The Dark Half(140)

'Alexis Machine,' Stark. said. His yellow eyes were gleaming.

'That's right,' Thad said, and now his own eyes were gleaming.

''Cut him while I stand here and watch.''

'You got it!' Stark cried, and began to laugh. ''I want to see the blood flow. Don't make me tell you twice.''

Now they both began to laugh.

Liz looked from Thad to Stark and then back at her husband again and the blood fell from her cheeks because she could not tell the difference.

All at once the edge of the cliff felt closer than ever. 5

Alan went out to get the pencils. His head was only in the car for a moment, but it seemed much longer and he was very glad to get it out again. The car had a dark and unpleasant smell that left him feeling slightly woozy. Rooting around in Stark's Toronado was like sticking his head into an attic room where someone had spilled a bottle of chloroform. If that's the odor of dreams, Alan thought, I never want to have another one. He stood for a moment beside the black car, the boxes of Berol pencils in his hands, and looked up the driveway.

The sparrows had arrived.

The driveway was disappearing beneath a carpet of them. As he watched, more of them landed. And the woods were full of them. They only landed and sat staring at him, ghastly-silent, a massed living conundrum.

They are coming for you, George, he thought, and started back toward the house. Halfway there he stopped suddenly as a nasty idea struck him.

Or are they coming for us?

He looked back at the birds for a long moment, but they told no secrets, and he went inside..6

'Upstairs,' Stark said. 'You go first, Sheriff Alan. Go to the rear of the guest bedroom. There's a glass case filled with pictures and glass paperweights and little souvenirs against the wall there. When you push against the left-hand side of the case, it rotates inward on a central spindle. Thad's study is beyond it.'

Alan looked at Thad, who nodded.

'You know a hell of a lot about this place,' Alan said, 'for a man who's never been here.'

'But I have been here,' Stark said gravely. 'I have been here often, in my dreams.'

7

Two minutes later, all of them were gathered outside the unique door of Thad's small study. The glass case was turned inward, creating two entrances to the room separated by the thickness of the case. There were no windows in here; give me a window down here by the lake, Thad had told Liz once, and what I'll do is write two words and then stare out of the damned thing for two hours, watching the boats go by.

A lamp with a flexible goose-neck and a brilliant quartz-halogen bulb cast a circle of white light on the desk. An office chair and a folding camp chair stood behind the desk, side by side, facing the two blank notebooks which had been placed side by side in the circle of light. Resting on top of each notebook were two sharpened Berol Black Beauty pencils. The IBM electric Thad sometimes used down here had been unplugged and stuck in a corner. Thad himself had brought in the folding chair from the hall closet, and the room now expressed a duality Liz found both startling and extremely unpleasant. It was, in a way, another version of the mirror-creature she fancied she had seen when Thad finally arrived. Here were two chairs where there had always been one; here were two little writing stations, also side by side, where there should have been only one. The writing implement which she associated with Thad's (better)

normal self had been shunted aside, and when they sat down, Stark in Thad's office chair and Thad in the folding chair, the disorientation was complete. She felt almost sea-sick. Each of them had a twin on his lap.

'How long do we have before someone gets suspicious and decides to check on this place?'

Thad asked Alan, who was standing in the doorway with Liz. 'Be honest, and be as accurate as you can. You have to believe me when I tell you this is the only chance we have.'

'Thad, look at him!' Liz burst out wildly. 'Can't you see what's happening to him? He doesn't just want help writing a book! He wants to steal your life! Don't you see that?'

'Shhh,' he said. 'I know what he wants. I think I have since the start. This is the only way. I know what I'm doing. How long, Alan?'.Alan thought about it carefully. He had told Sheila he was going to get a take-out, and he had

already called in, so it would be awhile before she got nervous. Things might have happened quicker if Norris Ridgewick had been around.

'Maybe until my wife calls to ask where I am,' he said. 'Maybe longer. She's been a cop's wife for a long time. She expects long hours and weird nights.' He didn't like hearing himself say this. This was not the way the game was supposed to be played; it was the exact opposite of the way the game was supposed to be played.

Thad's eyes compelled him. Stark did not seem to be listening at all; he had picked up the slate paperweight which sat atop an untidy stack of old manuscript in the corner of the desk and was playing with it.

'I think it will be at least four hours.' And then, reluctantly, he added: 'Maybe all night. I left Andy Clutterbuck on the desk, and Clut isn't exactly Quiz Kids material. If someone gets his wind up, it will probably be that guy Harrison - the one you ditched - or someone I know at the State Police Barracks in Oxford. A guy named Henry Payton.'

Thad looked at Stark. 'Will it be enough?'

Stark's eyes, brilliant jewels in the ruined setting of his face, were distant, hazed. His bandaged hand toyed absently with the paperweight. He put it back and smiled at Thad. 'What do you think?