by Steven King
“Mind if I crank the window down a little?”
“If you want,” Leigh said, and found it took some effort to keep her voice steady and casual. Suddenly her mind’s eye showed her the picture that had been in the paper yesterday morning, a picture of Moochie Welch probably culled from the yearbook. The caption beneath read: Peter Welch, victim of fatal hit-and-run incident that police feel may have been murder.
The hitchhiker unrolled his window three inches and crisp cold air came in, driving that smell away. Inside McD’s, Arnie had reached the counter and was giving his order. Looking at him, Leigh experienced such an odd swirl of love and fear that she felt nauseated by the mixture—for the second or third time lately she found herself wishing that she had fixed on Dennis first, Dennis who seemed so safe and sensible …
She turned her thoughts away from that.
“Just tell me if it gets cold on you,” the hitchhiker said apologetically. “I’m weird, I know it.” He sighed. “Sometimes I think I never should have given up drugs, you know?”
Leigh smiled.
Arnie came out with a white bag, skidded a little in the snow, and then got behind the wheel.
“Cold like an icebox in here,” he grunted.
“Sorry, man,” the hitchhiker said from the back, and rolled the window up again. Leigh waited to see if that smell would come back, but now she could smell nothing but leather, upholstery, and the faint aroma of Arnie’s aftershave.
“Here you go, Leigh.” He gave her a burger, fries, and a small Coke. He had gotten himself a Big Mac.
“Want to thank you again for the ride, man,” the hitchhiker said. “You can just drop me off at the corner of JFK and Center, if that’s cool.”
“Fine,” Arnie said shortly, and pulled out. The snow was coming down even more heavily now, and the wind had begun to whoop. For the first time Leigh felt Christine skid a bit as she felt for a grip on the wide street, which was now almost deserted. They were less than fifteen minutes from home.
With the smell gone, Leigh discovered that her appetite had come back. She wolfed half of her hamburger, drank some Coke, and stifled a burp with the back of her hand. The corner of Center and JFK, marked with a war memorial, came up on the left, and Arnie pulled over, pumping the brakes lightly so Christine wouldn’t slide.
“Have a nice weekend,” Arnie said. He sounded more like his usual self now. Maybe all he needed was some food, Leigh thought, amused.
“Same goes to both of you,” the hitchhiker said. “And have a merry Christmas.”
“You too,” Leigh said. She took another bite of her hamburger, chewed, swallowed … and felt it lodge halfway down her throat. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe.
The hitchhiker was getting out. The noise of the door opening was very loud. The sound of the latch clicking sounded like the thud of tumblers falling in a bank-vault. The sound of the wind was like a factory whistle.
(this is stupid I know but I can’t Arnie I can’t breathe)
I’m choking! she tried to say, and what came out was a faint, fuzzy sound that she was sure the whine of the wind must have covered. She clawed at her throat and it felt swollen and throbbing in her hand. She tried to scream. No breath to scream, no breath
(Arnie I can’t)
at all, and she could feel it in there, a warm lump of burger and bun. She tried to cough it up and it wouldn’t come. The dashboard lights, bright green, circular
(cat like the eyes of a cat dear God I can’t BREATHE)
watching her—
(God I can’t BREATHE can’t BREATHE can’t)
Her chest began to pound for air. Again she tried to cough up the lump of half-chewed burger and bun in her throat, but it wouldn’t come. Now the sound of the wind was bigger than the world, bigger than any sound she had ever heard before, and Arnie was finally turning away from the hitchhiker to look at her; he was turning in slow motion, his eyes widening almost comically, and even his voice seemed too loud, like thunder, the voice of Zeus speaking to some poor mortal from behind a massy skystack of thunderclouds:
“LEIGH … ARE YOU … WHAT THE HELL? … SHE’S CHOKING! OH MY GOD SHE’S—”
He reached for her in slow motion, and then he drew his hands back, immobilized by panic.
