Chapter 4 3

Charity Campbell sat on the double bed she shared with her husband, Joe, looking down at the things in the camp's hands.She had just returned from the store that Donna Trenton frequented.Her hands, feet and cheeks were numb and cold, as if she'd just been out with Joe on a long snowmobile ride.But tomorrow is the first of July, and the snowmobile is neatly parked in the rear carport, the tarp already packed away. Impossible, something must be wrong. But there is nothing wrong, she has checked several times, there is nothing wrong. After all, this has to happen to someone, doesn't it?

Yes, of course it had happened to someone, but to her? She could hear Joe thumping something in the garage, a high bell-like sound, all the way into the hot afternoon. The sound seemed to be the sound of a hammer hitting thin metal. It stopped, and then came faintly: "Damn it!" The hammering began again, and there was another long pause, and then a cry from her husband: "Brett!" Whenever he raised his voice and yelled at their son like that, she always trembled a little. Bright loved his father, but Charity had never been sure what Joe thought of his son.It's scary to think about it, but it's real.Two years ago, she had had a terrible nightmare, one she thought she would never forget, in which her husband had driven a pitchfork straight into Brett's chest, and the fork's point had passed through him, tearing his back. The T-shirt stretched out like a tent pole holding the canvas skyward.The husband in the dream said, I told Xiao Huizi to come down, but he just wouldn't come down.She woke up with her real husband lying beside her, in a pair of boxer shorts, asleep like a bear.At that time, the moonlight was shining through the window.The light fell on the bed she was sitting on, it was a cold, indifferent light.

At last she began to understand how frightening one must feel in the presence of a monster with a blue face and yellow teeth, sent by an angry God to eat up the rough and diseased creatures.Jo had laid hands on her a few times since their marriage, and she was well behaved.Maybe she wasn't a genius, but her mother was never born with a dumbass either.Now she did what Joe told her to do, seldom argued, and she thought Brett would do the same, but she was still worried about him. She went to the window just as Brett ran across the yard into the barn, followed by a dejected Cujo. Faintly said: "Help me, Brett."

More vaguely: "Okay, Dad." The thumping started again, that relentless ice chisel: Ding!Ding!Ding!She imagined that Brett might be holding something against something—an ice pick, perhaps, against some kind of frozen support, or, perhaps, a thick square nail against a deadbolt, and she My husband, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth and his T-shirt sleeves rolled up, is swinging a five-pound pony hammer and hitting it hard. If he is drunk, the front sight is a little crooked... In her mind, she heard Brett's painful wail—the hammer had smashed his hand into a pool of bright red, broken meat sauce, and she desperately stretched out her hand to block it, unwilling to see this tragic scene...

She looked at the thing in her hand and considered how to use it well.What she wants to do most now is go to Connecticut to see her sister Holly.Six years later, it was the summer of 1974, and she remembered it well, except for one good weekend, it was a bad summer. Brett began to have trouble at night, having restless nightmares and increasingly sleepwalking. It was also the same year that Joe started drinking heavily.Brett's restless nights and sleepwalking were finally over, but Joe's drinking habit was not. Brett was four years old then, and now he's ten years old and probably doesn't remember Aunt Holly, who's been married for six years.

Sixteen months ago she had asked her husband if he wanted to go on vacation and get a taste of Connecticut, but he wasn't much of a traveler and thought it would be nice to be here in Castle Rock.Every year he and old drunk Gary Pellville and a party of others went up north to hunt deer near Moosehead Lake. Last November he had tried to take Brett with him, but because of her interference Ted had not gone.She didn't want her son to spend two weeks hanging out with these guys, listening to rough sex jokes and watching them get drunk and turn into beasts.They carried their guns and loaded them all day, no matter whether they wore orange fluorescent hats and vests or not, someone would be injured one day, and this person should not be Brett—her son.

The hammer hit the steel object heavily and rhythmically.it stopped.She let out a breath, and then it started again. She knew that one day Brett would go with them, and it seemed to her that he was finished.He'd be a member of their club, and then she'd be more of a kitchen drudge, just keeping the club house clean.Yes, that day would come, she knew, and was very distressed, but she could put it off for another year at least. So what about this year?Could she keep him at home in November?Probably not, but anyway, this year will be better - not everything, but at least it will be better - if only she can take Brett to Connecticut first and show him the...the...

