Stephen King - Insomnia

And no one sees it, Ralph thought. No one but me and Lois… and the little bald doctors. The goddam little bald doctors.

He squinted to make out the shape within the giant deathbag, although he didn’t really need to; he had lived in Derry most of his life, and could almost have navigated its streets with his eyes closed (as long as he did not have to do so behind the wheel of his car, that was). Nevertheless, he could make out the building inside the deathbag, especially now that daylight was beginning to seep over the horizon. The flat circular roof which sat atop the curving glassand-brick facade was a dead giveaway. This throwback to the 1950s, designed very much tongue-in-cheek by the famous architect (and one-time Derry resident) Benjamin Hanscom, was the new Derry Civic Center, a replacement for the one destroyed in the flood of ’85.

Clotho turned Ralph to look at him.

[You see, Ralph, you were right-he does mean to assassinate Susan Day… but not just Susan Day.] He paused, glanced at Lois, then turned his grave face back to Ralph.

[That cloud-what you two quite correctly call a deathbag-means that in a sense he has already done what Atropos has set him on to do.

There will be more than two thousand people there tonight… and Ed Deepneau means to kill them all. If the course of events is not changed, he will kill them all.] Lachesis stepped forward to join his colleague.

[you, Ralph and Lois, are the only ones who can stop that from happening.] In his mind’s eye Ralph saw the poster of Susan Day which had been propped in the empty storefront between the Rite Aid Pharmacy and Day Break, Sun Down. He remembered the words written in the dust on the outside of the window: KILL THIS CUNT. And something like that might well happen in Derry, that was the thing. Derry was not precisely like other places. It seemed to Ralph that the city’s atmosphere had improved a great deal since the big flood eight years before, but it was still not precisely like other places. There was a mean streak in Derry, and when its residents got wrought up, they had been known to do some exceedingly ugly things.

He wiped at his lips and was momentarily distracted by the silky, distant feel of his hand on his mouth. He kept being reminded in different ways that his state of being had changed radically.

Lois, horrified: [“How are we supposed to do it? If we can’t go near Atropos or Ed, how are we supposed to stop it from happening?”

Ralph realized he could see her face quite clearly now; the day was brightening with the speed of stop-motion photography in an old Disney nature film.

[“We’ll phone in a bomb-threat, Lois. That should work.”] Clotho looked dismayed at this; Lachesis actually smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand before glancing nervously at the brightening sky.

When he looked back at Ralph, his small face was full of something that might have been carefully muzzled panic.

[That won’t work, Ralph. Now listen to me, both of you, and listen carefully: whatever you do in the next fourteen hours or so, you must not underestimate the power of the forces Atropos unleashed when he first discovered Ed and then slashed his life-cord.] Ralph: [“Why won’t it work?”] Lachesis, sounding both angry and frightened: [We can’t just go on and on answering your questions, Ralph-from here on -you’re going to have to take things on trust. You know how fast time passes on this level. if we stay up here much longer, your chance to stop what is going to happen tonight at the Civic Center will be lost.

You and’ Lois initst step down again. You must!] Clotho held up a hand to his colleague, then turned back to Ralph and Lois. is 10 I’m sure that with a [I’ll answer the one last quest’ n, although little thought you could answer it yourself There have already been twenty-three bomb-threats regarding Susan Day’s speech tonight.

The police have explosives-sniffing dogs at the Civic Center, for the last forty-eight hours they have been X-raying all packages and deliveries which have come into the building, and they have been conducting spot searches, as well. They expected bomb-threats, and they take them seriously, but their assumption in this case is that they are being made by pro-life advocates who are tryiing to keep His. Day from speaking.] Lois, dully: [“Oh God-the little boy who cried wolf Clotho: [Correct, Lois.] Ralph: [“Has he planted a bomb? He has, hasn’t he?”] Bright light washed across the roof, stretching the shadows of the twirling heat-ventilators like taffy. Clotho and Lachesis looked at these shadows and then to the east, where the sun’s top arc had broken over the horizon, with identical expressions of dismay, Lachesis: [We don’t know, and it doesn’t matter. You must stop the speech from happening, and there is only one way to do that: you must convince the women in charge to cancel Susan Day’s appearance.

Do you understand? She must not appear in the Civic Center tonight!

You can’t stop Ed, and you daren’t try to approach Atropos, so you Must STOP Susan Day.] Ralph: [“But-“] It wasn’t the strengthening sunlight that shut his mouth, or the growing look of harried fear on the faces of the little bald docs. It was Lois. She put a hand on his cheek and gave a small but decisive shake of the head.

[“No more. We have to go down, Ralph. Now.”] Questions were circling in his mind like mosquitoes, but if she said there was no more time, there was no more time. He glanced at the sun, saw it had entirely cleared the horizon, and nodded. He slipped his arm around her waist.

Clotho, anxiously: [Do not fail us, Ralph and Lois.]

Ralph: [“Save the pep-talk, short stuff This isn’t a football game. “I Before either of them could reply, Ralph closed his eyes and concentrated on dropping back down to the Short-Time world.

There was that sensation of blink. and a chill morning breeze struck his face. Ralph opened his eyes and looked at the woman beside him. For just a moment he could see her aura wisping away behind her like the gauzy overskirt of a lady’s ball-gown and then it was just Lois, looking twenty years younger than she had the week before… and also looking extremely out of place, in her light fall coat and good visiting-the-sick dress, here on the tar-and-gravel hospital roof.

Ralph hugged her tighter as she began to shiver. Of Lachesis and Clotho there was no sign.

Although they could be standing right beside us, Ralph thought.

Probably are, as a matter of fact.

He suddenly thought of that old carny pitchman’s line again, the one about how you had to pay if you wanted to play, so step right up, gentlemen, and lay your money down. But more often than not you were played instead of playing.

Played for what? A sucker, of course. And why did he have that feeling now?

Because there were a lot of things you never found out, Carolyn said from inside his head. They led you down a lot of interesting sidetracks and kept you away from the main point until it was too late for you to ask the questions they might not have wanted to answer…

. and I don’t think something like that happens by accident, do you?

No. He didn’t.

That feeling of being pushed by invisible hands into some dark tunnel where anything might be waiting was stronger now. That sense of being manipulated. He felt small… and vulnerable… and pissed off.

“W-Well, we’re b-b-back,” Lois said through her briskly chattering teeth. “What time is it, do you think?”

It felt like about six o’clock, but when Ralph glanced down at his watch, he wasn’t surprised to see it had stopped. He couldn’t remember when he had last wound it. Tuesday morning, probably.

He followed Lois’s gaze to the southwest and saw the Civic Center standing like an island in the middle of a parking-lot ocean. With the early-morning sunlight kicking bright sheets of reflection from its curved banks of windows, it looked like an oversized version of the office building George jetson worked in. The vast deathbag which had surrounded it only moments before was gone.