(Oh help me help me for God’s sake do something I’m dying oh my dear God I’m choking to death on a McDonald’s hamburger Arnie why don’t you HELP ME?)
and of course she knew why, he drew back because Christine didn’t want her to have any help, this was Christine’s way of getting rid of her, Christine’s way of getting rid of the other woman, the competition, and now the dashboard instruments really were eyes, great round unemotional eyes watching her choke to death, eyes she could see only through a growing jitter of black dots, dots that burst and spread as
(mamma oh my dear this I’m dying and SHE SEES ME SHE IS ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE OH MAMMA MY GOD CHRISTINE IS ALIVE)
Arnie reached for her again. Now she had begun to thrash on the seat, her chest heaving spasmodically as she clawed at her throat. Her eyes were bulging. Her lips had begun to turn blue. Arnie was pounding her ineffectually on the back and yelling something. He grabbed her shoulder, apparently meaning to pull her out of the car, and then he suddenly winced and straightened, his hands going involuntarily to the small of his back.
Leigh twitched and thrashed. The blockage in her throat felt huge and hot and throbbing. She tried again to cough it up, more weakly this time. The lump didn’t budge. Now the whistle of the wind was beginning to fade, everything was beginning to fade, but her need for air didn’t seem so awful. Maybe she was dying, but suddenly it didn’t seem so bad. Nothing was so bad, except for those green eyes staring at her from the instrument panel They weren’t unemotional anymore. Now they were blazing with hate and triumph.
(o my God I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee I am for offending this is my act my act of of)
Arnie had reached across from the driver’s side. Now Leigh’s door was suddenly jerked open and she spilled sideways into a brutal, cutting cold. The air partially revived her, made her struggle for breath seem important again, but the obstruction wouldn’t move … it just wouldn’t move.
From far away, Arnie’s voice thundering sternly, the voice of Zeus: “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? GET YOUR HANDS OFF HER!”
Arms around her. Strong arms. The wind on her face. Snow swirling in her eyes.
(o my God hear me a sinner this is my act of contrition I am heartily sorry for having offended OH! OWWW! what are you DOING my ribs hurts what what are you) and suddenly there were arms around her, crushing, and a pair of hard hands were clasped together in a knot just below her breasts, in the hollow of her solar plexus. And suddenly one thumb popped up, the thumb of a hitchhiker signalling for a ride, only the thumb drove painfully into her breastbone. At the same time the grip of the arms tightened brutally. She felt caught
(Ohhhhhhh you’re breaking my RIBS)
in a gigantic bearhug. Her whole diaphragm seemed to heave, and something flew out of her mouth with the force of a projectile. It landed in the snow: a wet chunk of bun and meat.
“Let her go!” Arnie was shouting as he slipped and slid around Christine’s rear deck to where the hitchhiker held Leigh’s limp body like a life-sized marionette. “Let her go, you’re killing her!”
Leigh began to breathe in great, tearing gasps. Her throat and lungs seemed to burn in rivers of fire with each gulp of the cold, wonderful air. She was dimly aware that she was sobbing.
The brutal bearhug relaxed and the hands let her go. “Are you okay, girl? Are you all—”
Then Arnie was reaching past her, grabbing for the hitchhiker. He turned toward Arnie, his long black hair flying in the wind, and Arnie hit him in the mouth. The hitchhiker flailed backward, boots slipping in the snow, and landed on his back. Fresh snow as fine and dry as confectioners’ sugar puffed up around him.
Arnie advanced, fists held up, eyes slitted.
She t
ook another convulsive breath—oh, it hurt, it was like being stabbed with knives—and screamed: “What are you doing, Arnie? Stop it!”
He turned toward her, dazed. “Huh? Leigh?”
“He saved my life, what are you hitting him for?”
The effort was too much and the black dots began to spiral up before her eyes again. She could have leaned against the car, but she didn’t want to go near it, didn’t want to touch it. The dashboard instruments. Something had happened to the dashboard instruments. Something
(eyes they turned into eyes)
she didn’t want to think about.
She staggered to a lamppost instead and hung onto it like a drunk, head down, panting. A soft, tentative arm went around her waist. “Leigh … honey, are you all right?”
She turned her head slightly and saw his miserable, scared face. She burst into tears.
The hitchhiker approached them carefully, wiping his bloody mouth on the sleeve of his jacket.
