by Stephen King
Billy finds one in the nightstand on Don’s side of the bed. It’s a Ruger GP six-shooter, fully loaded. Beside it is a box of .38 centerfire cartridges. Billy sees no reason to take the gun downstairs; if the cops bust in on him, he’s certainly not going to shoot it out with them. But you never know when a gun might come in handy, and it’s good to know where he can lay his hands on one if the need arises. What need that might be he can’t imagine, but there are many twists and turns as one hops down the bunny trail of life. No one knows better than he does.
He gives Bev’s plants a squirt each with the vaporizer, then trots back downstairs. Outside he can hear the wind picking up, blowing across the vacant lot on the other side of the street. The forecast is for rain and even colder temperatures. “You might not believe it,” the lady weatherperson chirped that morning, “but there may actually be some sleet mixed in with it. I guess Mother Nature can’t read the calendar!”
Billy doesn’t care if it rains, sleets, snows, or shits bananas. He’s going to be in this basement apartment no matter what the weather is. The story he’s writing has taken over his life because for the time being it’s the only life he has, and that’s okay.
He’s had two brief communications with Bucky Hanson. Last night he texted Are u ok? to which Bucky responded Y. He texted Has the money been paid? to which Bucky responded, as Billy expected, N. He can’t call Giorgio, even with his burner, because the cops may be up on his phone. And what would he get if he took the risk? Almost certainly a female robot telling him that number is no longer in service. Because Giorgio is no longer in service. Billy is sure of it.
In the alternate world of his story, Billy has reached Operation Phantom Fury in November of 2004. He thinks that part may take ten days, possibly two weeks. When it’s done, when he’s put the story of the Funhouse to rest, he’ll pack up his shit and get out of town. The checkpoints will be gone by then, may be gone already.
He sits at the laptop, looking at where he left off. Two days before the assault commenced, Jamieson ordered Johnny and Pablo to get the baseball kids off the base, and they all understood what that meant: they were going in again, and this time they’d be staying in until the job was done.
Billy remembers Zamir looking back at the gate and giving one final cry of “He was safe, mothafuckah!” Then they were gone for good. All these years later they’d be grown men. If they’re still alive.
He starts to write about the day the baseball kids got sent home, but it feels flat. The well is temporarily dry. He saves his copy, shuts down, then walks around to the other laptops, the cheapies. He boots each up in turn, checks that all clickbait is updated (MICHAEL JACKSON’S DYING WISH, ONE SIMPLE TRICK TO BEAT SCIATICA, WHAT THE ORIGINAL MOUSKETEERS LOOK LIKE NOW), and shuts them down, too. All is well in his little world. He has a plan. He will finish the Iraq part of his story, the Funhouse serving as the natural climax. When that’s done he’ll pack up and get out of this bad luck town. He will drive west, not north, and at some point in the not-too-distant future, he will pay Nick Majarian a visit.
Nick owes him money.
2
Billy’s plan lasts until quarter to midnight. He’s been watching some action movie in his underwear, and although the plot is simple—something about a guy seeking revenge on the men who killed his dog—Billy has lost the thread. He decides to call it a day. He shuts off the idiot box and is heading for the bedroom when there’s a loud squall of skidding tires and badly maintained brakes outside. He braces himself for the sound of the crash, that hollow slam-the-big-door boom as the vehicle goes head-on into a power pole. Instead he hears faint music and loud laughter. Drunken laughter, from the sound.
He goes to his periscope window and shoves back the curtain. There’s a streetlight up the way and it casts just enough glow for him to see an old van with rusty sides. One set of wheels is on the sidewalk running beside the vacant lot. It’s raining now, and hard enough so the van’s headlights look like they’re cutting through a gauze curtain. The long door on the passenger side rolls open on its track. The inside light goes on, but all Billy can make out through the blowing rain are shapes. Three at least, moving around. No, there are four. The fourth is slumped over, head low. Two of them are holding the shape under its arms, which hang down at the elbows like broken wings.
