Firestarter

by Stephen King

  "Yeah, I saw a van," she said. She got on the skateboard and glided it toward the hydrant on the comer and then jumped off. "It went right up there." She pointed farther up Blassmore Place. Two or three intersections up was Carlisle Avenue, one of Harrison's main thoroughfares. Andy had surmised that would be the way they would go, but it was good to be sure.

  "Thanks," he said, and got back into the wagon.

  "You worried about her?" the girl repeated.

  "Yes, I am, a little," Andy said.

  He turned the wagon around and drove three blocks up Blassmore Place to the junction with Carlisle Avenue. This was hopeless, utterly hopeless. He felt a touch of panic, just a small hot spot, but it would spread. He made it go away, made himself concentrate on getting as far down their trail as possible. If he had to use the push, he would. He could give a lot of small helping pushes without making himself feel ill. He thanked God that he hadn't used the talent--or the curse, if you wanted to look at it that way--all summer long. He was up and fully charged, for whatever that was worth.

  Carlisle Avenue was four lanes wide and regulated here by a stop-and-go light. There was a car wash on his right and an abandoned diner on his left. Across the street was an Exxon station and Mike's Camera Store. If they had turned left, they had headed downtown. Right, and they would be headed out toward the airport and Interstate 80.

  Andy turned into the car wash. A young guy with an incredible shock of wiry red hair spilling over the collar of his dull green coverall jived over. He was eating a Popsicle.

  "No can do, man," he said before Andy could even open his mouth. "The rinse attachment busted about an hour ago. We're closed."

  "I don't want a wash," Andy said. "I'm looking for a gray van that went through the intersection maybe half an hour ago. My daughter was in it, and I'm a little worried about her."

  "You think somebody might have snatched her?" He went right on eating his Popsicle.

  "No, nothing like that," Andy said. "Did you see the van?"

  "Gray van? Hey, goodbuddy, you have any idea how many can go by here in just one hour? Or half an hour? Busy street, man. Carlisle is a very busy street."

  Andy cocked his thumb over his shoulder. "It came from Blassmore Place. That's not so busy." He got ready to add a little push, but he didn't have to. The young guy's eyes suddenly brightened. He broke his Popsicle in two like a wishbone and sucked all the purple ice off one of the sticks in a single improbable slurp.

  "Yeah, okay, right," he said. "I did see it. I'll tell you why I noticed. It cut across our tarmac to beat the light. I don't care myself, but it irritates the shit out of the boss when they do that. Not that it matters today with the rinser on the fritz. He's got something else to be irritated about."

  "So the van headed toward the airport."

  The guy nodded, flipped one of the Popsicle sticks back over his shoulder, and started on the remaining chunk. "Hope you find your girl, goodbuddy. If you don't mind a little, like, gray-tuitous advice, you ought to call the cops if you're really worried."

  "I don't think that would do much good," Andy said. "Under the circumstances."

  He got back in the wagon again, crossed the tarmac himself, and turned onto Carlisle Avenue. He was now headed west. The area was cluttered with gas stations, car washes, fast-food franchises, used-car lots. A drive-in advertised a double bill consisting of THE CORPSE GRINDERS and BLOODY MERCHANTS OF DEATH. He looked at the marquee and heard the ironing board ratcheting out of its closet like a guillotine. His stomach rolled over.

  He passed under a sign announcing that you could get on 1-80 a mile and a half farther west if that was your pleasure. Beyond that was a smaller sign with an airplane on it. Okay, he had got this far. Now what?

  Suddenly he pulled into the parking lot of a Shakey's Pizza. It was no good stopping and asking along here. As the car-wash guy had said, Carlisle was a busy street. He could push people until his brains were leaking out his ears and only succeed in confusing himself. It was the turnpike or the airport, anyway. He was sure of it. The lady or the tiger.

  He had never in his life triedto make one of the hunches come. He simply took them as gifts when they did come, and usually acted on them. Now he slouched farther down in the driver's seat of the wagon, touching his temples lightly with the tips of his fingers, and tried to make something come. The motor was idling, the radio was still on. The Rolling Stones. Dance, little sister, dance.