“Thank you,” Leigh said between harsh, swift breaths. The pain was ebbing a trifle now, and the hard, cold wind was soothing on her hot face. “I was choking. I think … I think I would have died if you hadn’t…”
Too much. The black dots again, all sounds fading into an eerie wind-tunnel again. She put her head down and waited for it to pass.
“It’s the Heimlich Maneuver,” the hitchhiker said. “They make you learn it when you go to work in the cafeteria. At school. Make you practice on a rubber dummy. Daisy Mae, they call her. And you do it, but you don’t have any idea if it’ll—you know—work on a real person or not.” His voice was shaky, jumping in pitch from low to high and back to low again like the voice of a kid entering puberty. His voice seemed to want to laugh or cry—something—and even in the uncertain light and heavily falling snow, Leigh could see how pallid his face was. “I never thought I’d actually have to use it. Works pretty good. Did you see that fucking piece of meat fly?” The hitchhiker wiped his mouth and looked blankly at the thin froth of blood on the palm of his hand.
“I’m sorry I hit you,” Arnie said. He sounded close to tears. “I was just… I was …”
“Sure, man, I know.” He clapped Arnie on the shoulder. “No harm, no foul. Girl, are you all right?”
“Yes,” Leigh said. Her breath was coming evenly now. Her heart was slowing down. Only her legs were bad; they were so much helpless rubber. My God, she thought. I could be dead now. If we hadn’t picked that guy up, and we almost didn’t—
It occurred to her that she was lucky to be alive. This cliché struck her forcibly with a stupid, undeniable power that made her feel faint. She began to cry harder. When Arnie led her back toward the car, she came with him, her head on his shoulder.
“Well,” the hitchhiker said uncertainly, “I’ll be off.”
“Wait,” Leigh said. “What’s your name? You saved my life, I’d like to know your name.”
“Barry Gottfried,” the hitchhiker said. “At your service.” Again he swept off an imaginary hat.
“Leigh Cabot,” she said. “This is Arnie Cunningham. Thank you again.”
“For sure,” Arnie added, but Leigh heard no real thanks in his voice—only that shakiness. He handed her into the car and suddenly the smell assaulted her, attacked her: nothing mild this time, much more than just a whiff underneath. It was the smell of rot and decomposition, high and noxious. She felt a mad fright invade her brain and she thought: It is the smell of her fury—
The world slipped sideways in front of her. She leaned out of the car and threw up.
Then everything there went gray for a little while.
• • •
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Arnie asked her for what seemed to be the hundredth time. It would also have to be for one of the last, Leigh realized with some relief. She felt very, very tired. There was a dull, throbbing pain in her chest and another one at her temples.
“I’m fine now.”
“Good. Good.”
He moved irresolutely, as if wanting to go but not sure it would be right yet; perhaps not until he had asked his seemingly eternal question at least once more. They were standing in front of the Cabot house. Oblongs of yellow light spilled from the windows and lay smoothly on the fresh and unmarked snow. Christine stood at the curb, idling, showing parking lights.
“You scared me when you fainted like that,” Arnie said.
“I didn’t faint … I only got fogged in for a few minutes.”
“Well, you scared me. I love you, you know.”
She looked at him gravely. “Do you?”
“Of course I do! Leigh, you know I do!”
She drew in a deep breath. She was tired, but it had to be said, and said right now. Because if she didn’t say it now, what had happened would seem completely ridiculous by morninglight—or maybe more than ridiculous; by morninglight the idea would likely seem mad. A smell that came and went like the “mouldering stench” in a Gothic horror story? Dashboard instruments that turned into eyes? And most of all the insane feeling that the car had actually tried to kill her?
By tomorrow, even the fact that she had almost choked to death would be nothing but a vague ache in her chest and the conviction that it had been nothing, really, not a close call at all.
Except it was all true, and Arnie knew it was—yes, some part of him did—and it had to be said now.
“Yes, I think you do love me,” she said slowly. She looked at him steadily. “But I won’t go anywhere with you again in that car. And if you really love me, you’ll get rid of it.”
