by Stephen King
Not ordinarily a praying fellow, Ernie prayed now. That none of the people fleeing the Town Hall would notice the old man behind the wheel of the idling van. That Jackie and Rommie would come out safe, with or without Barbara and Everett. It occurred to him that he could just drive away, and was shocked by how tempting the idea was.
His cell phone rang.
For a moment he just sat there, not sure of what he was hearing, and then he yanked it off his belt. When he opened it, he saw JOANIE in the window. But it wasn’t his daughter-in-law; it was Norrie.
“Grampa! Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said, looking at the chaos in front of him.
“Did you get them out?”
“It’s happening right now, honey,” he said, hoping it was the truth. “I can’t talk. Are you safe? Are you at … at the place?”
“Yes! Grampy, it glows at night! The radiation belt! The cars glowed too, but then they stopped! Julia says she thinks it isn’t dangerous! She says she thinks it’s a fake, to scare people away!”
You better not count on that, Ernie thought.
Two more muffled, thudding gunshots came from inside the PD. Someone was dead downstairs in the Coop; just about had to be.
“Norrie, I can’t talk now.”
“Is it going to be all right, Grampa?”
“Yes, yes. I love you, Norrie.”
He closed the phone. It glows, he thought, and wondered if he would ever see that glow. Black Ridge was close (in a small town, everything’s close), but just now it seemed far away. He looked at the PD’s doors, trying to will his friends to come out. And when they didn’t, he climbed from the van. He couldn’t just sit out here any longer. He had to go inside and see what was happening.
30
Barbie saw Junior raise the gun. He heard Junior tell Rusty to close his eyes. He shouted without thinking, with no idea of what he was going to say until the words emerged from his mouth. “Hey, fuckface! I got you, didn’t I? I got you good!” The laughter that followed sounded like the laugh of a lunatic who has been ditching his meds.
So that’s how I laugh when I’m fixing to die, Barbie thought. I’ll have to remember that. Which made him laugh harder.
Junior turned toward him. The right side of his face registered surprise; the left was frozen in a scowl. It reminded Barbie of some supervillain he’d read about in his youth, but he couldn’t remember which. Probably one of Batman’s enemies, they were always the creepiest. Then he remembered that when his little brother Wendell tried to say enemies it came out enemas. This made him laugh harder than ever.
There could be worse ways to go out, he thought as he reached both hands through the bars and shot Junior a nice double-bird. Remember Stubb, in Moby-Dick? “Whatever my fate, I’ll go to it laughing.”
Junior saw Barbie giving him the finger—in stereo—and forgot all about Rusty. He started down the short corridor with his gun held out in front of him. Barbie’s senses were very clear now, but he didn’t trust them. The people he thought he heard moving around and speaking upstairs were almost surely just his imagination. Still, you played your string out to the end. If nothing else, he could give Rusty a few more breaths and a little more time.
“There you are, fuckface,” he said. “Remember how I cleaned your clock that night in Dipper’s? You cried like a little bitch.”
“I didn’t.”
It came out sounding like an exotic special on a Chinese menu. Junior’s face was a wreck. Blood from his left eye was dribbling down one stubble-darkened cheek. It occurred to Barbie that he might just have a chance here. Not a good one, but bad chances were better than no chances. He began to pace from side to side in front of his bunk and his toilet, slowly at first, then faster. Now you know what a mechanical duck in a shooting gallery feels like, he thought. I’ll have to remember that, too.
Junior followed his movements with his one good eye. “Did you fuck her? Did you fuck Angie?” Dih-ooo fuh’er? Dih-oo fuh An’yee?
Barbie laughed. It was the crazy laugh, one he still didn’t recognize as his own, but there was nothing counterfeit about it. “Did I fuck her? Did I fuck her? Junior, I fucked her with her rightside up, her upside down, and her backside all present and accounted for. I fucked her until she sang ‘Hail to the Chief’ and ‘Bad Moon Rising.’ I fucked her until she pounded on the floor and yelled for a whole lot more. I—”
Junior tilted his head toward the gun. Barbie saw it and jigged to the left without delay. Junior fired. The bullet struck the brick wall at the back of the cell. Dark red chips flew. Some hit the bars—Barbie heard the metallic rattle, like peas in a tin cup, even with the gunshot ringing in his ears—but none of them hit Junior.
