Стивен Кинг - Desperation

“Because somebody should’ve gotten away, gotten to a phone outside of town and pulled the plug on the murder—machine. No one did, though. Even before the storm started, no one did. Something very powerful’s happening here, and I think that counting on help from the outside may only get us killed. We have to count on each other, and we have to get out as soon as possible. That’s what I believe.”

“I’m not going without finding out what happened to my mom,” David said.

“You can’t think that way, son,” Johnny said.

“Yes I can. I am.”

“No,” Billingsley said. Something in his voice made David raise his head. “Not with other lives at stake. Not when you’re… special, the way you are. We need you, son.

“That’s not fair,” David almost whispered.

“No,” Billingsley agreed. His lined face was stony. “It ain’t.”

Cynthia said, “It won’t do your mother any good if you-and the rest of us-die trying to find her, kiddo. On the other hand, if we can get out of town, we could come back with help.”

“Right,” Ralph said, but he said it in a hollow, sick way.

“No, it’s not right,” David said. “It’s a crock of shit, that’s what it is.”

“David!”

The boy surveyed them, his face fierce with anger and sick with fright. “None of you care about my mother, not one of you. Even you don’t, Dad.”

“That’s untrue,” Ralph said. “And it’s a cruel thing to say.”

“Yeah,” David said, “but I think it’s true, just the same. I know you love her, but I think you’d leave her because you believe she’s already dead.” He fixed his father with his gaze, and when Ralph looked down at his hands, tears oozing out of his swollen eye, David switched to the vet-erinarian. “And I’ll tell you something, Mr. Billingsley. Just because I pray doesn’t mean I’m a comic-book wizard or something. Praying’s not magic. The only magic I know is a couple of card tricks that I usually mess up on anyway.”

“David-” Steve began.

“If we go away and come back, it’ll be too late to save her! I know it will be! I know that!” His words rang from the stage like an actor’s speech, then died away. Outside, the indifferent wind gusted.

“David, it’s probably already too late,” Johnny said. His voice was steady enough, but he couldn’t quite look at the kid as he said it.

Ralph sighed harshly. His son went to him, sat beside him, took his hand. Ralph’s face was drawn with weari-ness and confusion. He looked older now.

Steve turned to Audrey. “You said you knew another way out.”

“Yes. The big earthwork you see as you come into town is the north face of the pit we’ve reopened. There’s a road that goes up the side of it, over the top, and into the pit. There’s another one that goes back to Highway 50 west of here. It runs along Desperation Creek, which is just a dry—wash now. You know where I mean, Tom.”

He nodded.

“That road-Desperation Creek Road-starts at the motor-pool. There are more ATVs there.

The biggest only seats four safely, but we could hook up an empty gondola and the other three could ride in it.”

Steve, a ten-year veteran of load-ins, load-outs, snap decisions, and rapid getaways (often necessitated by the combination of four-star hotels and rock-band assholes), had been following her carefully. “Okay, what I suggest is this. We wait until morning. Get some rest, maybe even a little sleep. The storm might blow itself out by then-”

“I think the wind has let up a little,” Mary said. “Maybe that’s wishful thinking, but I really think it has.”

“Even if it’s still going, we can get up to the motor—pool, can’t we, Audrey.”

“I’m sure we can.”

“How far is it.”

“Two miles from the mining office, probably a mile and a half from here.”

He nodded. “And in daylight, we’ll be able to see Entragian. If we try to go at night, in the storm, we can’t count on that.”

“We can’t count on being able to see the… the wildlife, either,” Cynthia said.

“I’m talking about moving fast and armed,” Steve said. “If the storm plays out, we can head up to the embank-ment in my truck-three up front in the cab with me, four back in the box. If the weather is still bad-and I actually hope it will be-I think we should go on foot. We’ll attract less attention that way. He might never even know we’re gone.”

“I imagine the Escolla boy and his friends were thinking about the same way when Collie ran em down,” Billingsley said.

“They were headed north on Main Street,” Johnny said. “Exactly what Entragian would have been looking for. We’ll be going south, toward the mine, at least ini-tially, and leaving the area on a feeder road.”

“Yeah,” Steve said. “And then bang, we’re gone.” He went over to David-the boy had left his father and was sitting on the edge of the stage, staring out over the tacky old theater seats-and squatted beside him. “But we’ll come back. You hear me, David. We’ll come back for your mom, and for anyone else he’s left alive. That’s a rock-solid promise, from me to you.

David went on staring out over the seats. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I know I need to ask God to help me straighten out my head, but right now I’m so mad at him that I can’t. Every time I try to compose my mind, that gets in the way. He let the cop take my mother! Why. Jesus, why.”

Do you know you did a miracle just a little while ago. Steve thought. He didn’t say it; it might only make David’s confusion and misery worse. After a moment Steve got up and stood looking down at the boy, hands shoved deep into his pockets, eyes troubled. -

The cougar walked slowly down the alley, head lowered, ears flattened. She avoided the garbage cans and the pile of scrap lumber much more easily than the humans had done; she saw far better in the dark. Still, she paused at the end of the alley, a low, squalling growl rising from her throat. She didn’t like this. One of them was strong-very strong.

She could sense that one’s force even through the brick flank of the building, pulsing like a glow. Still, there was no question of disobedience. The outsider, the one from the earth, was in the cougar’s head, its will caught in her mind like a fishhook. That one spoke in the language of the unformed, from the time before, when all animals except for men and the outsider were one.

But she didn’t like that sense of force. That glow.

She growled again, a rasp that rose and fell, coming more from her nostrils than her closed mouth. She slipped her head around the corner, wincing at a blast of wind that ruffled her fur and charged her nose with smells of brome grass and Indian paintbrush and old booze and older brick. Even from here she could smell the bitterness from the pit south of town, the smell that had been there since they had charged the last half-dozen blast-holes and reopened the bad place, the one the animals knew about and the men had tried to forget.

The wind died, and the cougar padded slowly down the path between the board fence and the rear of the theater. She stopped to sniff at the crates, spending more time on the one which had been overturned than on the one which still stood against the wall. There were many intermingled scents here. The last person who had stood on the over-turned crate had then pushed it off the one still against the wall. The cougar could smell his hands, a different, sharper smell than the others. A skin smell, undressed somehow, tangy with sweat and oils. It belonged to a male in the prime of his life.

She could also smell guns. Under other circumstances that smell would have sent her running, but now it didn’t matter. She would go where the old one sent her; she had no choice. The cougar sniffed the wall, then looked up at the window. It was unlocked; she could see it moving back and forth in the wind. Not much, because it was recessed, but enough for her to be sure it was open. She could get inside. It would be easy. The window would push in before her, giving way as man-things sometimes did.