The Dead Zone(139)

Oh, his head ached.

O'Donnell came back, wiping his hands on his apron. Tammy Wynette finished up and was replaced with Red Sovine, who had a CB call for the Teddy Bear.

'Thanks again for the suds,' O'Donnell said, drawing two.

'My pleasure,' Johnny said, still studying the dipping. 'Coorter's Notch last week, Jackson this coming weekend. I never heard of that one. Must be a pretty small town, huh?'

'Just a burg,' O'Donnell agreed. 'They used to have a ski resort, but it went broke. Lotta unemployment up that way. They do some wood-pulping and a little shirttail farming. But he goes up there, by the Jesus. Talks to em. Listens to their bitches. Where you from up in Maine, Johnny?'

'Lewiston,' Johnny lied. The dipping said that Greg Stillson would meet with interested persons at the town hall.

'Guess you came down for the skiing, huh?'

'No, I hurt my leg a while back. I don't ski anymore.

Just passing through. Thanks for letting me look at this.' Johnny handed the clipping back. 'It's quite interesting.'

O'Donnell put it carefully back with his other papers. He had an empty bar, a dog back home that would sic on command, and Greg Stillson. Greg had been in his bar.

Johnny found himself abruptly wishing himself dead. If this talent was a gift from God, then God was a dangerous lunatic who ought to be stopped. If God wanted Greg Stilison dead, why hadn't he sent him down the birth canal with the umbilical cord wrapped around his throat? Or strangled him on a piece of meat? Or electrocuted him while he was changing the radio station? Drowned him in the ole swimming hole? Why did God have to have Johnny Smith to do his dirty work? It wasn't his responsibility to save the world, that was for the psychos and only psychos would presume to try it. He suddenly decided he would let Greg Stillson live and spit in God's eye.

'You okay, Johnny?' O'Donnell asked.

'Huh? Yeah, sure.'

'You looked sorta funny for just a second there.'

Chuck Chatsworth saying: if I didn't, I'd be afraid all those people he killed would haunt me to my grave.

'Out woolgathering, I guess,' Johnny said. 'I want you to know it's been a pleasure drinking with you.'

'Well, the same goes back to you,' O'Donnell said, looking pleased. 'I wish more people passing through felt that way. They go through here headed for the ski resorts, you know. The big places. That's where they take their money. If I thought they'd stop in, I'd fix this place up like they'd like. Posters, you know, of Switzerland and Colorado. A fireplace. Load the juke up with rock 'n' roll records instead of that shitkicking music I'd... you know, I'd like that.' He shrugged. 'I'm not a bad guy, hell.'

'Of course not,' Johnny said, getting off the stool and thinking about the dog trained to sic, and the hoped-for hippie junkie burglar.

'Well, tell your friends I'm here,' O'Donnell said

'For sure,' Johnny said.

'Hey Dick!' one of the bar-bags hollered. 'Ever hear of service-with-a-smile in this place?'

'Why don't you get stuffed?' O'Donnell yelled at her, flushing.

'Fuck - YO U!' Clarice called back, and cackled. Johnny slipped quietly out into the gathering storm,

8.

He was staying at the Holiday Inn in Portsmouth. When he got back that evening, he told the desk clerk to have his bill ready for checkout in the morning.

In his room, he sat down at the impersonal Holiday Inn writing desk, took out all the stationery, and grasped the Holiday Inn pen. His head was throbbing, but there were letters to be written. His momentary rebellion - if that was what it had been - had passed. His unfinished business with Greg Stillson remained.

I've gone crazy, he thought. That's really it. I've gone entirely off my chump. He could see the headlines now.

PSYCHO SHOOTS N.H. REP. MADMAN ASSASSINATES STILLS ON. HAIL OF BULLETS CUTS DOWN U.S. REPRESENTATIVE IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.

And Inside View, of course, would have a field day.

SELF-PROCLAIMED 'SEER' KILLS STILLSON, 12 NOTED PSYCHIATRISTS TELL WHY SMITH DID

IT. With a sidebar by that fellow Dees, maybe, telling how Johnny had threatened to get his shotgun and 'shoot me a trespasser'.

Crazy.

The hospital debt was paid, but this would leave a new bill of particulars behind, and his father would have to pay for it. He and his new wife would spend a lot of days in the limelight of his reflected notoriety. They would get the hate mail. Everyone he had known would be interviewed - the Chatsworths, Sam, Sheriff George Bannerman. Sarah? Well, maybe they wouldn't get as far as Sarah. After all, it wasn't as though he were planning to shoot the president. At least, not yet. There's a lotta people afraid to come right out and say it, but I'm not. I'll say it right out loud. Some day Greg Stillson's apt to be president.

Johnny rubbed his temples. The headache came in low, slow waves, and none of this was getting his letters written. He drew the first sheet of stationery toward him, picked up the pen, and wrote Dear Dad. Outside, snow struck the window with that dry, sandy sound that means serious business. Finally the pen began to move across the paper, slowly at first, then gaining speed.

Chapter Twenty-seven

1.

Johnny came up wooden steps that had been shoveled clear of snow and salted down. He went through a set of double doors and into a foyer plastered with specimen ballots and notices of a special town meeting to be held here in Jackson on the third of February. There was also a notice of Greg Stillson's impending visit and a picture of The Man Who himself, hard hat cocked back on his head, grinning that hard slantwise 'We're wise to em, ain't we, pard?' grin. Set a little to the right of the green door leading into the meeting hall itself was a sign that Johnny hadn't expected, and he pondered it in silence for several seconds, his breath pluming white from his lips. DRIVER EXAMINATIONS TODAY, this sign read. It was set on a wooden easel. HAVE PAPERS READY.