There’s more laughter and talk. Two guys manhandle the slumped shape out of the van while a third stands behind them like he’s supervising. The unconscious person has long dark hair. Probably a girl. The guys take her behind the van and let go of her. She folds up with her top half on the sidewalk and her bottom half in the gutter. The two guys hop back in. The cargo door rolls shut. For a moment the old van stays there, idling with its headlights cutting through the pelting rain. Then it pulls out with a squeal of tires and a belch of exhaust. There’s a bumper sticker on the back, but no way can Billy read it. The light over the license plate is flickering, almost dead.
It’s a girl for sure. She’s wearing sneakers, a skirt hiked up high enough to show nearly all of one bent leg, and a leather jacket. The exposed leg is half submerged in running gutter water. It looks very white. Can she be dead? Would those men have been laughing if she was? After some of the things he’s seen in the desert (and can never unsee), Billy knows it’s possible.
He has to get her, and not just because she might die out there if he doesn’t. This part of town is quiet even at noon on a weekday, but eventually someone will come along and spot her. They might not stop, good Samaritans are always in short supply, but they would surely call 911. Thank God it’s late and thank God he didn’t go to bed five minutes sooner. There would have come a knock on his door, cops canvassing the houses on this side of Pearson Street to find out if anyone had seen the girl dumped, and if the knock came at one or two in the morning, he’d have no chance to even put on the Dalton Smith wig, let alone the fake stomach. Hey, one of the cops might say. You look familiar, buddy. I think you should come with us.
Billy doesn’t bother putting on his pants and shoes, just runs up the stairs in his boxers. He goes through the foyer and down the front steps, leaving the door open to bang back and forth in the wind. He’s aware that he’s gotten a pretty good splinter in the ball of one foot, run it in there deep, but more aware of how fucking cold it is. Not cold enough for the rain to turn to sleet, at least not yet, but close. His arms are covered in goosebumps. The part of his big toe that isn’t there aches. If the girl is still alive, she might not stay that way for long.
Billy goes to one knee and picks her up, so cranked with adrenaline that he has no idea if she’s heavy or light. He looks both ways with rain running down his face and bare chest. His boxers are soaked, hanging low on his hips. He sees no one. Thank God. He splashes back to the apartment side of the street, and as he’s carrying her up the walk, she turns her head, makes a guttural sound, and spews a thin ribbon of vomit down his side and one of his legs. It’s shockingly warm, almost like an electric heating pad.
Well, he thinks, she’s alive all right.
He picks up another splinter on the steps, but then he’s inside. He can’t leave the outside door to bang in the wind, so he sets her down in the foyer and pulls it closed. When he turns back to her, the girl’s eyes are half open. He can see a big purplish bruise on her cheek and the side of her nose. Can’t be from the pavement because she didn’t go down on her face. Besides, the bruising is too well established for that.
“Who’re you?” the girl slurs. “Where—” Then she vomits again. This time it backwashes down her throat and she starts to choke.
Billy kneels behind her and gets an arm around her midsection. He uses her breasts as a brace and hauls her up in front of him. Now his fucking boxers, wet with rainwater and a little too big to begin with, start sliding down his legs. He gets two fingers in her mouth, hoping to God she won’t bite him. Infected cuts are the last thing he needs. He gets a wad of stuff out, flings it to the floor, then tightens his grip on her midsection
. It does the trick. She hurls like a hero, a banner of puke that hits the foyer wall with a splat.
A car, one that would have spelled his doom just three minutes before, is coming. Billy can see its headlights brightening the rain-splattered glass of the front door. He drops to one knee, still holding the girl in front of him. His stupid boxers are now spread between his knees and he actually has time to wonder why he ever gave up Jockeys. Her head is lolling forward, but he thinks the rasping sounds he now hears are snores, not choking. She’s out again.
The headlights brighten, then diminish without slowing. Billy gets to his feet, hauling the girl up with him. He gets an arm under her knees, the other around her shoulders. Her head lolls backward. He shimmies his legs and his shorts fall to his ankles. He steps out of them and kicks them aside. It’s like some nightmarish vaudeville skit.
Her dank hair drips and pendulums back and forth as he sidesaddles down the stairs, trying not to overbalance and fall. Her upturned face is as pale as the moon. There’s another bruise on her forehead, above her left eye.