Shit. From down the hall, Rusty yelled something, probably trying to distract Junior, but Junior was done being distracted. Junior had his prime target in his sights.
Not yet, you don’t, Barbie thought. He was still laughing. It was crazy, nuts, but there it was. Not quite yet, you ugly one-eyed mother-fucker.
“She said you couldn’t get it up, Junior. She called you El Limpdick Supremo. We used to laugh about that while we were—” He leaped to the right at the same instant Junior fired. This time he heard the bullet pass the side of his head: the sound was zzzzzz. More brick chips jumped. One stung the back of Barbie’s neck.
“Come on, Junior, what’s wrong with you? You shoot like woodchucks do algebra. You a headcase? That’s what Angie and Frankie always used to say—”
Barbie faked to the right and then ran at the left side of the cell. Junior fired three times, the explosions deafening, the stink of the blown gunpowder rich and strong. Two of the bullets buried themselves in brick; the third hit the metal toilet low down with a spang sound. Water began to pour out. Barbie struck the far wall of the cell hard enough to rattle his teeth.
“Got you now,” Junior panted. Gah-ooo d’now. But deep down in what remained of his overheated thinking-engine, he wondered. His left eye was blind and his right one had blurred over. He saw not one Barbie but three.
The hateful sonofabitch hit the deck as Junior fired, and this bullet also missed. A small black eye opened in the center of the pillow at the head of the bunk. But at least he was down. No more jigging and jogging. Thank God I put in that fresh clip, Junior thought.
“You poisoned me, Baaarbie. ”
Barbie had no idea what he was talking about, but agreed at once. “That’s right, you loathsome little fuckpuppet, I sure did.”
Junior pushed the Beretta through the bars and closed his bad left eye; that reduced the number of Barbies he saw to just a pair. His tongue was snared between his teeth. His face ran with blood and sweat. “Let’s see you run now, Baaarbie. ”
Barbie couldn’t run, but he could and did crawl, scuttling right at Junior. The next bullet whistled over his head and he felt a vague burn across one buttock as the slug split his jeans and undershorts and removed the top layer of skin beneath them.
Junior recoiled, tripped, almost went down, caught the bars of the cell on his right, and hauled himself back up. “Hold still, mother-fucker!”
Barbie whirled to the bunk and groped beneath it for the knife. He had forgotten all about the fucking knife.
“You want it in the back?” Junior asked from behind him. “Okay; that’s all right with me.”
“Get him!” Rusty shouted. “Get him, GET HIM!”
Before the next gunshot came, Barbie had just time to think, Jesus Christ, Everett, whose side are you on?
31
Jackie came down the stairs with Rommie behind her. She had time to register the haze of gunsmoke drifting around the caged overhead lights, and the stink of expended powder, and then Rusty Everett was screaming Get him, get him.
She saw Junior Rennie at the end of the corridor, crowding against the bars of the cell at the far end, the one the cops sometimes called the Ritz. He was screaming something, but it was all garbled.
She didn’t think. Nor di
d she tell Junior to raise his hands and turn around. She just put two in his back. One entered his right lung; the other pierced his heart. Junior was dead before he slid to the floor with his face pressed between two bars of the cell, his eyes pulled up so stringently he looked like a Japanese death mask.
What his collapsing body revealed was Dale Barbara himself, crouching on his bunk with the carefully secreted knife in his hand. He had never had a chance to open it.
32
Freddy Denton grabbed Officer Henry Morrison’s shoulder. Denton was not his favorite person tonight, and was never going to be his favorite person again. Not that he ever was, Henry thought sourly.
Denton pointed. “Why’s that old fool Calvert going into the PD?”
“How the hell should I know?” Henry asked, and grabbed Donnie Baribeau as Donnie ran by, shouting some senseless shit about terrorists.
