Stephen King - The Tommyknockers

9s across the screen. Two eternities this time. Then a message appeared which was so simple, so logical, and yet so loony that Gard would have screamed laughter if he hadn't known it would blow every working circuit he had left.

WHERE DO YOU WANT TO PUT HIM?

The urge to laugh passed. The question had to be answered. Where indeed? Home plate of Yankee Stadium? Piccadilly Circus? On the breakwater jutting out from the beach in front of the Alhambra Hotel? None of those places, of course not -but not here in Haven. Christ, no. Even if the air didn't kill him, which it probably would, his parents were turning into monsters.

So, where?

He looked up at the old man, and the old man was looking back at him urgently, and suddenly it came to him-there was really only one place to put him, wasn't there?

He told the machine.

He waited for it to ask for further clarification, or to say it couldn't be done, or to suggest a system of commands he would be unable to execute. Instead, there were more 9s. This time they stayed forever. The green pulsing from the transformer became almost too bright to look at.

Gard closed his eyes and in the greenish deep-sea darkness behind his lids he thought he could hear, faintly, the old man screaming.

Then the power that had filled his mind left. Bingo! It was gone. Just like that. Gardener staggered backward, the earphone popping free and hitting the floor. His nose was still bleeding and he had soaked a fresh shirt. How many pints of blood were in the human body? And what had happened? There had been no

TRANSFER SUCCESSFUL

or

TRANSFER UNSUCCESSFUL

or even

A TALL DARK TOMMYKNOCKER WILL ENTER YOUR LIFE

What had it all been for? He realized miserably that he was never going to know. Two lines of Edwin Arlington Robinson came to him: So on we worked, and waited for the light, / And went without the meat, and cursed the bread…

No light, boss; no light. If you wait for it they'll burn you in your tracks, and here's a fence ain't even half whitewashed yet.

No light; just a dull blank screen. He looked toward the old man and the old man was lolling forward, head down, exhausted.

Gardener was crying a little. His tears were mixed with blood. Dull pain radiated from the plate in his head, but that stuffed, near-to-bursting feeling was gone. So was the sense of power. He missed the latter, he discovered. Part of him longed for it to come back, no matter what the consequences.

Get moving, Gard.

Yes, okay. He had done what he could for David Brown. Maybe something had happened; maybe nothing. Maybe he had killed the kid; maybe David Brown, who had probably played with Star Wars action figures and wished he could meet an E. T. like Elliot had in the movie, was now just a cloud of dissipating atoms somewhere in deep space between Altair-4 and here. It was not for him to know. But he had reached this piece of furniture and held it long enough-too long, maybe. He knew it was time to move on.

The old man raised his head.

Old man, do you know?

If he's safe? No. But son, you did your best. I thank you. Now please please son please

Fading… the old man's mental voice was fading

please let me out of this

down a long hallway and

look on one of those shelves back there

Now Gardener had to strain to hear.

pleas oh PLEA

Faint, a whisper; the old man's head lolling forward, remains of thin white hair floating in green brew.

Peter's legs moved dreamily as he chased rabbits in his dim sleep… or looked for Bobbi, his darling.

Gard hopped over to the back shelves. They were dark, dusty, greasy. Here were old forgotten Buss fuses and a Maxwell House can full of bolts and washers and hinges and keys with locks whose location and purpose had long since been forgotten.

On one of these shelves was a Transco Sonic Space Blaster. Another kid's toy. On the side was a switch. He supposed the child who had received this for his birthday used it to make the gun ululate at different frequencies.

What did it do now?

Who gives a fuck? Gardener thought wearily. All this shit has become one big dumb bore.

Bore or not, he put the gun in his belt and hopped back across the shed. At the door, he looked back at the old man.

Thanks, guy.

Faint, fainter, faintest-a dry rustle of leaves:

out of this son

Yes. You and Peter both. You bet.

He hopped outside and looked around. No one else had come yet. That was good-but his luck couldn't hold much longer. They were there; his mind touched theirs, like a couple waltzing with the care of strangers. He sensed them linked in a

(net)

single consciousness. They were not hearing him… feeling him… whatever they did. Either using the transformer or just being in the shed had cut his mind off from theirs. But they'd soon know that, like Elvis, fat, flailing, but game and blindly bopping just the same, he had made a comeback.

The sunshine was dazzling. The air was hot, full of a burning stink. Bobbi's farmhouse was blazing like a heap of dry kindling in a fireplace. As he watched, half the roof fell in. Sparks, nearly colorless in the bright declining day, rushed up to the sky in a flume. Dick, Newt, and the others had not observed much smoke because the fire was burning hot and colorless. Most of the smoke they'd seen had come from the burning vehicles in the dooryard.

Gard stood for a moment on his good leg in the shed doorway and then hopped for the whirligig. He made it about halfway and then sprawled full-length in the dust. As he came down, he thought of the Sonic Space Blaster in his belt. A kid's toy. No safety on a kid's toy. If the trigger was depressed, the essential Gardener might suddenly be drastically reduced. The Tommyknocker Weight-Loss Plan. He took the toy gun out of his belt, handling it as if it were a live mine. He crawled the rest of the way to the whirligig on his hands and knees, then pulled himself up.

Forty feet away, the other half of Bobbi's roof collapsed. Hot sparks whirled toward the garden and the woods beyond. Gard turned toward the shed and thought again, as hard as he could: Thank you, my friend.

He thought there was an answer-some weary, faint answer.

Gardener pointed the toy at the shed and pulled its trigger. A green ray no thicker than a pencil-lead shot out of its muzzle. There was a sound like bacon frying in a skillet. For a moment the green beam splashed from the side of the shed like water from a hose, and then the boards burst into flame. More hot work, Gardener thought wearily. Smokey the Bear wouldn't dig me at all.

He began to hop toward the back of the house, the Sonic Space Blaster in his hand. Sweat and bloody tears ran down his face. Winston Churchill would have loved me, he thought, and began to laugh. He saw the Tomcat… and then his jaws spread in another big yawn. It occurred to him that possibly Bobbi had saved his life without even knowing it. In fact, it was more than possible; it was likely. The Valium could have protected him from the full force of the unimaginable power-load that transformer carried. It might well have been the Valium which

Something inside the burning house-one of Bobbi's gadgets-exploded with an artillery-shell bang. Gard ducked his head instinctively. Half of the house seemed to suddenly lift off. The far side of it, fortunately for Gardener. He looked up into the sky, and a second yawn turned into a large stupid gape.

There goes Bobbi's Underwood.

It flew up and up, a typewriter in the sky, whirling and turning.

Gard hopped on. He reached the Tomcat. The key was in the ignition. That was good. He'd had enough troubles with keys to last him the rest of his life-what little might remain.

He pulled himself up onto the seat. Behind him, vehicles approached and turned into the dooryard. He didn't turn around to look. The Tomcat was parked too close to the house. If he didn't get moving right now, he was going to bake like an apple.