Firestarter(34)

And then Charlie had wept hysterically, tears of terror and remorse, because both of Mommy's hands were bandaged, and she knew why Daddy had read her all the scary stories. Because the day before, when Mommy told her she couldn't go over to Deenie's house because she hadn't picked up her room, Charlie had got very angry, and suddenly the firething had been there, popping out of nowhere as it always did, like some evil jack-in-the-box, nodding and grinning, and she had been so angry she had shoved it out of herself and at her mommy and then Mommy's hands had been on fire. And it hadn't been too bad.

(could have been worse could have been her face)

because the sink had been full of soapy water for the dishes, it hadn't been too bad, but it had been VERY BAD, and she had promised them both that she would never never never

The warm water drummed on her face, her chest, her shoulders, encasing her in a warm envelope, a cocoon, easing away memories and care. Daddy had told her it was all right. And if Daddy said a thing was so, it was. He was the smartest man in the world.

Her mind turned from the past to the present, and she thought about the men who were chasing them. They were from the government, Daddy said, but not a good part of the government. They worked for a part of the government called the Shop. The men chased them and chased them. Everywhere they went, after a little while, those Shop men showed up.

I wonder how they'd like it if I set them on fire? a part of her asked coolly, and she squeezed her eyes shut in guilty horror. It was nasty to think that way. It was bad.

Charlie reached out, grasped the HOT shower faucet, and shut it off with a sudden hard twist of her wrist. For the next two minutes she stood shivering and clutching her slight body under the ice-cold, needling spray, wanting to get out, not allowing herself to.

When you had bad thoughts, you had to pay for them.

Deenie had told her so.

2

Andy woke up a little at a time, vaguely aware of the drumming sound of the shower. At first it had been part of a dream: he was on Tashmore Pond with his grandfather and he was eight years old again, trying to get a squirming nightcrawler onto his hook without sticking the hook into his thumb. The dream had been incredibly vivid. He could see the splintery wicker creel in the bow of the boat, he could see the red tire patches on Granther McGee's old green boots, he could see his own old and wrinkled first baseman's mitt, and looking at it made him remember that he had Little League practice tomorrow at Roosevelt Field. But this was tonight, the last light and the drawing dark balanced perfectly on the cusp of twilight, the pond so still that you could see the small clouds of midges and noseeums skimming over its surface, which was the colour of chrome. Heat lightning flashed intermittently... or maybe it was real lightening, because it was raining. The first drops darkened the wood of Granther's dory, weatherbeaten white, in penny-sized drops. Then you could hear it on the lake, a low and mysterious hissing sound, like-

-like the sound of a-

-shower, Charlie must be in the shower.

He opened his eyes and looked at an unfamiliar beamed ceiling. Where are we?

It fell back into place a piece at a time, but there was an instant of frightened free-fall that came of having been in too many places over the last year, of having too many close shaves and being under too much pressure. He thought longingly of his dream and wished he could be back in it with Granther McGee, who had been dead for twenty years now.

Hastings Glen. He was in Hastings Glen. They were in Hastings Glen.

He wondered about his head. It hurt, but not like last night, when that bearded guy had let them off: The pain was down to a steady low throb. If this one followed previous history, the throb would be just a faint ache by this evening, and entirely gone by tomorrow.

The shower was turned off:

He sat up in bed and looked at his watch. It was quarter to eleven.

"Charlie?"

She came back into the bedroom, rubbing herself vigorously with a towel.

"Good morning, Daddy." "Good morning. How are you?" "Hungry," she said. She went over to the chair where she had put her clothes and picked up the green blouse. Sniffed it. Grimaced. "I need to change my clothes." "You'll have to make do with those for a while, babe. We'll get you something later on today."

"I hope we don't have to wait that long to eat."

"We'll hitch a ride," he said, "and stop at the first cafe was come to."

"Daddy, when I started school, you told me never to ride with strangers." She was into her underpants and green blouse, and was looking at him curiously.

Andy got out of bed, walked over to her, and put his hands on her shoulders. "The devil you don't know is sometimes better than the one you do," he said. "Do you know what that means, keed?"

She thought about it carefully. The devil they knew was those men from the Shop, she guessed. The men that had chased them down the street in New York the day before. The devil they didn't know-

"I guess it means that most people driving cars don't work for that Shop," she said.

He smiled back. "You got it. And what I said before still holds, Charlie: when you get into a bad fix, you sometimes have to do things you'd never do if things were going good."

Charlie's smile faded. Her face became serious, watchful. "Like getting the money to come out of the phones?"

"Yes," he said.