by Stephen King
He stands, wipes his brow again, and pulls up the blanket. She clutches it at once, pulls it to her chin, and turns on her side. That’s good because she might vomit again. He can’t believe she has anything left to bring up, considering all she puked out in the foyer, but there’s no way to tell.
Even with the blanket, she’s shivering.
What am I supposed to do with you? Billy thinks. Just what the fuck am I supposed to do with you, tell me that.
It’s a question he can’t answer. All he knows is that he’s in the mother of all messes.
4
He gets a fresh pair of boxers from the bureau, leaving just one. He goes out to the living room and lies down on the couch. He doubts he’ll sleep, but if he does it will be thin and he’ll hear her if she gets up and tries to leave the apartment. And do what? Stop her, of course, if only because it’s cold and raining and damn near blowing a gale, from the sound. But that’s tonight. When she wakes up in the morning, hungover and disoriented and in a stranger’s apartment, clothes gone—
Her clothes. Still on the floor, in a sodden heap.
Billy gets off the couch and takes them into the bathroom. On the way he stops to look at his uninvited guest. She’s stopped snoring but she’s still shivering. A sodden clot of hair lies against one of her cheeks. He bends and pushes it away.
“Please, I don’t want to,” she says.
Billy freezes, but when there’s nothing more he goes into the bathroom. There’s a hook on the door. He hangs the cheap jacket on it. There’s a shower-tub combo of the sort found in cut-rate motels. He wrings out her shirt and skirt in the tub and drapes them over the shower curtain rod to dry. The jacket has three zip-style pockets, a little one above the left breast and two bigger diagonal ones on the side. There’s nothing in the breast pocket. There’s a man’s wallet in one of the side pockets and a phone in the other.
He removes the SIM card and puts the phone back in the pocket it came from for the time being. He opens the wallet. The first thing he finds is her driver’s license. Her name is Alice Maxwell and she’s from Kingston, Rhode Island. She’s twenty years old. No, check that, just turned twenty-one. DMV photographs are awful as a rule, something you’re even embarrassed to show the cop who stops you for speeding, but hers is pretty good. Or maybe Billy only thinks that because he’s seen her looking far worse than any DL photo. Her eyes are wide and blue. There’s a little smile on her lips.
First license, he thinks. She hasn’t even had it renewed yet, because it’s still got the one AM restriction for teenagers.
There’s one credit card, which she has signed Alice Reagan Maxwell with painstaking clarity. There’s an ID card from Clarendon Business College here in the city, an AMC gift card (Billy can’t remember if those were the late Ken Hoff’s theaters or not), an insurance card which includes her blood type (O), and some pictures of a much younger Alice Maxwell with her high school friends, her dog, and a woman who’s probably her mother. There’s also a picture of a smiling teenage boy with his shirt off, maybe a high school boyfriend.
In the billfold he finds two tens, two ones, and a newspaper clipping. It’s the obituary of one Henry Maxwell, services at Christ Baptist Church in Kingston, in lieu of flowers send contributions to the American Cancer Society. The picture shows a man in mid to late middle age. He has jowls and thinning hair painstakingly combed across his otherwise bald dome. He looks like anyone you would pass on the street without noticing, but Billy can see the family resemblance even in the grainy photo, and Alice Reagan Maxwell loved him enough to carry his wallet, with his obituary inside it. Billy has to like her for that.
If she’s going to school here, and her father was buried there, her mother, almost certainly back in Kingston, won’t wonder where she is, at least not immediately. Billy puts the wallet back in her jacket but takes the phone and puts it in the top drawer of his bureau, under his own supply of T-shirts.
He wonders if he should clean up her vomit in the foyer before it dries and decides against it. If she wakes up thinking he’s the reason her female works feel like they’re on fire, he’d like to have at least some evidence that he brought her in from the outside. Of course that won’t convince her that he didn’t help himself later, once he was reasonably sure she wasn’t going to spew on him or wake up and fight while he was humping her.
