Firestarter(87)

"You can light it just by thinking about it. You know that."

"No. I can't. And even if I could, I wouldn't. It's wrong."

Hockstetter looked at her sadly, the just-pals smile fading. "Charlie, why do you hurt yourself like this? Don't you want to see your dad? He wants to see you. He told me to tell you it was all right."

And then she did cry, she cried hard and long, because she did want to see him, not a minute of any day went by without her thoughts turning to him, without missing him, without wanting to feel his solid arms around her. Hockstetter watched her cry and there was no sympathy in his face, no sorrow or kindness. There was, however, careful calculation. Oh, she hated him.

That had been three weeks ago. Since then she had stubbornly not mentioned her father, although Hockstetter had dangled him before her constantly, telling her that her father was sad, that her father said it was okay to make fires, and worst of all, that her father had told Hockstetter that he guessed Charlie didn't love him anymore.

She looked at her pale face in the bathroom mirror and listened to the steady whine of John's vacuum cleaner. When he finished that, he would change her bed. Then he would dust. Then he would be gone. Suddenly she didn't want him to be gone, she wanted to listen to him talk.

At first she had always gone into the bathroom and stayed in there until he was gone, and once he had turned off the vacuum cleaner and knocked on the bathroom door, calling worriedly: "Kid? You all right? You ain't sick, are you?"

His voice was so kind-and kindness, simple kindness, was so hard to come by in here-that she had had to struggle to keep her voice calm and cool because the tears were threatening again. "Yes... I'm okay."

She waited, wondering if he would try to take it further, try to get inside her like the others did, but he had simply gone away and started his vacuum up again. In a way she had been disappointed.

Another time he had been washing the floor and when she came out of the bathroom, he had said, without looking up, "Watch out for that wet floor, kid, you don't want to break your arm." That was all, but again she had been nearly surprised into tears-it was concern, so simple and direct it was unconscious.

Just lately she had been coming out of the bathroom to watch him more and more. To watch him... and to listen to him. He would ask her questions sometimes, but they were never threatening ones. Still, most times she wouldn't answer, just on general principles.

It didn't stop John. He would talk to her anyway. He would talk about his bowling scores, about his dog, about how his TV got broken and it would be a couple of weeks before he could get it fixed because they wanted so much for those little tiny tubes. She supposed he was lonely. With a face like his, he probably didn't have a wife or anything. She liked to listen to him because it was like a secret tunnel to the outside. His voice was low, musical, sometimes wandering. It was never sharp and interrogative, like Hockstetter's. He required no reply, seemingly.

She got off the toilet seat and went to the door, and that was when the lights went out. She stood there, puzzled, one hand on the doorknob, her head cocked to one side. It immediately came to her that this was some sort of trick. She could hear the dying whine of John's vacuum cleaner and then he said, "Well, what the Christ?"

Then the lights came back on. Still Charlie didn't come out. The vacuum cleaner cycled back up again. Footsteps approached the door and John said, "Did the lights go out in there for a second?"

"Yes."

"It's the storm, I guess."

"What storm?"

"Looked like it was going to storm when I came to work. Big thunderheads."

Looked like it was going to storm. Outside. She wished she could go outside and see the big thunderheads. Smell that funny way the air got before a summer storm. It got a rainy, wet smell. Everything looked gr-

The lights went out again.

The vacuum died. The darkness was total. Her only connection with the world was her hand on the brushed-chrome doorknob. She began to tap her tongue thoughtfully against her upper lip.

"Kid?"

She didn't answer. A trick? A storm, he had said. And she believed that. She believed John. It was surprising and scary to find that she believed what someone had told her, after all this time.

"Kid?" It was him again. And this time he sounded... frightened. Her own fear of the dark, which had only begun to creep up on her, was sublimated in his. "John, what's the matter?" She opened the door and groped in front of her. She didn't go out, not yet. She was afraid of tripping over the vacuum cleaner. "What happened?" Now there was a beat of panic in his voice. It scared her. "Where's the lights?" "They went out," she said. "You said... the storm..."

"I can't stand the dark," he said. There was terror in his voice and a kind of grotesque apology. "You don't understand. I can't... I got to get out..." She heard him make a sudden blundering rush across the living room, and then there was a loud and frightening crash as he fell over something-the coffee table, most likely. He cried out miserably and that frightened her even more.

"John? John! Are you all right?"

"I got to get out!" he screamed. "Make them let me out, kid!"

"What's wrong?"

There was no answer, not for a long time. Then she heard a low, choked sound and understood that he was crying.