Oh, speak out, only to yourself. (How those faces lived.) As long as Joe lets them go...but there's no point in thinking about it.Jo could go out to his friends by herself, but she couldn't, not even with Brett all the way, which was a cardinal rule of their marriage.Yet she couldn't help thinking how nice it would be to go without him, sitting in Holly's kitchen, looking up and down Holly's Jim with those impertinent little eyes.Of course, if not he was impatient to go, and.Finally Holly and Jim impatiently thought it might be better for them to go. Her and Brett. Just the two of them.

They can go by car. She was thinking that last November he had tried to take Brett out hunting with him.She wondered if she could make a deal with him. A chill seized her heart, and she felt that the bone crevices all over her body were full of piercing fiberglass.Would he really agree to such a deal?He could take Brett to Moosehead Lake in the autumn if Joe agreed and they took the car to Stuartford-- There was enough money -- there was now -- but it wasn't enough, and he would take it, which was the last thing she wanted to see.Unless she just played the right card, just... the right card.

Her thoughts raced faster and faster. The hammering stopped outside, and she saw Brett come out of the garage, trotting, looking pitiful.A premonition made her believe that if the child was seriously injured one day, it would only be in that oily black place covered with planks and a layer of sawdust stuck to it. There will be a way, there will always be a way. As long as she is willing to bet. She holds a lottery ticket in her hand.She stood in front of the window, turning it over and over again in the palm of her hand, thinking. When Steve Kemp returned to his shop, he was in an angry trance.His shop is on 11th Road west of Castle Rock.He rented it from a farmer who had lands in Castle Rock and neighboring Bridgetown.

The farmer is not only a landowner, he is a super landowner. In the center of the store stood a skinning vat so huge that almost all the missionaries attending a religious meeting could be thrown into it and boiled.His work was arranged in a circle, like a small satellite next to a large planet: chest, dresser, cupboard, bookshelf, table.There is a perpetual scent in the air of varnish, peeled furniture, and linseed oil. He pulled out of a very old TWA flight bag and changed into a new outfit that he had planned to put on after he had sex with the lovely tramp.Now he flung the flight bag from one end of the store to the other, and it bounced off the wall and landed on a dresser, and he threw it over and knocked it aside, and kicked it away before it hit the ground it.The bag hit the ceiling and fell around the corner like a dead groundhog.Then he just stood, panting heavily, smelling the stale smell in the house, and staring at the three chairs he had promised to rattan by the end of the week.His thumbs were almost dug into his belt, his fingers were clenched into fists, and his lower lip stuck out like a child still exasperated after some mischief. "Bitch dog!" He angrily threw himself on the flying bag again, and was about to kick it hard when he changed his mind and picked it up.He walked through this room and into the adjoining three-room dwelling.It's just getting hotter inside.The crazy heat in July, the heat enters people's minds.The kitchen was full of dirty dishes, and flies buzzed around a green Hefty bag stuffed with canned fish. In the center of the living room was an old, large black-and-white TV set he had retrieved from a Naples dump, on which a tabby cat was napping like a heap of dead things. Its name was Lernie Capo. The bedroom is where he writes, and the bed can be folded, so his sheets are not cold and hard.No matter how much he writes (he has had zero grades for the past two weeks), he always masturbates (in his opinion, masturbation is just a sign of being creative).Opposite the bed was a table with an old-fashioned painting of a landscape