She’s still shivering. That’s got to be shock, doesn’t it? Or maybe a reaction to whatever those men put in her drink? Billy has heard about roofies but has no idea what the aftereffects might be.
He starts to leave. The girl—Alice—moans. She sounds desolate, bereft.
Well shit, Billy thinks. This is probably the worst idea ever, but what the hell.
He gets in bed with her. Her back is to him. He puts an arm around her and pulls her close. “Snuggle up, kiddo. You’re okay. Snuggle the fuck up, get warm, stop shaking. You’ll feel better in the morning. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”
I’m fucked, he thinks again.
Maybe the comfort is what she needed, or the extra heat from his body, or maybe all that shivering would have stopped on its own. Billy doesn’t know and doesn’t care. He’s only glad when the shakes become intermittent, then finally quit. The snoring has quit, too. Now he can hear the rain pelting the building. It’s an old structure, and when the wind gusts, its joints creak. The sound is oddly comforting.
I’ll get up in a minute or two, he thinks. Just as soon as I’m sure she’s not going to snap awake and start screaming bloody murder. In just a minute or two.
He falls asleep instead and dreams there’s smoke in the kitchen. He can smell burned cookies. He needs to warn Cathy, tell her she needs to take them out of the oven before their mother’s boyfriend comes home, but he can’t speak. This is the past and he’s only a spectator.
5
Billy jerks awake in the dark some time later, convinced he’s overslept his appointment with Joel Allen and screwed up the job he’s spent months waiting to do. Then he hears the girl breathing next to him—breathing, not snoring—and he remembers where he is. Her butt is socked into his basket and he realizes he has an erection, which is totally inappropriate under the circumstances. Downright grotesque, in fact, but so many times the body doesn’t care about the circumstances. It just wants what it wants.
He gets out of bed in the dark and feels his way to the bathroom with one hand cupped over the front of his tented shorts, not wanting to whang his distended cock into the bureau and make this shit carnival of a night complete. The girl, meanwhile, doesn’t stir. Her slow breathing suggests that she’s gone deep, and that’s good.
By the time he’s in the bathroom with the door shut, his erection has deflated and he can piss. The toilet is noisy and has a tendency to keep running if you don’t flap the handle a few times, so he just lowers the lid, turns off the light, and feels his way across back to the bureau, where he fumbles until he feels the elastic waistband of his one pair of workout shorts.
He closes the door to the bedroom and makes his way across the living room with a little more confidence, because the curtain across the periscope window is still pushed back and the nearby streetlight casts enough glow to see by.
He looks out and sees nothing but the deserted street. The rain is still coming down but the wind has let up a little. He pulls the curtain closed and checks his watch, which he never took off. It’s quarter past four in the morning. He puts on the shorts, lies down on the couch, and tries to think what he should do with her when she wakes up, but what’s jamming up the forefront of his mind, ridiculous but true, is that her unwelcome appearance in his life has probably put an end to his writing, and just when it was going well. He has to smile. It’s like worrying if there’s enough toilet paper when you hear the town’s tornado siren go off.
The body wants what it wants, and so does the mind, he thinks, and closes his eyes. He means only to doze but falls fully asleep again instead. When he wakes up the girl is standing over hi
m, wearing the T-shirt he got her into when he put her to bed. And holding a knife.
CHAPTER 14
1
“Where am I? Who are you? Did you rape me? You did, didn’t you?”
Her eyes are red and her hair is every whichway. Her picture could be next to hangover in the dictionary. She also looks scared to death, and Billy can’t blame her for that.
“You were raped, but I didn’t rape you.”
The knife is just the little one he used to pry up the splinters in his feet. He left it on the coffee table. He reaches out and takes it from her. He does it gently and she makes no protest.
“Who are you?” Alice asks. “What’s your name?”
“Dalton Smith.”
