Стивен Кинг - Desperation

Mary came in with Marinville’s gun-the one that was unloaded-held up by one shoulder.

Her hands were wrapped around the end of the barrel. To Cynthia her face looked almost eerily composed. She surveyed the scene—even more dreamlike now, not just tinged with gunsmoke but hazed with it-and then hurried across the room toward Billingsley, who made two more tired efforts to crawl into the wall and then collapsed from the knees upward, his face going last, first tilting and then sliding down the tiles.

Ralph reached for Steve’s shoulder, saw the blood there, and settled for gripping his arm high on the bicep. “I couldn’t,” he said. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t. After the first two rounds I was afraid of hitting you instead of it. When you finally got turned around so I could make a side-shot, Marinville was there.”

“It’s okay,” Steve said. “All’s well that ends well.”

“—1 owed it to him,” the writer said with a winning—quarterback expansiveness Cynthia found rather nause-ating. “If it hadn’t been for me, he wouldn’t have been here in the-”

“Get over here!” Mary said, her voice cracking. “Jesus Christ, oh man, he’s bleeding so bad!”

The four of them gathered around Mary and Bill-ingsley. She had gotten him onto his back, and Cynthia winced at what she saw. One of the old geezer’s hands was mostly gone-all the fingers but the pinky chewed to stubs-but that wasn’t the worst. His lower neck and shoulder had been flayed open. Blood was spilling out in freshets. Yet he was awake, his eyes bright and aware.

“Skirt,” he whispered hoarsely. “Skirt.”

“Don’t try to talk, oldtimer,” Marmnville said. He bent, scooped up the flashlight, and trained it on Billingsley. It made what had looked bad enough in the shadows even worse. There was a pond of blood beside the old guy’s head; Cynthia didn’t understand how he could still be alive.

“I need a compress,” Mary said. “Don’t just stand there, help me, he’s going to die if we don’t stop the bleeding right now!”

Too late, babe, Cynthia thought but didn’t say.

Steve saw what looked like a rag in one of the sinks and grabbed it. It turned out to be a very old shirt with Joe Camel on it. He folded the shirt twice, then handed it to Mary. She nodded, folded it once more, then pressed it against the side of Billingsley’s neck.

“Come on,” Cynthia said, taking Steve’s arm. “Back on stage. If there’s nothing else, I can at least wash those out with water from the bar. There’s plenty on the bottom “No,” the old man whispered. “Stay! Got to… hear this.”

“You can’t talk,” Mary said. She pushed harder on the side of his neck with the makeshift compress. The shirt was already darkening. “You’ll never stop bleeding if you talk.”

He rolled his eyes toward Mary. “Too late doc-torin.” His voice was hoarse. “Dyin.”

“No you’re not, that’s ridiculous.”

“Dyin,” he repeated, and moved violently beneath her hands. His torn back squelched on the tiles, a sound that made Cynthia feel nauseated. “Get down here… all of you, close…

and listen to me.”

Steve glanced at Cynthia. She shrugged, then the two of them knelt beside the old man’s leg, Cynthia shoulder to shoulder with Mary Jackson. Marinville and Carver leaned in from the sides.

“He shouldn’t talk,” Mary said, but she sounded doubtful.

“Let him say what he needs to,” Marinville said. “What is it, Tom.”

“Too short for business,” Billingsley whispered. He was looking up at them, begging them with his eyes to understand.

Steve shook his head. “I’m not getting you.”

Billingsley wet his lips. — ‘Only seen her once before in a dress. That’s why it took me too long to figure out… what was wrong.”

Astartled expression had come over Mary’s face. “That’s right, she said she had a meeting with the comp-troller! He comes all the way from Phoenix to hear her report on something important, something that means big bucks, and she puts on a dress so short she’ll be flashing her pants at him every time she crosses h-er legs. I don’t think so.”

Beads of sweat ran down Billingsley’s pale, stubbly cheeks like tears. “Feel so stupid,”

he wheezed. “Not all my fault, though. Nope. Didn’t know her to talk to. Wasn’t there the one time she came into the office to pick up more liniment. Always saw her at a distance, and out here women mostly wear jeans. But I had it. I did. Had it and then got drinking and lost track of it again.” He looked at Mary. “The dress would have been all right…

when she put it on. Do you see. Do you understand.”

“What’s he talking about.” Ralph asked. “How could it be all right when she put it on and too short for a business meeting later.”

“Taller,” the old man whispered.

Marinville looked at Steve. “What was that. It sounded like he said-”

“Ta lleb” Billingsley said. He enunciated the word carefully, then began to cough. The folded shirt Mary held against his neck and shoulder was now soaked. His eyes rolled back and forth among them. He turned his head to one side, spat out a mouthful of blood, and the coughing fit eased.

“Dear God,” Ralph said. “She’s like Entragian. Is that what you’re saying, that she’s like the cop.”

“Yes… no,” Billingsley whispered. “Don’t know for sure. Would have… seen that right away… but…

“Mr. Billingsley, do you think she might have caught a milder dose of whatever the cop has.” Mary asked.

He looked at her gratefully and squeezed her hand.

Marinville said, “She’s sure not bleeding out like the cop.

“Or not where we can see it,” Ralph said. “Not yet, anyway.

Billingsley looked past Mary’s shoulder. “Where…

where…

He began coughing again and wasn’t able to finish, but he didn’t need to. A startled look passed among them, and Cynthia turned around. Audrey wasn’t there.

Neither was David Carver.

The thing which had been Ellen Carver, taller now, still wearing the badge but not the Sam Browne belt, stood on the steps of the Municipal Building, staring north along the sand-drifted street, past the dancing blinker-light. It couldn’t see the movie theater, but knew where it was. More, it knew what was going on inside the movie theater. Not all, but enough to anger it. The cougar hadn’t been able to shut the drunk up in time, but at least she had drawn the rest of them away from the boy. That would have been fine, except the boy had eluded its other emissary as well, at least temporarily.

Where had he gone. It didn’t know, couldn’t see, and that was the source of its anger and fear. He was the source. David Carver. The goddamned shitting prayboy. It should have killed him when it had been inside the cop and had had the chance-should have shot him right on the steps of his own damned motor home and left him for the buzzards. But it hadn’t, and it knew why it hadn’t. There was a blankness about Master Carver, a shielded quality. That was what had saved Little Prayboy earlier.

Its hands clenched at its sides. The wind gusted, blowing Ellen Carver’s short, red-gold hair out like a flag. Why is he even here, someone like him. Is it an acci-dent. Or was he sent.

Why are you here. Are you an accident. Were you sent.

Such questions were useless. It knew its purpose, tak ah lah, and that was enough. It closed its Ellen-eyes, focusing inward at first, but only for a second-it was unpleasant.

This body had already begun to fail. It wasn’t a matter of decay so much as intensity; the force inside it-can de lach, heart of the unformed-was literally pounding it to pieces… and its replacements had es-caped the pantry.