under a tree, and manuscripts were stacked at either end of the table.He had many other manuscripts, some in boxes, and others bound with rubber bands in a corner of the cabin. He wrote a lot and moved a lot, and the most in his luggage was his works-mainly poems, a few short stories, and a surreal short play-the words of all the characters in the play add up to only nine words , plus a full-length novel, he attacked it viciously from six different angles. He hadn't opened his bag for five years, which was a long time. One day last December, when Kemp was shaving, he noticed that he had grown a few gray beards for the first time, which sent him into a wild depression that lasted for several weeks. From that day until now, he has never touched a razor again, as if shaving brought him a white beard.At thirty-eight, he refused to take any pleasure in being so old, but the fact would creep into his mind and disturb him.So old—forty within seven hundred days—it frightened him.He always felt that forty was someone else's business. The bitch, he thought over and over again, the bitch. When he was still a junior high school student, he slept with an ambiguous, beautiful, gentle and helpless French whore.Since then, he has left dozens of women, but only two or three times when the relationship collapsed. He is good at seeing the first signs of a relationship breakdown, and is often the first to try to get out of it, which is like bombing the queen of spades in some games of hearts, a way to protect himself.You have to do this when you have a big card and you can still get a bitch, otherwise you will be confused.You have to play big to protect yourself.You don't even think about your age when you do it.He knew Donna had cooled off, but until she hit him hard, he thought she was just a woman who could be easily manipulated through a combination of psychological and sexual tactics, or crude threats, at least for a while. . But he failed, and it stung and raged him, feeling like he'd been whipped.He took off his clothes, threw his wallet and change on the table, and went to the bathroom to take a shower.After taking a bath, he felt better.He began to get dressed, pulling out a pair of jeans and a faded striped shirt from his flight bag, collecting the change and putting it in his jacket pocket.After pausing for a while, he thought about it, his eyes fell on his Grand Duke Buckson's wallet, and some business cards fell out, they were always like this, there were too many. Steve Kemp has a woodrat wallet.There is one kind of thing that he always takes out from it and puts it away again. This thing is the business card.They make great bookmarks and have just the right amount of space on the back to jot down addresses, general directions, and phone numbers.Sometimes he'd ask for a card or two when he passed a plumbing store, or bumped into an insurance salesman, and he'd always grin as he accepted a business card from an eight-hour company clerk. Once, when he and Donna were glued together, he caught a glimpse of her husband's business card on top of the TV.He took it away when Donna went to take a shower or something, for nothing but the woodrat's habit. Now he opened his wallet and looked through it, a consulting firm in Virginia, a realtor in Colorado, dozens of others of one kind or another.For a moment he thought he had lost her handsome husband's business card, but it had just slipped between two one-dollar bills.At last he found it: white background, small blue letters.Triumphant Merchant!Calm but impressive, nothing flashy. Roger Brixton Woolkers AD Victor Trenton 1633 Congress Avenue telex: ADWORX Portland, Maine, 04001 tel: (207) 799-8600 Steve pulled a sheet from a ream of cheap mimeograph paper and cleared another space in front of him.He glanced at the typewriter, no, each machine's handwriting is unique, like a fingerprint. "His crooked lowercase 'a' told the truth, Mr. Prosecutor," the jury would say. It has nothing to do with the police. But even