And Jesus, his feet are killing him. Never mind his half-gone toe, those fucking splinters! He makes it to the foot of the stairs without falling and bumps open the door to his apartment with his butt. She starts to slither out of his grip, her body forming a limp U shape. He raises one leg into the small of her back, shoves her back up, and staggers inside. She starts to slide again. Ignoring the splinters digging into his cold-reddened feet, Billy sprints to the couch. He makes it just in time. She lands with a thump, gives out a fuzzy grunting noise, then resumes her snoring.
Billy bends forward with his hands braced above his knees to ease his back, which is trying to cramp up. The stink of puke rising from her almost makes him feel like puking himself. He can smell alcohol too, but it’s faint.
Well, she offloaded it, he thinks, but if she really got her drink on he should still be able to smell it on her breath. He should have smelled it in the foyer. And—
He lifts his leg, smelling the mostly liquid vomit on his skin. He still gets only the faintest whiff of booze.
He looks her up and down. The skirt she’s wearing is denim, frayed at the hem, and short. He could see her underpants if she was wearing any, but she’s not. He sees something else. The outsides of her thighs are pale and white—like the moon—but the tops of the insides are speckled with drying blood.
3
The girl retches again, but weakly, and nothing comes out except for a dribble of cloudy drool down the side of her mouth. Then she starts to shiver. Of course she’s shivering, she’s soaked. Billy pulls off her sneakers. Tiny ankle socks come with them. There are hearts on the tops. He gets her to sit up, muttering “Come on, little help here,” although he knows she can’t help. Her eyelids flutter and she tries to talk. She may even think she is talking, that she’s asking all the questions anyone might ask in a situation like this, but the only words he can make out are who and you. All the rest is just huzzz and whaa.
“That’s right,” Billy says, “all okay now, just don’t die on me.”
Although even now, as he’s trying to cope with this fucked-up situation, Billy realizes it might simplify things if she did. It’s a rotten thought, but that doesn’t make it untrue.
He gets her jacket—cheap, thin, and not real leather at all but some synthetic—off. Beneath is a T-shirt with BLACK KEYS NORTH AMERICAN TOUR 2017 on the front. He tries to pull it off over her head and it gets caught on her chin. She moans and he gets three words in the clear: “No, don’t choke.”
She starts to slide. He gets the shirt off just in time to catch her and keep her from falling onto the floor. Her plain white cotton bra is askew, one breast covered and one out because the strap that’s supposed to go over her left shoulder is broken. He shoves the bra down, turns it around, and manages to get it unhooked.
Once her top half is undressed, he’s able to lie her back down. He pulls off her soaked denim skirt and throws it on the floor with the rest of her clothes. Now she’s naked except for one earring, the other gone God knows where. She’s all over gooseflesh, still shivering. It’s because she’s cold, but it’s also shock. He saw shivering like that in Fallujah, and saw it turn into convulsions. Of course she hasn’t suffered multiple bullet wounds in the legs like poor old Johnny Capps, but there is blood on her, and now he sees three bruises on one of the girl’s small breasts as well. Narrow bruises. Somebody grabbed her there and squeezed. Really hard. There are two more finger-shaped bruises on the left side of her neck and Billy thinks of her saying No, don’t choke.
Mindful that she may not be done vomiting, Billy turns her on her side and then pushes her front-first to the back of the couch so she hopefully won’t fall off. She’s snoring again, the sound harsh but regular. And her teeth are chattering. She’s one fucked-up American.
He hurries into the bathroom and gets one of his two bath towels. He kneels in front of the couch and rubs her back, her butt, her thighs and calves. He does it briskly, relieved to see a little faint color rise into her pallid skin. He takes one of her shoulders (another bruise there, but smaller), rolls her onto her back, and begins again: feet, legs, stomach, breasts, chest, shoulders. When he does her face she raises her hands in a weak warding-off gesture, then drops them as if it’s too much work, just too much. He makes an effort to dry her hair but he’s not going to get far with that because there’s a lot of it, and the rainwater from the gutter soaked it to the scalp.
