Miles turned to look at the doctor. Dr. Poole wasn’t smiling. He’d changed in the last twenty-four hours. His eyes looked cold and mean, aggressive.

“I’m going out there,” Miles said. He’d known Lacy Collier all his life and he wasn’t going to leave her out there.

“It’s his daughter? Quentin’s?” Patty asked, not having seen her clearly.

“Yes,” Miles said. He got out of the car before they could stop him. He walked to the front of the Cadillac and looked down at Lacy on her hands and knees in the snow.

“God, help me,” Lacy said. She was sobbing. She was looking down at the asphalt. She’d watched the car approach, and not knowing what else to do, she’d taken a chance and stepped out into the middle of the pitch-dark road and begun to wave her hands, knowing that, whoever was coming, they might decide simply to hit her and keep going. It had taken every bit of courage to keep waving and screaming as the headlights approached, the car bearing down on her, seemingly not going to stop.

“Lacy? Is that you?” Miles said.

“Miles?” Lacy exhausted from her run from the hotel looked up at Hunt. “Miles, thank God.” She stood up with his help. “You’ve got to help me, Miles. Please.”

“Get in the car!” Miles walked her back toward the rear of the Cadillac and helped her into the back seat, closing the door behind her. In the distance he could see headlights and red-blue flashing police lights coming down the road toward them.

“Thank God,” Miles said, watching the lights turn down the hotel’s driveway and come toward them.

“Your dad is hurt,” Rebecca said. “He was unconscious when I left.”

“Is he alone?” Lacy asked.

“No. There are people with him. Two guys.”

“Your dad?” Lacy asked.

“No. Somebody else. My dad—he didn’t make it,” Rebecca said.

“I’m sorry,” Lacy said. “I want to go to my father.”

They were all standing outside the cars near the hotel’s gated entrance. They’d all heard Lacy’s strange story about the two maniacs down the road. They’d also heard more howling in the woods. An old sixties-style motel was on fire up the highway nearby, its log cabins mostly burnt to the ground. The acrid smoke from the fire passed over their heads.

“Where is my dad?” Lacy said.

“At the Phelps Ranch,” Rebecca said.

“Where’s that?” Patty said.

“About eight miles up the road,” Rebecca said. She was holding a Thompson, its muzzle pointed at the ground. She’d come alone, hoping she’d find Lacy at the hotel. “He needs a doctor,” Rebecca said, looking at Marvin Poole, who hadn’t spoken a word.

“What about the two in there?” Patty said.

“I’ll take care of them,” Rebecca said.

“You can’t go alone,” Patty said. “I’ll go too.”

“Miles, do you have enough gas to get to the Phelps place?” Rebecca asked.

“Yeah, half a tank, at least—a little more, I think.”

“You’ve got to take the doctor. You know where it is. You’ll have to walk in from the road. It’s a good half-mile to the cabin. Hard going in the dark. And there’s Howlers all over up there. It’s better if there’s at least three of you, if there’s trouble. I brought another Thompson. It’s in the patrol car,” Rebecca said. “I’ll go get your friend in there, and we’ll go back to the Phelps’s place in the patrol car. It’s low on gas, but I think it will make it back okay.”

“I said I’ll go with you. You can’t go alone,” Patty said.

“All right, thanks,” Rebecca said, looking at the ranger. “So there’ll be three of us too if there’s a fight. On the way back.”

“Are you Patty Tyson?” Lacy asked.

“Yes,” Patty said. Lacy gave her a queer look and headed toward the Cadillac.

“Show me how that thing works, exactly,” Marvin said. “The machine gun. I want to ride shotgun.”

“Sure,” Rebecca said. “Are you okay, Dr. Poole?”

Poole turned around, ignoring the question, and walked toward the patrol car, its lights flashing. He opened the passenger door and picked up the Thompson sitting on the seat.

“Marvin, are you okay?” Rebecca asked again. The doctor had a very strange look on his face. “Is Grace?”

“How do you fire this thing?” Poole asked mechanically, all the color out of his voice.

Rebecca looked at the doctor, then walked up to the patrol car and showed him how the Thompson’s safety worked, and how to rack and fire the weapon.

“It’s a good little killer,” Rebecca said. “You’ll see when you let her rip.” She handed it back to him.

Poole turned away without saying a word.

He’s gone crazy, she thought, watching the doctor walk toward the Cadillac, the patrol car’s flashing blue and red lights painting the snow.

CHAPTER 23

The two young women stood by the patrol car and watched as the Escalade passed under the hotel’s lit-up gated entrance. It turned left toward Timberline and the Phelps Ranch. The Cadillac picked up speed and passed the burning old-school motel out on the highway. The motel’s cabins were shadowy black-and-burnt husks; the intense fire that had destroyed them was almost burnt out. They lost sight of the Escalade in a cloud of grey-white smoke pouring steadily out of the motel’s ruins, drifting toward them. One of the burnt cabins’ tiled roofs collapsed into the rooms below it, the sound horrible and strange. Devouring flames along with a huge spray of sparks, looking almost like fireworks, shot upward into the darkness.

“You have a plan?” Patty asked, turning toward the patrol car. “How are we going to get this guy out of there?” Patty looked at the younger woman standing in front of her.

The girl was wearing a brand new spotless blaze-orange hunting vest and matching hat and an old black down jacket. Her long blond hair, very thick, was spilling out of the cap. She looked like a young fashion model, and not anyone you’d take to a gunfight. The girl inspired no confidence, but it was too late to go back. Patty wished she had not volunteered to stay.

“Yeah, it’s pretty simple,” Rebecca said. “We go down and kill those two assholes, I guess.”

“That’s it?” Patty said. “What if there’re Howlers?”

“We kill them, too,” Rebecca said, giving her a smile. “You must be a city person. City people always make things more complicated than they need to be. Ready?”

“All I have is my service revolver,” Patty said. “And I’m out of ammunition.”

“I can fix that. .357, right? Wait. I don’t have any rounds for that, I’m afraid.” Rebecca walked Patty to the back of the patrol car and opened the trunk. The contents were illuminated by the hotel’s Greek Island lights strung along the gate. “Take your pick. I’d go for the AK and a Walther as a backup. The Walther is a chick’s gun, but, you know, they’re cool, I guess. I’m sticking with the short-barreled .45.”

Rebecca pulled a new looking AK-47 from the messy pile of ordinance she and Dillon had thrown into the trunk of the sheriff’s car earlier in the day. She made sure the assault rifle’s two taped-together banana clips, pulled from the tangled mess of guns and holsters, were loaded. She explained how to change the tape-together clips, how you simply reversed them when Patty needed to reload. When Rebecca finished her quick tutorial on the weapon, she shoved the setup into the rifle and chambered a round, double-checking the safety.

“Okay, you’re open for business,” Rebecca said, handing her the weapon.

Patty, impressed, looked down at the pile of handguns in the patrol car’s trunk and picked up the Walther Rebecca had pointed to.