without thinking about it, Steve knows to be careful.Cheap paper, available in every store, no need for a typewriter. He took out a ballpoint pen from the coffee box on the corner of the table, and wrote in capital letters: Hello Vic. you have a lovely wife, I love playing her out of shit. He stopped, tapped his pen on his teeth, and felt better.On the whole, of course, she was a beautiful woman.It was likely, he thought, that Vic Trenton was not impressed by what he had written.Talking out of thin air, worth nothing, you can always send someone a letter for less than a cup of coffee...but there's something... there's always something.what is it then? He burst out laughing, his whole face lit up, and now you can see why he hasn't had much trouble since spending the night with that flirty, pretty French whore. He wrote: That birthmark on her pubic hair, What does it look like to you? It looks like a question mark to me. Do you have any question? that's enough.A meal is as good as a feast, his mother always said.He found an envelope and put the letter in it.After pausing for a while, he put away the business card and wrote the address again, still using traditional characters, and the address was Vic's office.He thought about it, decided to show the poor fool a little mercy, and added a sentence under the address: personal letter. He leaned the letter against the window sill and leaned back in his chair, feeling all right.Tonight he could write again, he was sure of it. Outside, a truck with out-of-state license plates pulled into his porch, a pickup truck with a Native American cabinet in the back.Someone is sending business again, good luck to them. Steve wandered out, happy to pick up their money and the Indian cupboard, but really doubting he'd have time for it. After the letter is sent, there will be a series of changes immediately, but not very big, at least not now.He felt that he should stay for a while longer, so that he could see the lovely tall and slender lady at least once... Of course, he must be sure that the handsome husband is not there.He'd played tennis with him and knew he was by no means a daredevil—thin, with thick glasses, with squiggly handwriting, but you couldn't have predicted if the handsome husband would turn his gourd and do something antisocial.He knew plenty of handsome husbands who had guns at home.He must be very careful before sneaking in.He'll pay another visit, and pull the curtain down completely.After that, he might go to Ohio, or Pennsylvania, or Daouas, New Mexico.But like a practical joker who puts dynamite in someone's cigarette, he'll stand aside (from a sensible distance, of course) and watch it go off. The driver of the pickup truck and his wife poked their heads in to see if anyone was there, and Steve ran out with his hands in his jeans pockets and a smile on his face.The woman smiled back at him. "Hello, what can I do for you?" he asked, thinking as he got rid of them, he went to post the letter. In the evening, the sunset is red.Vic Trenton, hands in the waist of his shirt, inspects the engine bay of his wife's Pinto. Donna stood behind him, wearing white shorts, a red checked tank top, and barefoot, looking young and full of life.Ted, wearing only his bathrobe, was racing up and down the driveway on a kid's tricycle, apparently still playing some imaginary game in his head. "Drink your iced tea before it melts," Donna said to Vic. "Uh, uh." The teacup was placed on the edge of the engine compartment, and Vic took a sip, and without thinking, he put it back—it fell, right into Donna's hand. "Hey," he said, "good catch." She smiled. "I know you've got other things on your mind, that's all. See, not a single drop." They looked at each other and smiled, Vic thought, what a moment. Maybe it was just his own imagination, a hopeful imagination.But lately, there have been more such good moments, fewer harsh words, fewer cold silences or—maybe this is worse—just indifferent silences.He didn't know why, but he was