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microwaveable - and then sleep. Preferably the kind without
dreams. He couldn't wait to put this day behind him.
He stuck his key in the lock, turned it, and punched 3817 to silence
the warning bleep from the burglar alarm panel. He turned on the
front hall light, stepped through the door, pushed it shut behind
him, began to turn, saw what was on the wall where his collection
of framed book covers had been just two days ago, and screamed.
In his head he screamed. Nothing actually came out of his mouth
but a harsh exhalation of air. He heard a thump and a tuneless little
jingle as his keys fell out of his relaxing hand and dropped to the
carpet between his feet.
The Road Virus Heads North was no longer in the puckerbrush
behind the Gray turnpike service area.
It was mounted on his entry wall.
It had changed yet again. The car was now parked in the driveway
of the yard sale yard. The goods were still spread out
everywhereglassware and furniture and ceramic knickknacks
(Scottie dogs smoking pipes, bare-assed toddlers, winking fish),
but now they gleamed beneath the light of the same skullface
moon that rode in the sky above Kinnell's house. The TV was still
there, too, and it was still on, casting its own pallid radiance onto
the grass, and what lay in front of it, next to an overturned lawn
chair. Judy Diment was on her back, and she was no longer all
there. After a moment, Kinnell saw the rest. It was on the ironing
board, dead eyes glowing like fifty-cent pieces in the moonlight.
The Grand Am's taillights were a blur of red-pink watercolor paint.
It was Kinnell's first look at the car's back deck. Written across it
in Old English letters were three words: THE ROAD VIRUS.
Makes perfect sense, Kinnell thought numbly. Not him, his car.
Except for a guy like this, there's probably not much difference.
"This isn't happening," he whispered, except it was. Maybe it
wouldn't have happened to someone a little less open to such
things, but it was happening. And as he stared at the painting he
found himself remembering the little sign on Judy Diment's card
table. ALL SALES CASH, it had said (although she had taken his
check, only adding his driver's license ID number for safety's
sake). And it had said something else, too.
ALL SALES FINAL.
Kinnell walked past the picture and into the living room. He felt
like a stranger inside his own body, and he sensed part of his mind
groping for the trowel he had used earlier. He seemed to have
misplaced it.
He turned on the TV, then the Toshiba satellite tuner which sat on
top of it. He turned to V-14, and all the time he could feel the
picture out there in the hall, pushing at the back of his head. The
picture that had somehow beaten him here.
"Must have known a shortcut," Kinnell said, and laughed.
He hadn't been able to see much of the blond in this version of the
picture, but there had been a blur behind the wheel which Kinnell
assumed had been him. The Road Virus had finished his business
in Rosewood. It was time to move north. Next stop
He brought a heavy steel door down on that thought, cutting it off
before he could see all of it. "After all, I could still be imagining all
this," he told the empty living room. Instead of comforting him, the
hoarse, shaky quality of his voice frightened him even more. "This
could be ... But he couldn't finish. All that came to him was an old
song, belted out in the pseudo-hip style of some early '50s Sinatra
done: This could be the start of something BIG ...
The tune oozing from the TV's stereo speakers wasn't Sinatra but
Paul Simon, arranged for strings. The white computer type on the
blue screen said WELCOME TO NEW ENGLAND NEWSWIRE.
There were ordering instructions below this, but Kinnell didn't
have to read them; he was a Newswire junkie and knew the drill by
heart. He dialed, punched in his Mastercard number, then 508.
"You have ordered Newswire for [slight pause] central and
northem Massachusetts," the robot voice said. "Thank you very m-
-"
Kinnell dropped the phone back into the cradle and stood looking
at the New England Newswire logo, snapping his fingers
nervously. "Come on," he said. "Come on, come on."
The screen flickered then, and the blue background became green.
Words began scrolling up, something about a house fire in
Taunton. This was followed by the latest on a dog-racing scandal,
then tonight's weather - clear and mild. Kinnell was starting to
relax, starting to wonder if he'd really seen what he thought he'd
seen on the entryway wall or if it had been a bit of travel-induced
fugue, when the TV beeped shrilly and the words BREAKING
NEWS appeared. He stood watching the caps scroll up.
NENphAUG19/8:40P A ROSEWOOD WOMAN HAS BEEN
BRUTALLY MURDER-ED WHILE DOING A FAVOR FOR AN
ABSENT FRIEND. 38-YEAR-OLD JUDITH DIMENT WAS
SAVAGELY HACKED TO DEATH ON THE LAWN OF HER
NEIGHBOR'S HOUSE, WHERE SHE HAD BEEN
CONDUCTING A YARD SALE. NO SCREAMS WERE
HEARD AND MRS. DIMENT WAS NOT FOUND UNTIL
EIGHT O'CLOCK, WHEN A NEIGHBOR ACROSS THE
STREET CAME OVER TO COMPLAIN ABOUT LOUD
TELEVISION NOISE. THE NEIGHBOR, DAVID GRAVES,
SAID THAT MRS. DIMENT HAD BEEN DECAPITATED.
"HER HEAD WAS ON THE IRONING BOARD," HE SAID. "IT
WAS THE MOST AWFUL THING I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY
LIFE." GRAVES SAID HE HEARD NO SIGNS OF A
STRUGGLE, ONLY THE TV AND, SHORTLY BEFORE
FINDING THE BODY, A LOUD CAR, POSSIBLY EQUIPPED
WITH A GLASSPACK MUFFLER, ACCELERATING AWAY
FROM THE VICINITY ALONG ROUTE ONE. SPECULATION
THAT THIS VEHICLE MAY HAVE BELONGED TO THE
KILLER
Except that wasn't speculation; that was a simple fact.
Breathing hard, not quite panting, Kinnell hurried back into the
entryway. The picture was still there, but it had changed once
more. Now it showed two glaring white circles - headlights - with
the dark shape of the car hulking behind them.
He's on the move again, Kinnell thought, and Aunt Trudy was on
top of his mind now - sweet Aunt Trudy, who always knew who
had been naughty and who had been nice. Aunt Trudy, who lived
in Wells, no more than forty miles from Rosewood.
"God, please God, please send him by the coast road," Kinnell
said, reaching for the picture. Was it his imagination or were the
headlights farther apart now, as if the car were actually moving
before his eyes ... but stealthily, the way the minute hand moved on
a Pocket watch? "Send him by the coast road, please."
He tore the picture off the wall and ran back into the living room
with it. The screen was in place before the fireplace, of course; it
would be at least two months before a fire was wanted in here.
Kinnell batted it aside and threw the painting in, breaking the glass
fronting-which he had already broken once, at the Gray service
area - against the firedogs. Then he pelted for the kitchen,
wondering what he would do if this didn't work either.
It has to, he thought. It will because it has to, and that's A there is
to it.
He opened the kitchen cabinets and pawed through them, spilling
the oatmeal, spilling a canister of salt, spilling the vinegar. The
bottle broken open on the counter and assaulted his nose and eyes
with the high stink.
Not there. What he wanted wasn't there.
He raced into the pantry, looked behind the door - nothing but a
plastic bucket and an 0 Cedar - and then on the shelf by the dryer.
There it was, next to the briquettes.
Lighter fluid.
He grabbed it and ran back, glancing at the telephone on the
kitchen wall as he hurried by. He wanted to stop, wanted to call
Aunt Trudy. Credibility wasn't an issue with her; if her favorite
nephew called and told her to get out of the house, to get out light
now, she would do it ... but what if the blond kid followed her?
Chased her?
And he would. Kinnell knew he would.
He hurried across the living room and stopped in front of the
fireplace.
"Jesus," he whispered. "Jesus, no." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]