“Where are my clothes?”
“Hanging from the shower rod in the bathroom. I undressed you and—”
“Undressed me!” She looks down at the shirt.
“And dried you off. You were soaking wet. Shivering. How’s your head?”
“Aches. I feel like I drank all night, but I only had one beer… and I think maybe a g-and-t… where are we?”
Billy swings his feet to the floor. She backs away, hands coming up in a warding-off gesture. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
She considers it, but not for long. She lowers her hands. “Yes. And do you have aspirin?”
2
He makes coffee. She swallows two aspirin while she waits for it, then slowly goes into the bathroom. He hears the door lock, but that doesn’t concern him. A five-year-old could bust that lock, and a ten-year-old would probably bust the door off the hinges in the bargain.
She comes back to the kitchen. “You didn’t flush. Ugh.”
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“Where’s my phone? It was in my jacket.”
“I don’t know. Do you want some toast?”
She makes a face. “No. I’ve got my wallet but not my phone. Did you take it?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
“No.”
“Like I should believe you,” she says with shaky contempt. She sits down, tugging at the hem of the T-shirt, although it’s long and everything that needs to be covered is covered.
“Where’s my underwear?” The tone is accusing, prosecutorial.
“Your bra is under the coffee table. One of the straps was broken. Maybe I can knot it together for you. As for underpants, you weren’t wearing any.”
“You’re lying. What do you think I am, a whore?”
“No.”
What he thinks is that she’s a young girl away from home for the first time who went to a wrong place where there were wrong people. Bad people who loaded her up with something and took advantage of her.
“Well I’m not,” she says, and begins to cry. “I’m a virgin. At least I was. This is a mess. The worst mess I’ve ever been in.”
“I can relate to that,” Billy says, and with absolute sincerity.
“Why didn’t you call the police? Or take me to the hospital?”
“You were messed up but not circling the drain. By that I mean—”
“I know what it means.”
“I thought I’d wait until you woke up, let you decide what you want to do. Maybe a cup of coffee will help you figure it out. It can’t hurt. And by the way, what’s your name?” Best to get that out, so he doesn’t screw up and say it himself.
3
He pours the coffee, ready to dodge if she tries throwing it in his face and then running for the door. He doesn’t think she will, she’s settling down a little, but this is still a situation that could go bad. Well hey, it’s bad already, but it could get worse.
She doesn’t throw the coffee at him. She sips some and makes a face. Her lips press tight together and he can see the muscles in her throat moving even after it’s gone down.
“If you’re going to throw up again, do it in the sink.”
“I’m not going to… what do you mean again? How did I get here? Are you sure you didn’t rape me?”
That isn’t funny but Billy can’t help smiling. “If I did, I think I’d know.”
“How did I get here? What happened?”
He sips his own coffee. “That would be the middle of the story. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me what happened to you.”
“I don’t remember. Last night is your basic black hole. All I know is I woke up here, hungover and feeling like somebody stuck a fencepost up my… you know.” She sips her coffee and this time she gets it down without having to repress a gag reflex.
“What about before that?”
She looks at him, blue eyes wide, mouth moving. Then her head droops. “Was it Tripp? Did he put something in my beer? My g-and-t? Both? Is that what you’re telling me?”
Billy restrains an impulse to reach across the table and put his hand over hers. He’s gained a little ground but if he touches her he’ll almost certainly lose it. She’s not ready to be touched by a man, especially one with nothing on but worn workout shorts.
“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. You were. So tell me what happened, Alice. Right up to when your memory drops out.”
So she does. And as she does, he can see the question in her eyes: if you didn’t rape me, why did I wake up in your bed instead of a hospital bed?
4
It’s not a long story, even with some background added in. Billy thinks he could tell it himself once she gets started, because it’s an old story. Halfway through it she stops, her eyes widening. She begins to hyperventilate, her hand clutching her throat while the air goes whooping in and out.