satisfied. "Strict triple-A farm club," he said. "You're a long way from being a good car, kid." "Is there something wrong with my driving skills, coach?" He removed the air filter from the driveway. "Never seen a frisbee like that," Ted said matter-of-factly just now, when he was circling it on his tricycle, and Vic leaned over and pointed at the carburetor with the screwdriver. "It's the carburetor. I think the needle valve is getting clogged." "Is it bad?" "It's not bad," he said, "but it can clog as long as it wants, and the needle valve controls the flow of gas to the carburetor. You can't drive without gas, it's like the law of the land, dear." "Dad, can you push me on the swing?" "Okay, I'll be right there." "Well, I'll be in the backyard." Tad ran around the house to the swing.The swing had been made for him by Vic last summer, when Vic had made a plan to do it in the evenings or on weekends, while he was invigorated with Panjin tonic.While he was doing it, he played the radio constantly in his ear, always hissing from the Boston Red Stars announcer.Tad was only three years old at the time, and he would always sit quietly in the stairwell of the Lander, or just on the back stairs, his hand on his chin, sometimes passing him something, sometimes just watching in silence. he does. Last summer had been a good one, not as hot as this year, when Donna finally adjusted and began to believe that Maine, Castle Rock, and Worx ad would all be fine for them. After that came a period of inexplicably bad times, worst of all was that nagging, almost neurotic feeling in his head that things were worse than he thought.Things in the room began to shift subtly out of place, as if some stranger's hand had moved them this way and that. He was beginning to have an almost mad feeling—was it a mad feeling?Why does Donna change the sheets so frequently?They are always clean!One day the question from the fairy tale popped up in his mind, echoing embarrassingly: Who slept in my bed? Things don't seem so serious now. If it weren't for the crazy Red Raspberry Vitality incident, and the damn trip, he'd think this summer would be great too.Even possible, this summer will indeed be good.Sometimes you win, not all hope is lost, he believed it, though he hadn't tested it seriously. "Ted!" Donna yelled, and the kid yelled too, stopping the car. "Put the tricycle in the garage." "Mom-mi. "Now, please put it in, sir." "Sir," Ted said, dancing happily, "you didn't drive the car away, Mom." "Dad is fixing my car." "Yes but..." "Listen to Mom, Tad," Vic said, picking up the air filter. "I'll be over in a minute." Tad got in the car, screaming like an ambulance all the way, and rode the car into the garage. "Why did you put things away again?" Donna asked, "Aren't you going to fix it?" "It's delicate work," Vic said. "Even if I have the tools, it may not fix it, but make it worse." "Damn it." She sulked and kicked the tire. "It's guaranteed to be under warranty, really?" The Pinto just had 20,000 miles on it, and it's still six months out of date. "It's the same as the law of the country." He put the air filter on its back and tightened the nut. "I think I can take Tad to South Paris after I send him to camp, but I'll probably be looking for a roof for a while after you're out. Will this drive to South Paris, Vic?" "No problem, except you don't have to do that, just take it to Joe Camber. It's only seven miles, and he's done a great job, remember that time the Jaguar's bearings went bad? He It only cost ten bucks to fix it up with a chain hoist from a few lengths of telephone poles. Great! If I go to that part of Portland, they'll open up like Moosehead Lake and fill it up Fill my account book." "That guy makes me feel uneasy." Donna. "Why did he upset you?" "The eyes are very diligent." Vic smiled. "There's a lot to love about you, honey." "Thanks," she said, "a woman doesn't care about being looked at, only being disturbed by being imagined undressed." light, thinking in my