“Slow down!” Henry bellowed into Donnie’s face. “It’s all over! Everything’s cool!”
Donnie had been cutting Henry’s hair and telling the same stale jokes twice a month for ten years, but now he looked at Henry as if at a total stranger. Then he tore free and ran in the direction of East Street, where his shop was. Perhaps he meant to take refuge there.
“No civilians got any business being in the PD tonight,” Freddy said. Mel Searles steamed up beside him.
“Well, why don’t you go check him out, killer?” Henry said. “Take this lug with you. Because neither of you are doing the slightest bit of damn good here.”
“She was going for a gun,” Freddy said for the first of what would be many times. “And I didn’t mean to kill her. Only wing her, like.”
Henry had no intention of discussing it. “Go in there and tell the old guy to leave. You can also make sure nobody’s trying to free the prisoners while we’re out here running around like a bunch of chickens with their heads cut off.”
A light dawned in Freddy Denton’s dazed eyes. “The prisoners! Mel, let’s go!”
They started away, only to be frozen by Henry’s bullhorn-amplified voice three yards behind them: “AND PUT AWAY THOSE GUNS, YOU IDIOTS!”
Freddy did as the amplified voice commanded. Mel did the same. They crossed War Memorial Plaza and trotted up the PD steps with their guns holstered, which was probably a very good thing for Norrie’s grandfather.
33
Blood everywhere, Ernie thought, just as Jackie had. He stared at the carnage, dismayed, and then forced himself to move. Everything inside the reception desk had spilled out when Rupe Libby hit it. Lying amid the litter was a red plastic rectangle which he prayed the people downstairs might still be able to put to use.
He was bending down to get it (and telling himself not to throw up, telling himself it was still a lot better than the A Shau Valley in Nam) when someone behind him said, “Holy fucking God in the morning! Stand up, Calvert, slow. Hands over your head.”
But Freddy and Mel were still reaching for their weapons when Rommie came up the stairs to search for what Ernie had already found. Rommie had the speed-pump Black Shadow he’d put away in his safe, and he pointed it at the two cops without a moment’s hesitation.
“You fine fellas might as well come all the way in,” he said. “And stay together. Shoulder to shoulder. If I see light between you, I’ll shoot. Ain’t fuckin the dog on dis, me.”
“Put that down,” Freddy said. “We’re police.”
“Prime assholes is what you are. Stand over dere against that bulletin board. And keep rubbin shoulders while you do it. Ernie, what the damn hell you doin in here?”
“I heard shooting. I was worried.” He held up the red key card that opened the cells in the Coop. “You’ll need this, I think. Unless … unless they’re dead.”
“They ain’t dead, but it was fuckin close. Take it down to Jackie. I’ll watch these fellas.”
“You can’t release em, they’re prisoners,” Mel said. “Barbie’s a murderer. The other one tried to frame Mr. Rennie with some papers or … or somethin like that.”
Rommie didn’t bother replying. “Go on, Ernie. Hurry.”
“What happens to us?” Freddy asked. “You ain’t gonna kill us, are you?”
“Why would I kill you, Freddy? You still owe on that rototiller you bought from me las’ spring. Behind in payments, too, is my recollection. No, we’ll just lock you in the Coop. See how you like it down dere. Smells kinda pissy, but who knows, you might like it.”
“Did you have to kill Mickey?” Mel asked. “He wasn’t nothing but a softheaded boy.”
“We didn’t kill none of em,” Rommie said. “Your good pal Junior did dat.” Not that anybody will believe it come tomorrow night, he thought.
“Junior!” Freddy exclaimed. “Where is he?”
“Shoveling coal down in hell would be my guess,” Rommie said. “Dat’s where they put the new help.”
34
Barbie, Rusty, Jackie, and Ernie came upstairs. The two erstwhile prisoners looked as if they did not quite believe they were still alive. Rommie and Jackie escorted Freddy and Mel down to the Coop. When Mel saw Junior’s crumpled body, he said, “You’ll be sorry for this!”
