed to be staring at it. He smiled vaguely.

Christine had never wanted anything more than she had wanted to see him smile, and a smile came to her own face in sympathy with his.

Behind her, Charlie woke with a start, and she went to him.

She saw at once that, unlike Joey and the dog, he had not improved. The delirium had left him, but in all other ways his condition had grown worse. His face was the color and texture of bread dough, greasy with sweat. His eyes appeared to have collapsed back into his skull, as if the supporting bones and tissues beneath them had crumpled under the weight of things he had seen. Forceful shivers shook him, and at times they grew into violent tremors only one step removed from convulsions.