Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

God help us, Christine thought.

The hag stood unmoving, unbent, arrogant, defiant, as if daring Christine to pull the trigger, and even from this distance, Christine felt the strange and riveting power of the old woman's eyes. Immune to the hypnotic effect of that mad gaze, she fired a shot, the revolver bucking in her hands. She missed even though the distance was not great, squeezed the trigger again, was surprised when she missed a second time at such close range, tried a third shot but discovered she was out of ammunition.

Oh, Jesus.

No more bullets. No other weapons. Jesus. Nothing but her bare hands.

Okay, I can do it, I can do it, bare hands, all right, I 71 strangle the bitch, 171 tear her goddamned head off.

Sobbing, cursing, shrieking, carried forward on a crashing wave of terror, she started toward Spivey. But the other Twilighter, the giant, began shooting at her from behind some boulders, where he had taken cover. Shots exploded and then ricocheted off the rocks around her with a piercing whine. She sensed bullets cutting the air near her head. She realized she couldn't help Joey if she was dead, so she stopped, turned back toward the cave.

Another shot. Sharp chips of stone sprayed up from the point of impact.

She was stift hysterical, but all that manic energy was suddenly redirected, away from rage and blood just, toward the survival instinct.

With the sound of gunfire behind her, she stumbled back to the cave. The giant left his hiding place and came after her. Slugs whacked into the stone beside her, and she expected to take one in the back. Then she was through the entrance to the caves, into the first stretch of the Z-shaped passageway, out of sight of the gunman, and she thought she was safe. But one last shot ricocheted around the corner from the first length of the tunnel and slammed into her right thigh, kicking her off her feet. She went down, landing hard on her shoulder, and saw darkness reach up for her.

Refusing to succumb to the numbing effect of the shock that followed being hit, gasping for breath, desperately fending off the welling darkness that pooled up behind her eyes, Christine dragged herself along the passageway.

She didn't think they would come straight in after her. They couldn't know that she possessed only one gun or that she was out of ammunition.

They would be wary.

But they would come. Cautiously. Slowly.

Not slowly enough.

They were relentless, like a posse in a Western movie.

Sweating in spite of the cold air, heaving and pulling her leg along as if it were a hunk of concrete, she hitched herself into the cave, where Charlie and Joey waited in the capering light of the fire.

" Oh, Christ, you've been shot," Charlie said.

Joey said nothing. He was standing by the ledge on which the fire was burning, and the pulsing light gave his face a bloody cast. He was sucking on one thumb, watching her with enormous eyes.

"Not bad," she said, trying not to let them see how scared she was. She pulled herself up against the wall, standing on one leg.

She put one hand on her thigh, felt sticky blood. She refused to look at it. If it was bleeding heavily, she'd need a tourniquet.

But there wasn't time for first aid. If she paused to apply a tourniquet, Spivey or the giant might just walk in and blow her brains out.

She wasn't dizzy yet, and she was no longer in imminent danger of passing out, but she was beginning to feel weak.

She was still holding the empty, useless gun. She dropped it.

"Pain?" Charlie asked.

"No." That much was true; she felt little or no pain at the moment, but she knew it would come soon.

Outside, the giant was yelling: "Give us the boy! We'll let you live if you'll just give us the boy."

Christine ignored him." I got two of the bastards," she told Charlie.

"How many are left?" he asked.

"Two more," she said, giving no additional details, not wanting Joey to know that Grace Spivey was one of the two.

Chewbacca had gotten io his feet and was growling in the back of his throat. Christine was surprised the dog could stand up, but he was far from recovered; he looked sick and wobbly. He wouldn't be able to do much fighting or protect Joey.

She spotted the knife from the mess kit, which lay between Joey and Charlie, at the far end of the room. She asked Joey to bring it to her, but he only stared, unmoving, and would not be coaxed into helping.

"No more ammo?" Charlie asked.

"None. " From outside: "Give us the boy!"

Charlie tried to inch toward the knife, but he was too weak and too tortured by pain to accomplish the task. The effort made him wheeze, and the wheezing developed into a wracking cough, and the cough left him limp with exhaustion-and with bloody saliva on his lips.

Christine had a frantic sense of time running out like sand pouring from the bottom of a funnel.

"Give us the Antichrist!"

Although Christine couldn't move fast, she began to make her way to the other end of the room, following the wall and bracing herself against it, hopping on her uninjured leg. If she could get to the knife, then return to this end of the chamber, she could wait just this side of the passageway, around the corner, and when they came in she might be able to lurch forward and stab one of them.

She finally reached the supplies and bent down and picked up the knife-and realized how short the blade was. She turned it over and over in her hand, trying to convince herself that it was just the weapon she needed. But it would have to penetrate a parka and the clothes underneath before doing any damage, and it wasn't long enough. If she had a chance to stab at their faces. but they would have guns, and she didn't have much hope of carrying out a successful frontal assault.

Damn.

She threw the knife down in disgust.

"Fire," Charlie said.

At first she didn't understand.

He raised one hand to his mouth and wiped at the bloody saliva that he continued to cough up." Fire. It's… a good… weapon."

Of course. Fire. Better than a knife with a stubby little blade.

Suddenly she thought of something that, used in conjunction with a burning brand, would be almost as effective as a gun.

In her wounded leg, a dull pain had begun to throb in time with her rapid pulse, but she gritted her teeth and stooped down beside the pile of supplies. Stooping was not easy, an involved and painful maneuver, and she dreaded having to stand up again, even though she had the wall against which to support herself.

She poked through the items she had emptied out of the backpack yesterday, and in a few seconds she turned up the squeezecan of lighter fluid, which they had bought in case they had trouble starting a fire in the fireplace at the cabin. She stashed the can in the right-hand pocket of her pants.

When she stood, the stone floor rolled under her. She grabbed the edge of the raised hearth and waited until the dizziness passed.

She turned to the fire, snatched a burning branch from between two larger logs, afraid it would sputter out when she removed it from the blaze, but the branch continued to burn, a bright torch.

Joey did not move or speak, but he watched with interest. He was depending on her. His life was entirely in her hands now.

She hadn't heard any shouting from outside in quite some time. That silence wasn't welcome. It might mean Spivey and the giant were on their way inside, already in the Z-shaped passage.

She embarked upon a return trip around the room, past Charlie, toward the passageway through which the Tmight come at any moment, taking the long route because in her condition it was safest. She was agonizingly aware of the precious seconds she was wasting, but she couldn't risk going straight across the room because if she fell she might pass out or extinguish the torch. She held the burning brand in her left hand, using the other to steady herself against the wall, limping instead of hopping because limping was faster, daring to use the injured leg a little, though pain shot all through her when she put much weight on her right foot. And although the pain still throbbed in sympathy with her pounding pulse, it was no longer dull; it was a burning-stinging-stabbing-pinching-twisting pain that was getting worse with each punishing beat of her heart.