Rommie said, “Shut your hole and get in your new home. Bot’ in the same cell. You’re chums, after all.”
As soon as Rommie and Jackie had returned to the top floor, the two men began to holler.
“Let’s get out of here while we still can,” Ernie said.
35
On the steps, Rusty looked up at the pink stars and breathed air which stank and smelled incredibly sweet at the same time. He turned to Barbie. “I never expected to see the sky again.”
“Neither did I. Let’s blow town while we’ve got the chance. How does Miami Beach sound to you?”
Rusty was still laughing when he got into the van. Several cops were on the Town Hall lawn, and one of them—Todd Wendlestat—looked over. Ernie raised his hand in a wave; Rommie and Jackie followed suit; Wendlestat returned the wave, then bent to help a woman who had gone sprawling to the grass when her high heels betrayed her.
Ernie slid behind the wheel and mated the electrical wires hanging below the dashboard. The engine started, the side door slammed shut, and the van pulled away from the curb. It rolled slowly up Town Common Hill, weaving around a few stunned meeting-goers who were walking in the street. Then they were out of downtown and headed toward Black Ridge, picking up speed.
ANTS
1
They started seeing the glow on the other side of a rusty old bridge that now spanned nothing but a mudslick. Barbie leaned forward between the front seats of the van. “What’s that? It looks like the world’s biggest Indiglo watch.”
“It’s radiation,” Ernie said.
“Don’t worry,” Rommie said.
“We’ve got plenty of lead roll.”
“Norrie called me on her mother’s cell phone while I was waiting for you,” Ernie said. “She told me about the glow. She says Julia thinks it’s nothing but a kind of … scarecrow, I guess you’d say. Not dangerous.”
“I thought Julia’s degree was in journalism, not science,” Jackie said. “She’s a very nice lady, and smart, but we’re still going to armor this thing up, right? Because I don’t much fancy getting ovarian or breast cancer as a fortieth birthday present.”
“We’ll drive fast,” Rommie said. “You can even slide a piece of dat lead roll down the front of your jeans, if it’ll make you feel better, you.”
“That’s so funny I forgot to laugh,” she said … then did just that when she got an image of herself in lead panties, fashionably high-cut on the sides.
They came to the dead bear at the foot of the telephone pole. They could have seen it even with the headlights off, because by then the combined light from the pink moon and the radiation belt was almost strong enough to read a newspaper by.
While Rommie and Jackie covered the van’s windows with lead roll, the others stood around the rotting bear in a semicircle.
“Nope,” Rusty said. “Suicide.”
“And there are others.”
“Yes. But the smaller animals seem to be safe. The kids and I saw plenty of birds, and there was a squirrel in the orchard. It was just as lively as can be.”
“Then Julia’s almost certainly right,” Barbie said.
“The glow-band’s a scarecrow and the dead animals are another. It’s the old belt-and -suspenders thing.”
“I’m not following you, my friend,” Ernie said.
But Rusty, who had learned the belt-and-suspenders approach as a medical student, absolutely was. “Two warnings to keep out,” he said. “Dead animals by day, a glowing belt of radiation by night.”
“So far as I know,” Rommie said, joining them at the side of the road, “radiation only glows in science fiction movies.”
Rusty thought of telling him they were living in a science fiction movie, and Rommie would realize it when he got close to that weird box on the ridge. But of course Rommie was right.
“We’re supposed to see it,” he said. “The same with the dead animals. You’re supposed to say, ‘Whoa—if there’s some kind of suicide ray out here that affects big mammals, I better stay away. After all, I’m a big mammal.’”
“But the kids didn’t back off,” Barbie said.
“Because they’re kids,” Ernie said. And, after a moment’s consideration: “Also skateboarders. They’re a different breed.”
“I still don’t like it,” Jackie said, “but since we have noplace else to go, maybe we could drive through yonder Van Allen Belt before I lose what’s left of my nerve. After what happened at the cop-shop, I’m feeling a little shaky.”
“Wait a minute,” Barbie said. “There’s something out of kilter here. I see it, but give me a second to think how to say it.”