Dean Koontz - Night Chills

Confront them here and now? Shoot them both as they came out of the stairwell?

No. The light was much too poor for gunplay. He couldn’t target them with any accuracy. Under these conditions he would never bring down both of them — and perhaps not either of them.

He thought of searching quickly for a light switch. He could flip it on as they entered the nave and open fire on them in the same instant. But if there was a switch nearby, he would never find it in time. And if he did find it in time, he would be every bit as surprised and blinded by the light as they would be.

Even if, by the grace of one of the saints depicted in these stained-glass windows, he did somehow kill both of them, then he would have alerted the woman in the tower. She might be armed; she almost certainly was. And if that was the case, the belfry would be virtually impregnable. With any sort of weapon at all — rifle or shotgun or handgun — and a supply of ammunition, she would be able to hold him off indefinitely.

He wished to God that he were properly equipped. He should have at least those few essentials of behind-the-lines combat:

a pretty damned good machine pistol, preferably German-made or Belgian, and several fully loaded magazines for it; an automatic rifle with a bandolier of ammo; and a few grenades, three or four. Especially the grenades. After all, this was no ladies’ tea party. This was a classic commando operation, a classic clandestine raid, deep in hostile territory.

Behind him, Edison and Annendale were unsettlingly close, on the last twenty steps and coming fast.

He dashed along the side aisle to the fourth or fifth row of pews where he intended to hide between the high-backed seats. He tripped over a kneeler that some thoughtless member of the congregation had forgotten to put up after saying a prayer, and he fell with a loud crash. His heart hammering, he scrambled farther along the row toward the center aisle, then stretched out on the bench of the pew, flat on his back, the Webley at his side.

As they came into the dark church, Paul put one hand on Sam’s shoulder.

Sam stopped. “Yeah?” he said softly.

“Sssshhh,” Paul said.

They listened to the storm wind and to the distant thunder and to the settling sounds that the building made.

Finally Sam said, “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah. What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That noise.”

"I didn’t hear anything.”

Paul studied the darkness that seemed to pulse around them. He squinted as if that would help him penetrate the inky pools in the corners and the purple-black shadows elsewhere. The atmosphere was Lovecraftian, a dank seed bed of paranoia. He rubbed the back of his neck which was suddenly cold.

“How could you have heard anything with all that racket we were making on the stairs?” Sam asked.

“I heard it. Something. “

“Probably the wind.”

“No. It was too loud for that. Sharp. It sounded as if — as if someone knocked over a chair.”

They waited.

Half a minute. A minute.

Nothing.

“Come on,” Sam said. “Let’s go.”

“Give it another minute.”

As Paul spoke a particularly violent gust of wind battered the east side of the church; and one of the ten-foot-high windows fluttered noisily in its frame.

“There you are,” Sam said. “You see? That’s what you heard. It was just the window.”

Relieved, Paul said, “Yeah.”

“We’ve got work to do,” Sam said.

They left the church by the front door. They went east on Main Street to Paul’s station wagon, which was parked in front of the general store.

As the station wagon reached the mill road and its taillights dwindled to tiny red dots beyond the west end of town, Klinger left the church and ran half a block to the telephone booth beside Ultman’s Cafe. He paged through the slim directory until he found the numbers for the Big Union Supply Company: twenty of them, eight at the logging camp and twelve at the mill complex. There wasn’t time to try all of them. In what part of the mill would Dawson establish his HQ? Klinger wondered. He thought about it, painfully aware of the precious seconds ticking by. Finally he decided that the main office was the location most consistent with Dawson’s personality, and he dialed that number.

After it had rung fifteen times, just as Klinger was about to give up, Dawson answered it warily. “Big Union Supply Company.”

“Klinger here.”

“Have you finished?”

“He’s dead, but I didn’t kill him. Edison and Annendale got to him first.”

“They’re in town?”

“That’s right. Or they were. Right now they’re coming for you. And for me. They think we’re both at the mill.” As best he could in less than a minute, the general summed up the

Situation

“Why didn’t you eliminate them when you had the chance, in the Church?” Dawson asked.

“Because J didn’t have the chance,” Klinger said impatiently.

“I didn’t have time to set it up right. But you can set it up just perfectly. They’ll probably park half a mile from the mill and walk in to you. They expect to surprise you. But now you can surprise them.”

“Look, why don’t you get in a car and come up here right away?” Dawson asked. “Come in behind them. Trap them between us.”

“Under the circumstances,” Klinger said, “that makes no military sense, Leonard. As a group of four, three of them armed, they’d be too formidable for us. Now that they’re split into pairs and puffed up with self-confidence, the advantage is ours.”

“But if Edison and Annendale know the key-lock phrases, I can’t keep guards posted. I can’t use any of these people up here. I’m alone.”

“You can handle it.”

“Ernst, my training is in business, finance. This is more your line of work.”

“And I’ve got work down here in town.”

“I don’t eliminate people.”

“Oh?”

“Not like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not personally.”

“You brought guns back from the camp?”

“A few of them. I’ve posted guards.”

“With a rifle or shotgun, you can do what’s necessary. I know you can. I’ve seen you shoot skeet both ways.”

“You don’t understand. It’s against my beliefs. My religious beliefs.”

“You’ll have to set those aside for now,” Klinger said. “This is a matter of survival.”

“You can’t just set aside morality, Ernst, whether or not it’s a matter of survival. Anyway, I don’t like being here alone. Handling this alone. It’s no good.”

Trying to think of some way to convince the man that be could and should do what had to be done so that he would get

off the phone, the general hit upon an approach that he recognized at once as custom-tailored for Dawson. “Leonard, there’s one thing that every soldier learns his first day on the battlefield, when the enemy is firing at him and grenades are exploding around him and it seems like he’ll never get through to the next day alive. If he’s fighting for the right cause, for the just cause, be learns that he’s never alone. God’s always with him.”

“You’re right,” Dawson said.

“You do believe ours is a just cause?”

“Of course. I’m doing all of this for Him.”

“Then you’ll come out just fine.”

“You’re right,” Dawson said. “I shouldn’t have hesitated to do what He so obviously wishes me to do. Thank you, Ernst.”

“Don’t mention it,” Klinger said. “You better get moving. They’re probably leaving the station wagon about now. You’ll have ten minutes at most to prepare for them.”

“And you?”