King Stephen - Mile 81

“Mommy-n-daddy say never get into a stranger’s car,” the boy named Blakie said. “They say it at school, too. Stranger-danger.”

“He’s a policeman with a policeman’s car,” Rachel said. “It’s okay. Get in. And if you touch that gun, I’ll smack you.”

“Good advice on the gun, but it’s secured and the trigger lock’s on,” Jimmy said.

Blakie got in, and peered over the seat. “Hey, you got a iPad!”

“Shut up,” Rachel said. She started to get in, then looked at Jimmy Golding with tired, horrified eyes. “Don’t touch it. It’s sticky .”

Jimmy almost smiled. He had a daughter only a year or so younger than this little girl, and she might have said the same thing. He guessed little girls divided naturally into two groups, tomboys and dirt-haters. Like his Ellen, this one was a dirt-hater.

It was with this soon-to-be fatal misconception of what Rachel Lussier meant by sticky that he closed them in the backseat of Unit 17. He leaned in the front window of the cruiser and snared his mike. He never took his eyes from the hanging front door of the station wagon, and so did not see the little boy standing next to the rest area restaurant, holding an imitation-leather saddlebag against his chest like a small blue baby. A moment later the sun peeked out again, and Pete Simmons was swallowed up by the restaurant’s shadow.

Jimmy called in to the Gray barracks.

“Seventeen, come back.”

“I’m at the old Mile 81 rest area. I have four abandoned vehicles, one abandoned horse, and two abandoned children. One of the vehicles is a station wagon. The kids say . . . ” He paused, then thought what the hell . “The kids say it ate their parents.”

“Come back?”

“I think they mean someone inside grabbed them. I want you to send all available units over here, copy?”

“Copy all available units, but it’ll be ten minutes before the first one gets there. That’s Unit Twelve. He’s Code Seventy-three in Waterville.”

Al Andrews, no doubt chowing down at Bob’s Burgers and talking politics. “Copy that.”

“Give me MML on the wagon, Seventeen, and I’ll run it.”

“Negative on all three. No plate. As far as make and model, the thing’s so covered with mud I can’t tell. It’s American, though.” I think . “Probably a Ford or a Chevy. The kids are in my cruiser. Names are Rachel and Blakie Lussier. Fresh Winds Way, Falmouth. I forget the street number.”

“ Nineteen !” Rachel and Blakie shouted together.

“They say—”

“I got it, Seventeen. And which car did they come in?”

“ Daddy’s Expundition !” Blakie cried, happy to be of help.

“Ford Expedition,” Jimmy said. “Plate number three-seven-seven-two-I-Y. I’m going to approach that station wagon.”

“Copy. Be careful there, Jimmy.”

“Copy that. Oh, and will you reach out to nine-one-one dispatch and tell her the kids are all right?”

“Is that you talking or Peter Townshend?”

Very funny . “Seventeen, I’m sixty-two.”

He started to replace the mike, then handed it to Rachel. “If anything happens—anything bad —you push that button on the side and yell ‘Thirty.’ That means officer needs help. Have you got it?”

“Yes, but you shouldn’t go near that car, Trooper Jimmy. It bites and it eats and it’s sticky .”

Blakie, who, in his wonder at being in an actual police car, had temporarily forgotten what had befallen his parents, now remembered and began to cry again. “I want mommy-n-daddy!”

In spite of the weirdness and potential danger of the situation, Rachel Lussier’s eye-rolling you see what I have to deal with expression almost made Jimmy laugh. How many times had he seen that exact same expression on the face of five-year-old Ellen Golding?

“Listen, Rachel,” Jimmy said, “I know you’re scared, but you’re safe in here, and I have to do my job. If your parents are in that car, we don’t want them hurt, do we?”

“ GO GET MOMMY-N-DADDY, TROOPER JIMMY !” Blakie trumpeted. “ WE DON’T WANT THEM HURRRT !”

Jimmy saw hope spark in the girl’s eyes, but not as much as he might have expected. Like Agent Mulder on the old X-Files show, she wanted to believe . . . but like Mulder’s partner, Agent Scully, she didn’t. What had these kids seen?

“Be careful, Trooper Jimmy.” She raised one finger. It was a schoolteacherly gesture made even more endearing by a slight tremble. “Don’t touch it.”

As Jimmy approached the station wagon, he drew his Glock service automatic but left the safety on. For the time being. Standing slightly south of the hanging door, he once again invited anyone inside to exit the vehicle, open and empty hands foremost. No one came out. He reached for the door, then remembered the little girl’s parting admonition, and hesitated. He reached out with the barrel of his gun to swing the door open. Only, the door didn’t open, and the barrel of the pistol stuck fast. The thing was a glue-pot.

He was jerked forward, as if a powerful hand had gripped the Glock’s barrel and yanked. There was a second when he could have let go, but such an idea never even surfaced in his mind. One of the first things they taught you at the Academy after weapons issue was that you never let go of your sidearm. Never .

So he held on, and the car that had already eaten his gun now ate his hand. And his arm. The sun came out again, casting his diminishing shadow on the pavement. Somewhere, children were screaming.

The station wagon AFFIXES itself to the Trooper , he thought. Now I know what she meant by stick —

Then the pain bloomed large and all thought ceased. There was time for one scream. Only one.

From where he was standing, seventy yards away, Pete saw it all. He saw the state trooper reach out with the barrel of his gun to open the station wagon’s door the rest of the way; he saw the barrel disappear into the door as if the whole car were nothing but an optical illusion; he saw the trooper jerk forward, his big gray hat tumbling from his head. Then the trooper was yanked through the door and only his hat was left, lying next to somebody’s cell phone. There was a pause, and then the car pulled into itself, like fingers into a fist. Next came the tennis-racquet-on-ball sound— pouck !—and the muddy clenched fist became a car again.

The little boy began to wail; the little girl was for some reason screaming “ thirty” over and over again, like she thought it was a magic word J. K. Rowling had somehow left out of her Harry Potter books.

The back door of the police car opened. The kids got out. Both of them were crying their asses off, and Pete didn’t blame them. If he hadn’t been so stunned by what he’d just seen, he’d probably be crying himself. A nutty thought came to him: another swig or two of that vodka might improve this situation. It would help him be less afraid, and if he was less afraid, he might be able to figure out what the fuck he should do.

Meanwhile the kids were backing away again. Pete had an idea they might panic and take to their heels at any second. He couldn’t let them do that; they’d run right into the road and get splatted by turnpike traffic.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Hey, you kids!”

When they turned to look at him—big, buggy eyes in pale faces—he waved and started walking toward them. As he did, the sun came out again, this time with authority.

The little boy started forward. The girl jerked him back. At first Pete thought she was afraid of him, then realized it was the car she was afraid of.