heart).Then she turned to him again, "Some men give you a feeling, as if that little movie called "Rape of the Sabine Woman" is always playing in their minds over and over again, and you feel... that you are that woman main character." He had a strange, unpleasant feeling that she was putting several things together.But he didn't want to think about it tonight, he didn't want to think about it after this damn hot month. "My dear, he will probably be completely harmless, he has a wife and children "Well, maybe he is." But she folded her arms to her chest, resting them in her palms, visibly disturbed. "Listen," he said, "I'll take the car over to Joe on Saturday and leave it there if I have to, okay? Chances are he'll fix it right away. I'll have a couple of beers with him and shoot Pat his dog. Remember that St. Bernard dog?" Donna smiled. "I even remember his name, he almost knocked Ted down when he licked him, remember?" Vic nodded. "Ted chased him around for the rest of the afternoon, yelling: Ku-Jo-Come-Come-Cu-Jo-" They all laughed. "Sometimes I'm stupid as hell," Donna said. "I can just use the standard shift and I'll drive the Jaguar while you're away." "You'd better not be like that, that Jaguar is weird and hard to serve, you'll have to learn to talk to it. ’ He slammed the top of the Pinto off. "Oh—you fool!" she complained. "Your teacup's still there." He looked so weirdly surprised - she was already laughing. After a while he laughed with her too, and finally they were laughing like a pair of drunks, leaning forward and back, supporting each other to stay still.Tad came out from the back of the house to see what was going on, his eyes wide. Finally, convinced that they were normal except for laughing nervously, he laughed along with them. Around the same time, Steve Kemp posted his letter two miles away. When night fell, the heat subsided a little, and the fireflies flew out from the backyard, dimly shadowed, like needles running through the night sky.Vic started pushing his son on the backyard swing. "Be taller, Daddy, be taller." "Any higher and you'd fall off the swing, kid." "Push me hard, Daddy, push me hard!" Vic gave it a hard push, and the swing swung high into the night sky.The first star has come out and it appears to be heading down the swing.In the night, Tad howled happily, his head thrown back and his hair flying. "That's great, Dad! Push me harder!" Vic pushed his son up again, and Tad flew high into Serenity.Hot night sky.Aunt Evie lived nearby, and Ted's cry of surprise was the last sound she heard in this world, and then she left this world.Her heart failed.As she sat in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other, a paper-thin wall of her heart burst (without a trace of pain) and she leaned back, out of sight. slowly dimmed. She heard a child yelling somewhere.For a moment, the shout was a happy voice, and when she was suddenly driven down by a heavy but not unfriendly force behind her, she seemed to hear the child's scream full of tears. Fear, full of pain.Then she left.Her niece Abby would find her the next day, coffee as cold as she was, cigarettes reduced to a full length of fine gray tube, her lower half of her denture protruding from her wrinkled mouth like an overgrowth. The grooves of the teeth. Before Tad went to bed, he sat on the back steps with Vic, Vic with a glass of beer, Tad with milk. "dad?" "what?" "I really hope you don't go next week." "I will return." "I know, but..." Tad ducked his head, trying not to cry.Vic's hand was on his neck. "But what, lad?" "Who says those words and keeps the devil out of the closet? Mom doesn't know about them, only you." Tears swirled in the eyes and finally flowed down the cheeks. "Is that why?" Vic said. "The Devil's Words" (at first Vic called it "The Devil's Questions and Answers," but Ted had trouble understanding the title "Questions and Answers," so it was shortened) was written in late spring, when Ted had just Begin his nightmares and night terrors. "There's