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.
Snow dropped from the sky as if it were being dumped out of huge bins, came hurtling down in sheets and clumps.
Another step. Another.
As if plating them with suits of armor, the wind welded the snow to their arms and legs and backs and chests, until their clothes were the same color as the landscape around them.
Something ahead. A dark shape. It materialized in the storm, then was blotted out by an even more furious squall of snow. It appeared again.
Didn't fade away this time. And another one.
Huge blobs of darkness, shadowy formations rising up beyond snowy curtains. Gradually they became clearer, better defined.
Yes. A tree. Several trees.
They trudged at least fifty yards into the forest before they found a place where the interlacing branches of the evergreens were so thick overhead that a significant amount of snow was shut out. Visibility improved. They were free of the wind's brutal fists, as well.
Christine stopped, put Joey down, peeled off his snow-caked ski mask.
Her heart twisted when she saw his face.
Kyle Baflowe, Burt Tully, and Edna Vanoff gathered around Grace at the edge of the forest, under the last of the evergreens.
The wind licked at them from the meadow, as if hungry for their warmth.
With her gloves off, Grace held her arms out, palms spread toward the meadow beyond the trees, receiving psychic impressions. The others waited silently for her to decide what to do next.
Out on the open floor of the valley, the fulminating blizzard was like an endless chain of dynamite detonations, a continuous roar, the violent waves of wind like concussions, the snow as thick as smoke. It was appropriate weather for the end of the world.
" They went this way," Mother Grace said.
Barlowe already knew their quarry had left the forest here, for their tracks told him as much. Which direction they had gone after heading into the open was another question; although they had left here only a short while ago, their footprints had not survived much past the perimeter of the woods. He waited for Mother Grace to tell him something he could not discern for himself.
Worriedly studying the snow-lashed field in front of them, Burt Tully said, "We can't go out there. We'd die out there."
Suddenly Grace lowered her hands and backed away from the meadow, farther into the trees.
They moved with her, alarmed by the look of terror on her face.
"Demons, " she said hoarsely.
"Where?" Edna asked.
Grace was shaking." Out there
"In the storm?" Barlowe asked.
"Hundreds. thousands. waiting for us. hiding in the drifts. waiting to rise up….. and destroy us. "
Barlowe looked out at the open fields. He could see nothing but snow. He wished he had Mother Grace's Gift. There were malevolent spirits near, and he could not detect them, and that made him feel frighteningly vulnerable.
"We must wait here," Grace said, "until the storm passes."
Burt Tully was clearly relieved.
Barlowe said, "But the boy-"
"Grows stronger," Grace admitted.
"And Twilight?"
"Grows near."
"It we wait-"
"We might be too late," she said.
Barlowe said, "Won't God protect us if we go into the meadow? Aren't we armored with His might and mercy?"
"We must wait," was the only answer she gave him." And pray. "
Then Kyle Barlowe knew how late it really was. So late that they must be more vigilant than they had ever been before. So late that they could no longer be bold. Satan was now as strong and real a presence in this world as God Himself. Maybe the scales had not yet tipped in the devil's direction, but the balance was delicate.
Christine peeled off the boy's ice-crusted ski mask, and Charlie had to look away from the child's face when it was revealed.
I've failed them, he thought.
Despair flooded into him and brought tears to his eyes.
He was sitting on the ground, with his back to a tree. He rested his head against the trunk, too, closed his eyes. took several deep breaths, trying to stop shaking, trying to think positively, trying to convince himself that everything would turn out all right, failing. He had been an optimist all his life, and this recent acquaintance with soul-shaking doubt was devastating.
The Tylenol and the anaesthetic powder had only slight effect on his pain, but even that minimal relief was fading. The pain in his shoulder was gaining strength again, and it was beginning to creep outward, as before, across his chest and up his neck and into his head.
Christine was talking softly and encouragingly to Joey, though she must have wanted to weep at the sight of him, as Charlie had done.
He steeled himself and looked at the boy again.
The child's face was red, lumpy, and badly misshapen from hives caused by the fierce cold. His eyes were nearly swollen shut; the edges of them were caked with a gummy, mucous-like substance, and the lashes were matted with the same stuff. His nostrils were mostly swollen shut, so he was breathing through his mouth, and his lips were cracked, puffy, bleeding. Most of his face was flushed an angry red, but two spots on his cheeks and one on the tip of his nose were gray-white, which might indicate frostbite, though Charlie hoped to God it wasn't.
Christine looked at Charlie, and her own despondency was evident in her troubled eyes if not in her voice." Okay. We've got to move on. Got to get Joey out of this cold. We've got to find those caves."