“Is it asthma?”
He didn’t find an inhaler, but it might have been in her purse. If she was carrying one, it’s gone now.
She shakes her head. “Panic…” Whoop. “… attack.” Whoop.
Billy goes into the bathroom and wets a washcloth as soon as the tap runs warm. He wrings it out loosely and brings it back. “Tip your head up and put this over your face.”
He would have thought it impossible for her eyes to get any wider but somehow they do. “I’ll…” Whoop. “… choke!”
“No. It’ll open you up.”
He tips her head back himself—gently—and drapes the washcloth over her eyes, nose, and mouth. Then he waits. After fifteen seconds or so, her breathing starts to ease. She takes the washcloth off her face. “It worked!”
“Breathing the moisture makes it work,” Billy says.
There might be some truth in that, but probably not much. It’s breathing the idea that makes it work. He saw Clay Briggs—Pillroller, their corpsman—use it several times on newbies (and a few vets, like Bigfoot Lopez) before they went back for another bite of the rotten apple named Phantom Fury. Sometimes there was another trick he used if the wet washcloth didn’t work. Billy listened carefully when Pill explained both of these tricks to soothe the mental monkey. He’s always been a good listener, storing up information like a squirrel storing up nuts.
“Can you finish now?”
“Can I have some toast?” She asks almost shyly. “And is there any juice?”
“No juice, but I’ve got some ginger ale. Want that?”
“Yes, please.”
He makes toast. He pours ginger ale into a glass and adds an ice cube. He sits down across from her. Alice Maxwell tells her timeworn story. It’s one Billy has heard before and read before, most recently in the works of Émile Zola.
She spent a year after high school waitressing in her hometown, saving up money for business school. She could have gone in Kingston, there were two there that were supposed to be good, but she wanted to see a little more of the world. And get away from Mom, Billy thinks. He might be starting to understand why she’s not demanding he call the police immediately. But the question of why “seeing a little more of the world” meant coming to this nondescript city… about that he has no idea.
She works part time as a barista at a coffee shop on Emery Plaza, not three block
s from Billy’s writing nest in Gerard Tower, and that was where she met Tripp Donovan. He struck up casual conversations with her over a week or two. He made her laugh. He was charming. So of course when he invited her out for a bite after work one day, she said yes. A movie date followed, and then—fast worker, that Tripp—he asked if she’d like to go dancing at a side-of-the-road place he knew out on Route 13. She told him she wasn’t much of a dancer. He of course said neither was he, they didn’t have to dance, they could just buy a pitcher of beer and stretch it out while they listened to the music. He told her it was a Foghat cover band, did she like Foghat? Alice said she did. She had never heard of Foghat, but she downloaded some of their music that very night. It was good. A little bluesy, but mostly straight-ahead rock and roll.
The Tripp Donovans of the world have a nose for a certain kind of girl, Billy thinks. They are shy girls who make friends slowly because they aren’t very good at making the first move. They are mildly pretty girls who have been bludgeoned by beauty on TV, in the movies, on the Internet, and in the celebrity magazines so that they see themselves not as mildly pretty but as plain, or even sort of ugly. They see their bad features—the too-wide mouth, the too-close-set eyes—and ignore the good ones. These are girls who have been told by the fashion mags in the beauty shops, and often by their own mothers, that they need to lose twenty pounds. They despair over the size of their boobs, butts, and feet. To be asked out is a wonder, but then there is the agony of what to wear. This certain kind of girl can call girlfriends to discuss that, but only if she has them. Alice, new in the city, does not. But on their movie date, Tripp doesn’t seem to mind her clothes or her too-wide mouth. Tripp is funny. Tripp is charming. Tripp is complimentary. And he’s a perfect gentleman. He kisses her after the movie date, but it’s a wanted kiss, a desired kiss, and he doesn’t spoil it by sticking his tongue in her mouth or grabbing at her breasts.