something in the closet," he always said.Sometimes at night the wardrobe door would open and he would see the thing in there with yellow eyes that wanted to eat him.Donna had thought it might be a spin-off of Maurice Sendak's book Where the Wild Things Are.Vic had said aloud to Rogg (but not to Donna) that he wondered if Tad had heard too much about the town's big murder to believe that the murderer - who had become the town's witch - —One is still alive, and in his closet.Rogge said he believed it was possible and that with a child anything was possible. Donna herself was a little taken aback a few weeks later. One morning, she told Vic, half-smiling, half-shocked, that things in Tad's closet seemed to get out sometimes. "Well, Ted did it," Vic replied. "You don't understand," Donna said, "he's never going to that place again, Vic . Afterwards, the closet did often smell strange, and she would be too scared to sleep, as if something had been locked there. Vic felt a little uneasy, and went to the closet to smell it. The idea was building up in his mind that maybe Tad would sleepwalk, go into the closet, piss in there, and it would be a vicious cycle.But all he could smell was the smell of sanitary balls. The closet, with its sanded wall on one side and bare wooden slats on the other, was about eight feet deep and as narrow as a Pullman.There wouldn't be any demons behind, and Vic was sure it wasn't coming out of nooks and crannies. The only result of his examination was a cobweb rubbed over his head. Donna suggested fighting Ted's nighttime fears by saying something about "good dreams," and then praying.Ted's answer to the first suggestion was that something in the closet stole his good dreams; to the second, he replied that since God doesn't believe in demons, prayers are useless.Her temper could be a little restless, possibly in part because she herself was horrified by what was in Tad's closet.Once, while she was hanging Ted's shorts in the closet, the door closed silently behind her, and it took her a frightful forty seconds to fumble for the door.She smelled something there then—it was hot, violent, close to her, and it smelled like haystacks.It reminded her a little of the smell of Steve Kemp after making love to him.But in the end she came to a hasty conclusion—since there was no such thing as a demon, Ted should get all his weird thoughts out of his head and go to sleep with his teddy bear. Vic had seen deeper into the farm cupboard, and remembered it better—its door turned into a foolish grin in the night, a place where sometimes strange things rustled and sometimes hung would become a hanging man; he vaguely remembered shadows forming on the walls in the light of street lamps during the four long hours before sunrise; Caused, and it's possible - just possible - that something is creeping up. His solution was "The Devil's Quiz," or (if you're four and not good at vocabulary) "The Devil's Words."Whatever it was called, it was just a primitive spell, designed to keep demons at bay. It was Vic's idea over lunch one time. Donna was both ashamed and comforted that while her own psychological attempts at "parental effectiveness training" and a final blunt lesson failed, "Devil's Words" worked. Every night, when Ted was lying on the bed covered with only a thin layer of sheets, Vic would read "the devil's words" in the dim heat of the dark, like a congratulatory speech beside his bed. "Do you think it's going to do him any good if this goes on for a long time?" Donna asked, her voice both amused and troubled. It was mid-May, and the tension between them was deepening. "Ad people don't care about the long run," Vic replied. "They care about solving questions and answers as soon as possible, as soon as possible. That's what I'm good at." "Yes, no one will say 'Devil's Words' anymore, that's the trouble, that's the big trouble." Ted replied, wiping the tears off his cheeks uneasily. "Well, listen," Vic said, "I've written them down, the same