  Charlie, he thought. She had gone off to Terri's with her clothes stuffed in the knapsack she wore just about everywhere. That had probably helped to fool them. The last time he had seen her, she was wearing jeans and a salmon-colored shell top. Her hair was in pigtails, as it almost always was. A nonchalant good-bye, Daddy, and a kiss and holy Jesus, Charlie, where are you now?

  Nothing came.

  Never mind. Sit a little longer. Listen to the Stones. Shakey's Pizza. You get your choice, thin crust or crunchy. You pays your money and you takes your choice, as Granther McGee used to say. The Stones exhorting little sister to dance, dance, dance. Quincey saying they'd probably put her in a room so two hundred and twenty million Americans could be safe and free. Vicky. He and Vicky had had a hard time with the sex part of it at first. She had been scared to death. Just call me the Ice Maiden, she had said through her tears after that first miserable botched time. No sex, please, we're British. But somehow the Lot Six experiment had helped with that--the totality they had shared was, in its own way, like mating. Still it had been difficult. A little at a time. Gentleness. Tears. Vicky beginning to respond, then stiffening, crying out Don't, it'll hurt, don't, Andy, stop it! And somehow it was the Lot Six experiment, that common experience, that had enabled him to go on trying, like a safecracker who knows that there is a way, always a way. And there had come a night when they got through it. Later there came a night when it was all right. Then, suddenly, a night when it was glorious. Dance, little sister, dance. He had been with her when Charlie was born. A quick, easy delivery. Quick to fix, easy to please....

  Nothing was coming. The trail was getting colder and he had nothing. The airport or the turnpike? The lady or the tiger?

  The Stones finished. The Doobie Brothers came on, wanting to know without love, where would you be right now. Andy didn't know. The sun beat down. The lines in the Shakey's parking lot had been freshly painted. They were very white and firm against the blacktop. The lot was more than three quarters full It was lunchtime. Had Charlie got her lunch? Would they feed her? Maybe

  (maybe they'll stop make a service stop you know at one of those HoJos along the pike--after all they can't drive can't drive can't drive)

  Where? Can't drive where?

  (can't drive all the way to Virginia without making a rest stop can they? I mean a little girl has got to stop and take a tinkle sometime, doesn't she?)

  He straightened up, feeling an immense but numb feeling of gratitude. It had come, just like that. Not the airport, which would have been his first guess, if he had only been guessing. Not the airport but the turnpike. He wasn't completely sure the hunch was bona fide, but he was pretty sure. And it was better than not having any idea at all.

  He rolled the station wagon over the freshly painted arrow pointing the way out and turned right on Carlisle again. Ten minutes later he was on the turnpike, headed east with a toll ticket tucked into the battered, annotated copy of Paradise Lost on the seat beside him. Ten minutes after that, Harrison, Ohio, was behind him. He had started on the trip east that would bring him to Tashmore, Vermont, fourteen months later.

  The calm held. He played the radio loud and that helped. Song followed song and he only recognized the older ones because he had pretty much stopped listening to pop music three or four years ago. No particular reason; it had just happened. They still had the jump on him, but the calm insisted with its own cold logic that it wasn't a very good jump--and that he would be asking for trouble if he just started roaring along the passing lane at seventy.

  He pe
gged the speedometer at just over sixty, reasoning that the men who had taken Charlie would not want to exceed the fifty-five speed limit. They could flash their credentials at any Smokey who pulled them down for speeding, that was true, but they might have a certain amount of difficulty explaining a screaming six-year-old child just the same. It might slow them down, and it would surely get them in dutch with whoever was pulling the strings on this show.

  They could have drugged her and hidden her, his mind whispered. Then if they got stopped for busting along at seventy, even eighty, they'd only have to show their paper and keep right on going. ls an Ohio state cop going to toss a van that belongs to the Shop?