The expression of shock on his face was so large and so sudden that she might have struck him in the face.
“What—what are you talking about, Leigh?”
Was it shock that had caused that slapped expression? Or was some of it guilt?
“You heard what I said. I don’t think you’ll get rid of it—I don’t know if you even can anymore—but if you want to go someplace with me, Arnie, we go on the bus. Or thumb a ride. Or fly. But I’m never going to ride in your car again. It’s a death-trap.”
There. She had said it; it was out.
Now the shock on his face was turning to anger—the blind, obdurate sort of anger she had seen on his face so frequently lately. Not just over the big things, but over the little ones as well—a woman going through a traffic light on the yellow, a cop who held up traffic just before it was their turn to go—but it came to her now with all the force of a revelation that his anger, corrosive and so unlike the rest of Arnie’s personality, was always associated with the car. With Christine.
“ ‘If you love me you’ll get rid of it,’ ” he repeated. “You know who you sound like?”
“No, Arnie.”
“My mother, that’s who you sound like.”
“I’m sorry.” She would not allow herself to be drawn; neither would she defend herself with words or end it by just going into the house. She might have been able to if she didn’t feel anything for him, but she did. Her original impressions—that behind the quiet shyness Arnie Cunningham was good and decent and kind (and maybe sexy as well)—had not changed much. It was the car, that was all. That was the change. It was like watching a strong mind slowly give way under the influence of some evil, corroding, addictive drug.
Arnie ran his hands through his snow-dusted hair, a characteristic gesture of bewilderment and anger. “You had a bad choking spell in the car, okay, I can understand that you don’t feel great about it. But it was the hamburger, Leigh, that’s all. Or maybe not even that. Maybe you were trying to talk while you were chewing or inhaled at just the wrong second or something. You might as well blame Ronald McDonald. People choke on their food every now and then, that’s all. Sometimes they die. You didn’t. Thank God for that. But to blame my car—!”
Yes, it all sounded perfectly plausible. And was. Except that something was going on behind Arnie’s gray eyes. A frantic something that was not precisely a lie, but … rationalization! A willful tur
ning away from the truth?
“Arnie,” she said, “I’m tired and my chest hurts and I’ve got a headache and I think I’ve only got the strength to say this once. Will you listen?”
“If it’s about Christine, you’re wasting your breath,” he said, and that stubborn, mulish look was on his face again. “It’s crazy to blame her and you know it is.”
“Yes, I know it’s crazy, and I know I’m wasting my breath,” Leigh said. “But I’m asking you to listen.”
“I’ll listen.”
She took a deep breath, ignoring the pull in her chest. She looked at Christine, idling a plume of white vapor into the thickly falling snow, then looked hastily away. Now it was the parking lights that looked like eyes: the yellow eyes of a lynx.
“When I choked … when I was choking … the instrument panel… the lights on it changed. They changed. They were … no, I won’t go that far, but they looked like eyes.”
He laughed, a short bark in the cold air. In the house a curtain was pulled aside, someone looked out, and then the curtain dropped back again.
“If that hitchhiker … that Gottfried fellow … if he hadn’t been there, I would have died, Arnie. I would have died.” She searched his eyes with her own and pushed ahead. Once, she told herself. I only have to say this once. “You told me that you worked in the cafeteria at LHS your first three years. I’ve seen the Heimlich Maneuver poster on the door to the kitchen. You must have seen it too. But you didn’t try that on me, Arnie. You were getting ready to clap me on the back. That doesn’t work. I had a job in a restaurant back in Massachusetts, and the first thing they teach you, even before they teach you the Heimlich Maneuver, is that clapping a choking victim on the back doesn’t work.”
“What are you saying?” he asked in a thin, out-of-breath voice.
She didn’t answer; only looked at him. He met her gaze for only a moment, and then his eyes—angry, confused, almost haunted—shifted away.
“Leigh, people forget things. You’re right, I should have used it. But if you had the course, you know you can use it on yourself.” Arnie laced his hands together into a fist with one thumb sticking up and pressed against his diaphragm to demonstrate. “It’s just that in the heat of the moment, people forget—”