Стивен Кинг - If It Bleeds

“Ayuh, got the day.”

“I’ll pack up my stuff—won’t take long—and we can caravan back to the store. There’s no cell coverage, but I can use the pay phone. If the storm didn’t knock it out, that is.”

“Nah, it’s okay. I called Ma from there. You probably don’t know about DeWitt, do you?”

“Only that he was sick.”

“Not anymore,” Jackie said. “Died.” He hawked, spat, and looked at the sky. “Gonna miss a pretty nice day, by the look. Jump in your truck, Mr. Larson. Follow me half a mile up to the Patterson place. You can turn around there.”

Drew found the sign and picture in the window of the Big 90 both sad and amusing. Amusement was a fairly shitty way to feel, given the circumstances, but a person’s interior landscape was sometimes—often, even—fairly shitty. CLOSED FOR FUNNERAL, the sign said. The picture was of Roy DeWitt next to a plastic backyard pool. He was wearing flip-flops and a pair of low-riding Bermuda shorts beneath the considerable overhang of his belly. He was holding a can of beer in one hand and appeared to have been caught in the middle of a dance step.

“Roy liked his Bud-burgers, all right,” Jackie Colson observed. “You be okay from here, Mr. Larson?”

“Sure,” Drew said. “And thank you.” He held out his hand. Jackie Colson gave it a shake, jumped into his 4X4, and headed down the road.

Drew mounted the porch, put a handful of change on the ledge beneath the pay phone, and called home. Lucy answered.

“It’s me,” Drew said. “I’m at the store, and headed home. Still mad?”

“Get here and find out for yourself.” Then: “You sound better.”

“I am better.”

“Can you make it tonight?”

Drew looked at his wrist and realized he’d brought the manuscript (of course!) but left his watch in the bedroom at Pop’s cabin. Where it would stay until next year. He gauged the sun. “Not sure.”

“If you get tired, don’t try. Stop in Island Falls or Derry. We can wait another night.”

“All right, but if you hear someone coming in around midnight, don’t shoot.”

“I won’t. Did you get any work done?” He could hear hesitance in her voice. “I mean, getting sick and all?”

“I did. And it’s good, I think.”

“No problems with the… you know…”

“The words? No. No problems.” At least not after that weird dream. “I think this one’s a keeper. I love you, Luce.”

The pause after he said it seemed very long. Then she sighed and said, “I love you, too.”

He didn’t like the sigh but would take the sentiment. There had been a bump in the road—not the first, and it wouldn’t be the last—but they were past it. That was fine. He racked the phone and got rolling.

As the day was winding down (a pretty nice one, just as Jackie Colson had predicted), he began seeing signs for the Island Falls Motor Lodge. He was tempted, but decided to press on. The Suburban was running well—some of the thumps and bumps on Shithouse Road actually seemed to have knocked the front end back into line—and if he shaded the speed limit a little and didn’t get stopped by a state cop, he might be able to get home by eleven. Sleep in his own bed.

And work the next morning. That, too.

He came into their bedroom at just past eleven-thirty. He’d taken his muddy shoes off downstairs, and was trying to be quiet, but he heard the rustle of bedclothes in the dark and knew she was awake.

“Get in here, Mister.”

For once that word didn’t sting. He was glad to be home, and even gladder to be with her. Once he was in bed she put her arms around him, gave him a hug (brief, but strong), then turned over and went back to sleep. As Drew was drowsing toward sleep himself—those borderline transition moments when the mind becomes plastic—an odd thought came.

What if the rat had followed him? What if it was under the bed right now?

There was no rat , he thought, and slept.

“Wow,” Brandon said. His tone was respectful and a little awed. He and his sister were in the driveway waiting for the bus, their backpacks shouldered.

“What did you do to it, Dad?” Stacey asked.

They were looking at the Suburban, which was splattered with dried mud all the way up to the doorhandles. The windshield was opaque except for the crescents that had been cut by the windshield wipers. And there was the missing passenger side mirror, of course.

“There was a storm,” Drew said. He was wearing pajama bottoms, bedroom slippers, and a Boston College tee. “And that road out there isn’t in very good shape.”

“Shithouse Road,” Stacey said, clearly relishing the name.

Now Lucy came out as well. She stood looking at the hapless Suburban with her hands on her hips. “Holy crow.”

“I’ll get it washed this afternoon,” Drew said.

“I like it that way,” Brandon said. “It’s cool. You must have done some crazy driving, Dad.”

“Oh, he’s crazy, all right,” Lucy said. “Your crazy daddy. No doubt about that.”

The schoolbus appeared then, sparing him a comeback.

“Come inside,” Lucy said after they’d watched the kids get on. “I’ll fix you some pancakes or something. You look like you’ve lost weight.”

As she turned away, he caught her hand. “Have you heard anything about Al Stamper? Talked to Nadine, maybe?”

“I talked to her the day you left for the cabin, because you told me he was sick. Pancreatic, that’s so awful. She said he was doing pretty well.”

“You haven’t talked to her since?”

Lucy frowned. “No, why would I?”

“No reason,” he said, and that was true. Dreams were dreams, and the only rat he’d seen at the cabin was the stuffed one in the toybox. “Just concerned about him.”

“Call him yourself, then. Cut out the middle man. Now do you want some pancakes or not?”

What he wanted to do was work. But pancakes first. Keep things quiet on the home front.

After pancakes, he went upstairs to his little study, plugged in his laptop, and looked at the hard copy he’d done on Pop’s typewriter. Start by keyboarding it in, or just press on? He decided on the latter. Best to find out right away if the magic spell that had been over Bitter River still held, or if it had departed when he left the cabin.

It did hold. For the first ten minutes or so he was in the upstairs study, vaguely aware of reggae from downstairs, which meant that Lucy was in her study, crunching numbers. Then the music was gone, the walls dissolved, and moonlight was shining down on DeWitt Road, the rutted, potholed track running between Bitter River and the county seat. The stagecoach was coming. Sheriff Averill would hold his badge high and flag it down. Pretty soon he and Andy Prescott would be onboard. The kid had a date in county court. And not long after with the hangman.

Drew knocked off at noon and called Al Stamper. There was no need to be frightened, and he told himself he wasn’t, but he couldn’t deny that his pulse had kicked up several notches.

“Hey, Drew,” Al said, sounding just like himself. Sounding strong. “How did it go up in the wilderness?”

“Pretty well. I got almost ninety pages before a storm came along—”

“Pierre,” Al said, and with a clear distaste that warmed Drew’s heart. “Ninety pages, really? You? ”

“I know, hard to believe, and another ten this morning, but never mind that. What I really want to know is how you’re doing.”

“Pretty damn good,” Al said. “Except I’ve got this damn rat to contend with.”

Drew had been sitting in one of the kitchen chairs. Now he bolted to his feet, suddenly feeling sick again. Feverish. “What?”