Стивен Кинг - Desperation

They might not have been; his bead felt like a haunted house, one filled with hallucjna-tions and false memories instead of ghosts.

Hmeep! Hmeep!

He grabbed the phone off the dashboard, pushed the SEND button, and put it to his ear.

He stared out at the wolf as he did it. And the wolf stared back. “Boss. Boss, that you.”

Of course it was, who else would be calling him. Only it wasn’t. It was a kid.

“Is your name Steve.” the kid asked.

“Yes. How’d you get the boss’s phone. Where-”

“Never mind that,” the kid said. “Are you in trouble. You are, aren’t you.”

Steve opened his mouth. “I don’t-” Closed it again. Outside, the wind screamed around the cab of the Ryder truck. He held the little phone to the side of his face and looked over an oozing lump of buzzard at the wolf. He saw the chunk of statue lying in front of it as well. The crude images of intermingled sex and violence which had filled his mind were fading, but he could remember the power they had exercised over him the way he could remember certain vivid nightmares.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess you could say that.”

“Are you in the truck we saw.”

“If you saw a truck, likely that was us, yeah. Is my boss with you.”

“Mr. Marinville’s here. He’s okay. Are you all right.”

“I don’t know,” Steve said. “There’s a wolf, and he brought this thing… it’s like a statue, only-”

Cynthia’s hand darted into the lower part of his vision and honked the horn. Steve jumped. At the entrance to the cafe parking lot, the wolf jumped, too. Steve could see its muzzle draw back in a snarl. Its ears flattened against its skull.

Doesn’t like the horn, he thought. Then another thought came, one of those simple ones that made you want to slam your hand against your own forehead, as if to punish your laggard brains. If it won’t get out of the way, I can run the fucker over, can’t I.

Yes. Yes, he could. After all, he was the one with the truck.

“What was that.” the kid asked sharply. Then, as if realizing that was the wrong question: “Why are you doing that.”

“We’ve got company. We’re trying to get rid of it.”

Cynthia honked the horn again. The wolf got to its feet. Its ears were still laid back. It looked pissed, but it also looked confused. When Cynthia honked the horn a third time, Steve put both of his hands over hers and helped. The wolf looked at them a moment longer, its head cocked and its eyes a nasty yellow-green in the glare of the headlights.

Then it bent, seized the piece of statuary in its teeth, and disappeared back the way it had come.

Steve looked at Cynthia, and she looked back at him. She still looked scared, but she was smiling a little just the same.

“Steve.” The voice was faint, dodging in and out of static-bursts. “Steve, are you there.”

“Yes.”

“Your company.”

“Gone. For the time being, at least. The question is, what do we do next. Any suggestions.”

“I might have.” Damned if it didn’t sound as if maybe he was smiling, too.

“What’s your name, kid.” Steve asked.

Behind them, back in the direction of the Mu-nicipal Building, something gave in to the wind and fell over with a huge loose crash. The sound made Mary wheel around in that direction, but she saw nothing. She was grateful for the mouthful of whiskey Carver had talked her into taking. Without it, that sound-she guessed it might have been some building’s false front tumbling into the street-would have had her halfway out of her skin.

The boy was still on the phone. The three men were gathered around him. Mary could see how badly Mar-inville wanted to take the phone back again; she could also see he didn’t quite dare. It’ll do you good not to be able to have what you want, Johnny, she thought.

Do you a world of good.

“I might have,” David said, smiling a 4ittle. He listened, gave his first name, then turned around so he was facing the Owl’s Club. He ducked his head, and when he spoke again, Mary could hardly hear him. A kind of dark wonder passed over her like a dizzy spell.

He doesn ‘t want the coyotes across the street to hear what he’s saying. I know how crazy that sounds, but it’s what he’s doing. And you know something even cra-zier. I think he’s right.

“There’s an old movie theater,” David said in a low voice. “It’s called The American West.” He glanced at Billingsley for confirmation.

Billingsley nodded. “Tell him to go around to the back,” he said, and Mary decided that if she was crazy, at least she wasn’t the only one; Billingsley also spoke in a low voice, and glanced over his shoulder, once, quickly, as if to make sure the coyotes weren’t creeping closer, trying to eavesdrop. After he had made sure they were still on the sidewalk in front of the Water and Utility Building, he turned back to David. “Tell him there’s an alley.”

David did. As he finished, something apparently occurred to Marinville. He started to grab for the phone, then restrained himself. “Tell him to park the truck away from the theater,” he said. The great American novelist also spoke in low tones, and he had one hand up to his mouth, as if he thought there might be a lipreader or two among the coyotes. “If he leaves it in front and Entragian comes back…

David nodded and passed this on, as well. Listened as Steve said something else, nodding, the smile resurfacing. Mary’s eyes drifted, to the coyotes. As she looked at them, she realized an exceedingly perverse thing: if they managed to hide from Entragian long enough to regroup and get out of town, part of her would be sorry. Because once this was over, she would have to confront the fact of Peter’s death; she would have to grieve for him and for the destruction of the life they had made together. And that was maybe not the worst of it. She would also have to think about all this, try and make some sense of it, and she wasn’t sure she could do it. She wasn’t sure any of them would be able to do it. Except maybe for David.

“Come as fast as you can,” he said. There was a faint bleep as he pushed the END button. He collapsed the antenna and handed the phone back to Marinville, who immediately pulled the antenna out again, studied the LED readout, shook his head, and closed the phone up.

“How’d you do it, David. Magic.”

The kid looked at him as if Marinville were crazy. “God,” he said.

“God, you dope,” Mary said, smiling in a way that did not feel familiar to her at all. This wasn’t the time to be pulling Marinville’s chain, but she simply couldn’t resist.

“Maybe you should have just told Mr. Marinville’s friend to come and pick us up,” Ralph said dubiously. “That probably would have been the simplest, David.”

“It’s not simple,” David replied. “Steve’ll tell you that when they get here.”

“They.” Marmnville asked.

David ignored him. He was looking at his father. “Also, there’s Mom,” he said. “We’re not leaving without her.”

“What are we going to do about them.” Mary asked, and pointed across the Street at the coyotes. She could have sworn that they not only saw the gesture but under-stood it.

Marinville stepped off the sidewalk and into the street, his long gray hair blowing out and making him look like an Old Testament prophet. The coyotes got to their feet, and the wind brought her the sound of their growls. Mar-inville had to be hearing them, too, but he went on another step or two nevertheless. He half-closed his eyes for a moment, not as if the sand was bothering them but as if he was trying to remember something. Then he clapped his hands together once, sharply. “Tak!” One of the coy-otes lifted its snout and howled. The sound made Mary shudder. “Tak, ah lah! Tak!”