Billy thinks, I’m fucked. No matter how this goes, I’m fucked.
He drops the towel and reaches for her, planning to roll her back onto her side so that she won’t choke if she throws up again, then re-thinks. He takes her right leg and lowers it so her heel is on the floor and her vagina is revealed. The labia are enflamed bright red and split in several places, one of the splits still beading up fresh blood. The flesh between her vagina and her rectum—he knows the word for that part but can’t think of it in this stressed-out moment—is torn worse than her labia, and God knows what damage there might be inside. He can see several dried splats of semen as well, most of it on her lower stomach and in her pubic hair.
The guy pulled out, Billy thinks, then remembers that there were three shapes in the van, and judging from the sound of their laughter, all male. One of them did, anyway.
This thought makes him aware of his own situation. Considering what has happened to the girl on his couch, it’s not without irony: she’s out cold with her legs open and both of them as naked as the day they were born. What would his Evergreen Street neighbors think if they could see this tableau? Not even Corrie Ackerman, kind heart that she is, would continue to defend him. He can see the headline in the Red Bluff News: COURTHOUSE ASSASSIN ALSO RAPED TEENAGER!
Fucked, he thinks. Fucked to the sky and back down to the ground.
Billy wants to get her into bed, but he has something else to attend to first. Now that things have settled down, he realizes his feet hurt like blue fuck. There’s a lot of stuff he didn’t buy when he stocked this place, and that includes tweezers, but there are Band-Aids and some leftover hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom from the last tenant. The disinfectant is probably long past the sell-by date, but beggars can’t be choosers.
Walking on the sides of his feet as best he can, Billy gets a paring knife from the kitchen, then the bathroom stuff. The Band-Aids are decorated with Toy Story characters. He sits on the floor beside the snoring, shivering girl and uses the knife to lift the splinters enough so he can pull them out. There are five in all, including two big boys. He douses the bleeding wounds with peroxide. The sting makes him think the stuff may actually do some good. He covers the two biggest wounds with Band-Aids that probably won’t stick very long. He guesses they’re pretty old, maybe from two or even three tenants back.
He gets to his feet, rolls his shoulders to loosen them, then picks up the girl. Without the adrenaline to boost him, he guesses her weight at one-fifteen. Maybe one-twenty. Not much of a ma
tch for three men. Did they all rape her? Billy guesses that if they were together and one did, they all did. He will ask her when she comes around, for all the good it will do. He doubts if she’ll be able to remember and what she’ll want to know is why he didn’t call the police or take her to the nearest ER.
She’s sinking into a U shape again and Billy ends up dropping her onto the bed instead of putting her down on it gently, as he intended. She opens her eyes a bit, then closes them again and resumes snoring. He doesn’t want to wrestle with her anymore, but he also doesn’t want her lying there naked. She’s going to be freaked out enough when she wakes up. He gets a T-shirt from the bureau, sits beside her, lifts her with his left arm and gets the shirt over her head with his right hand. Her fuzzy sounds of protest fade back into snores when he gets it past her face and over her shoulders.
“Help me now.” He lifts one of her arms and after a couple of failures manages to poke it through the short sleeve. “Little help, okay?”
Some part of her must hear him because she raises her other arm and finally wavers it into the sleeve. He lays her back down, blows out a breath, and arms sweat from his forehead. The shirt is bunched above her breasts. He pulls it down in front, lifts her, pulls it down in back. She’s shivering again and whimpering a little. Billy puts an arm under her knees, lifts her, and yanks the hem of the shirt down over her buttocks and thighs.
God, like dressing a baby, Billy thinks.
He hopes she won’t piss the bed—he’s only got this one set of sheets and the nearest laundromat is three blocks away—but he knows there’s a good chance she will. At least most of the bleeding has stopped. He supposes it could have been worse. They could have torn her wide open, even killed her. That might even have been what they meant to do, dumping her the way they did, but Billy doubts it. He thinks they were all just really drunk. Or high on something mean, like crystal. The assholes probably thought she’d come around and walk home, sadder but wiser.