  Andy struggled with that as eastern Ohio flowed by. First, they might be scared to drug Charlie. Sedating a child can be a tricky business unless you're an expert ... and they might not be sure what sedation would do to the powers they were supposed to be investigating. Second, a state cop might just go ahead and toss the van anyway, or at least hold them in the breakdown lane while he checked the validity of their ID. Third, why should they be busting their asses? They had no idea anyone was onto them. It was still not one o'clock. Andy was supposed to be at the college until two o'clock. The Shop people would not expect him to arrive back home until two-twenty or so at the earliest and probably felt they could count on anywhere from twenty minutes to two hours after that before the alarm was raised. Why shouldn't they just be loafing along?

  Andy went a little faster.

  Forty minutes passed, then fifty. It seemed longer. He was beginning to sweat a little; worry was nibbling through the artificial ice of calm and shock. Was the van really someplace up ahead, or had the whole thing been so much wishful thinking?

  The traffic patterns formed and re-formed. He saw two gray vans. Neither of them looked like the one he had seen cruising around Lakeland. One was driven by an elderly man with flying white hair. The other was full of freaks smoking dope. The driver saw Andy's close scrutiny and waved a roach clip at him. The girl beside him popped up her middle finger, kissed it gently, and tipped it Andy's way. Then they were behind him.

  His head was beginning to ache. The traffic was heavy, the sun was bright. Each car was loaded with chrome, and each piece of chrome had its own arrow of sun to flick into his eyes. He passed a sign that said REST AREA 1 MILE AHEAD.

  He had been in the passing lane. Now he signaled right and slipped into the travel lane again. He let his speed drop to forty-five, then to forty. A small sports car passed him and the driver blipped his horn at Andy in irritated fashion as he went by.

  REST AREA, the sign announced. It wasn't a service stop, simply a turn-out with slant parking, a water fountain, and bathrooms. There were four or five cars parked in there and one gray van. The gray van. He was almost sure of it. His heart began to slam against the walls of his chest. He turned in with a quick twist of the station wagon's wheel, and the tires made a low wailing sound.

  He drove slowly down the entranceway toward the van, looking around, trying to take in everything at once. There were two picnic tables with a family at each one. One group was just clearing up and getting ready to go, the mother putting leftovers into a bright orange carrier bag, the father and the two kids policing up the junk and taking it over to the trash barrel. At the other table a young man and woman were eating sandwiches and potato salad. There was a sleeping baby in a carrier seat between them. The baby was wearing a corduroy jumper with a lot of dancing elephants on it. On the grass, between two big and beautiful old elms, were two girls of about twenty, also having lunch. There was no sign of Charlie or of any men who looked both young enough and tough enough to belong to the Shop.

  Andy killed the station wagon's engine. He could feel his heartbeat in his eyeballs now. The van looked empty. He got out.

  An old woman using a cane came out of the ladies' comfort station and walked slowly toward an old burgundy Biscayne. A gent of about her age got out from behind the wheel, walked around the hood, opened her door, and handed her in. He went back, started up the Biscayne, a big jet of oily blue smoke coming from the exhaust pipe, and backed out.

  The men's-room door opened and Charlie came out. Flanking her on the left and right were men of about thirty in sport coats, open-throated shirts, and dark double-knit pants. Charlie's face looked blank and shocked. She looked from one of the men to the other and then back at the first. Andy's guts began to roll helplessly. She was wearing her packsack. They were walking toward the van. Charlie said something to one of them and he shook his head. She turned to the other. He shrugged, and said something to his partner over Charlie's head. The other one nodded. They turned around and walked toward the drinking fountain.

  Andy's heart was beating faster than ever. Adrenaline spilled into his body in a sour, jittery flood. He was scared, scared plenty, but something else was pumping up inside him and it was anger, it was total fury. The fury was even better than the calm. It felt almost sweet. Those were the two men out there that had killed his wife and stolen his daughter, and if they weren't right with Jesus, he pitied them.

  As they went to the drinking fountain with Charlie, their backs were to him. Andy got out of the wagon and stepped behind the van.

  The family of four who had just finished their lunch walked over to a new midsized Ford, got in, and backed out. The mother glanced over at Andy with no curiosity at all, the way people look at each other when they are on long trips, moving slowly through the digestive track of the U.S. turnpike system. They drove off, showing a Michigan plate. There were now three cars and the gray van and Andy's station wagon parked in the rest area. One of the cars belonged to the girls. Two more people were strolling across the grounds, and there was one man inside the little information booth, looking at the 1-80 map, his hands tucked into the back pockets of his jeans.

  Andy had no idea of exactly what he was going to do.

  Charlie finished her drink. One of the two men bent over and took a sip. Then they started back toward their van. Andy was looking at them from around the van's back-left comer. Charlie looked scared, really scared. She had been crying. Andy tried the back door of the van, not knowing why, but it was no good anyway; it was locked.

  Abruptly he stepped out into full view.

  They were very quick. Andy saw the recognition come into their eyes immediately, even before the gladness flooded Charlie's face, driving away that look of blank, frightened shock.

  "Daddy!" she cried shrilly, causing the young people with the baby to look around. One of the girls under the elms shaded her eyes to see what was happening.

  Charlie tried to run to him and one of the men grabbed her by the shoulder and hauled her back against him, half-twisting her packsack from her shoulders. An instant later there was a gun in his hand. He had produced it from somewhere under his sport coat like a magician doing an evil trick. He put the barrel against Charlie's temple.

  The other man began to stroll unhurriedly away from Charlie and his partner, then began to move in on Andy. His hand was in his coat, but his conjuring was not as good as his partner's had been; he was having a little trouble producing his gun.

  "Move away from the van if you don't want anything to happen to your daughter," the one with the gun said.

  "Daddy!" Charlie cried again.

  Andy moved slowly away from the van. The other fellow, who was prematurely bald, had his gun out now. He pointed it at Andy. He was less than fifty feet away. "I advise you very sincerely not to move," he said in a low voice. "This is a Colt forty-five and it makes a giant hole."

  The young guy with his wife and baby at the picnic table got up. He was wearing rimless glasses and he looked severe.

  "What exactly is going on here?" he asked in the carrying, enunciated tones of a college instructor.

  The man with Charlie turned toward him. The muzzle of his gun floated slightly away from her so that the young man could see it "Government business, he said. "Stay right where you are; everything is fine."

&n
bsp; The young man's wife grabbed his arm and pulled him down.

  Andy looked at the balding agent and said in a low, pleasant voice, "That gun is much too hot to hold."

  Baldy looked at him, puzzled. Then, suddenly, he screamed and dropped his revolver. It struck the pavement and went off. One of the girls under the elms let out a puzzled, surprised shout. Baldy was holding his hand and dancing around. Fresh white blisters appeared on his palm, rising like bread dough.

  The man with Charlie stared at his partner, and for a moment the gun was totally distracted from her small head.

  "You're blind," Andy told him, and pushed just as hard as he could. A sickening wrench of pain twisted through his head.

  The man screamed suddenly. He let go of Charlie and his hands went to his eyes.

  "Charlie," Andy said in a low voice, and his daughter ran to him and clutched his legs in a trembling bear hug. The man inside the information booth ran out to see what was going on.

  Baldy, still clutching his burned hand, ran toward Andy and Charlie. His face worked horribly.

  "Go to sleep," Andy said curtly, and pushed again. Baldy dropped sprawling as if pole-axed. His forehead bonked on the pavement. The young wife of the stem young man moaned.

  Andy's head hurt badly now, and he was remotely glad that it was summer and that he hadn't used the push, even to prod a student who was letting his grades slip for no good reason, since perhaps May. He was charged up--but charged up or not, God knew he was going to pay for what he was doing this hot summer afternoon.

  The blind man was staggering around on the grass, holding his hands up to his face and screaming. He walked into a green barrel with PUT LITTER IN ITS PLACE stenciled on its side and fell down in an overturned jumble of sandwich bags, beer cans, cigarette butts, and empty soda bottles.

  "Oh, Daddy, jeez I was so scared," Charlie said, and began to cry.

  "The wagon's right over there. See it?" Andy heard himself say. "Get in and I'll be with you in a minute."