way I read them every night. I'll put them on a piece of paper and stick them on your wall. Mom will read it to you every night after I leave." "Really? Would you?" "Of course, I said yes." "You won't forget?" "No way, I'll post it tonight." Tad's hand reached for his father's neck, and Vic held him tightly in his arms. That night, after Ted fell asleep, Vic slipped into his son's room. He taped a piece of paper to the wall next to Ted's "Great Miracle" calendar so he couldn't lose it.On this piece of paper he wrote in large, clear characters: devil's words to ted Devil, stay away from this house! It's none of your business here. No devil should be under Ted's bed! You can't drill down. There shouldn't be a devil in Ted's closet! It's too small. There should be no demons outside Ted's window! You can't hang there. There shouldn't be vampires, there shouldn't be werewolves, there shouldn't be things that bite, It's none of your business here. All night, nothing could touch Tad, or hurt him. It's none of your business here! Vic looked at it for a long time, reminding himself to tell Donna at least twice before he left, to make her read it to the child every night, to impress on her how much the Devil's Word meant to Tad. When he came out, he saw the wardrobe door was open.He quickly closed the door tightly and left his son's room. Later that night, the door swung open again.There were sporadic flashes of hot lightning, faint drumming sounds, slight knocking sounds, and crazy ghosts seemed to be flickering. But Ted didn't wake up. At 7:15 the next morning, Steve put the van on Route 11, and after a few miles, turned onto Route 302, where he would turn left and head southeast across Maine to The place is Portland. When he got to Portland, he was going to sleep at the YMCA. 在货车的仪表板上整齐地堆放着一叠填好地址的邮件—一这一次他没有用正体字手写，而是用他的打印机打上去的。 打印机就在货车的后面，和他的其名家什在一起。斯蒂夫只花了一个半小时就把在罗克堡的东西都打扎起来，他把勃尔尼也带上了，它现在正在车后门旁的一个箱子上打着呼噜。 信封里的这些打印活都干得很专业。十六年创造性的写作，至少把他培养成一个出色的打字专家。 他把车停在昨天给维克·特伦顿寄信的那个邮筒前，把信了投进去。对他来说，如果要离开缅因，带着一身拖欠的房租扬长而去只是小事一桩，但现在他想去的是波特兰，所以还是规矩点好。 这次他可以不必躲躲闪闪了，在货车后面的工具袋里安稳地放着六百美元。 除了开出一张支票支付了全部房租外，他还把几个人为一些大活付的定金也还清了。每一张支票后面地都留了一段简短的话，说因为母亲突然得了重病，他只好仓促离开，对这给对方带来的不便深感不安（每一个热血的美国人在妈妈的故事跟前都笨得像吃奶的孩子），已经和他签定合同的人可以到他的铺里取回他们的家具——钥匙在门顶横梁的右边，取回家具后请把钥匙放回原处，谢谢您，谢谢您……等等无聊的屁话。是有些不便，但这样就不会有人来大吵大闹了。 斯蒂夫把信投进了信箱，感到一种终于把屁股擦干净了的满足感，一路哼着歌，向波特兰开去。 他把速度提到五十五英里，希望能早点到波特兰，还可以看到一场州网球赛。总地来说，今天很棒。商人先生会不会还没收到他的纸条炸弹？不，他今天当然会收到。Pretty!斯蒂夫想，笑了出来。 七点半，当斯蒂夫在想网球，维克·特伦顿在提醒自己为妻子那辆不肯干活的品托车给乔·坎怕打电话的时候，沙绿带正给儿子做早餐。 乔已经在半小时前出发去了刘易斯顿，他希望能在某个汽车废品堆或旧零件商那儿找到一块72型伽马罗车的防风玻璃。他的行程正好和沙绿蒂细致的计划合上了拍。 她把匆促做好的鸡蛋和成肉放在布莱特面前，然后在他身边坐下。布莱特的眼光从他看着的书上抬起来，看了一眼母亲，有点意外。平时做完他的早餐后，沙绿蒂一般都要再去忙一阵家务，如果在她停下来喝杯咖啡前你的话太多，她就会骂人了。 “布莱特，能不能和你谈一会儿？” 略微的意外，已经变成了十分的诧异。他从母亲身上看到一种和她沉默的性格全然不同的东西。她好像有点紧张。他合上书：“当然，妈妈。” “你想不想——”她清了清嗓子，“你想不想到康涅狄克州的斯图拉特福特去看霍莉阿姨，吉姆叔叔和你的表弟？” 布莱特笑了，他一生中只离开过缅因两次。最近一次是和父亲去新罕布什尔州的波次茅斯。他们参加了一个旧车拍卖会，乔买了一辆只有半侧发动机的58型福特车。“当然，”他说，“什么时候？” “我正在考虑星期一去。”她说：“国庆后，我们去一个星期，行吗？” “我猜！哇，我想爸爸积了一大堆活准备下星期做，他一定—一” “我还没对你父亲提过这事。” 布莱特的笑容暗淡下去了。他叉起一块成肉开始吃，“唉，我知道他答应给里奇·西蒙斯的国际丰收者装上马达，学校里的米勒先生马上要把他的福特车带来，他车上的变速器爆了。还有——” “我想只我们两个去就可以了，”沙绿蒂说，“可以从波特兰乘灰狗去。” 布莱特看起来有些疑虑。后门廊的隔板外，库乔正费劲地顺着楼梯向上爬，又呼喀一声掉了下来，撞到挡板上。他用倦乏，带着红圈的眼睛看着这个男孩和这个女人，感觉非常糟糕，非常糟糕。 “哇，妈，我不知道——” “不要说哇，听起来像在诅咒谁。” "Sorry." “如果你父亲同意，你想去吗？” “是的，确实想，你能肯定我们可以去吗？” “可能。”她沉思着，从水槽上的窗口望出去。 “到斯图拉特福特有多远，妈妈？” “我猜有三百五十英里。” “呜——我是说，那很长，另外——” “布莱特。” 他注意地看着她，那种奇怪的不安仍深深地藏在她的声音和面庞中，那种局促不安的神情。 “什么，妈妈？” “能不能想出你父亲店中很需要什么东西？他一直想要的一样东西？” 布莱特眼中的光亮了一点，“他总是需要可调丝锥扳手……他想有一套新的窝珠……他想有一副新的焊工头盔，因为那副旧头盔的面板坏了。” “不，我是说大的，贵的东西。” 布莱特想了一会儿，笑了，“对了，他实际上很想能有一套约尔琴链吊。我想，那样他把里奇·西蒙斯国际丰收者的马达拆出来，会灵活的像狗——我是说，很灵活。”他满脸涨红，匆匆地说下去，“但你不可能给他那东西，妈妈，它真的很高价。” 高价，乔用这个词表示贵。她很讨厌它。 “目录上说要一千七百美元，但爸爸大概可以从波特兰机器公司的贝拉斯柯先生那里买到批发价，爸爸说贝拉斯柯先生怕他。” “你觉得他这样有什么聪明的吗？”她厉声问。 布莱特坐回椅子上，有一点被她的凶样吓着了。库乔也在门廊上竖起了耳朵。 “说，你这样想吗？” “不，妈。”他说，但沙绿蒂很绝望地感到他在撒谎。如果你吓得某人让你以批发价成交，那么这笔交易确实做得很聪明。她从布莱特的语调中已经听出来，虽然他自己没有这样做，却已经羡慕得要命了。想一想他的样子，觉得他爸爸恐吓别人时的形象那么高大，。Oh my God! “恐吓别人没什么聪明的。”沙绿蒂说，“能说明的只是升高的嗓门和低劣的脾气。没有什么聪明的。”她降低了声音，用一只手拍了拍他，“把你的鸡蛋吃了，我不想对你大叫，只是太热了。” 他吃着，但安静而小心，不时看着她，今天早上哪儿似乎深埋着一颗地雷，一触即会爆炸。 “批发价多少，我想知道，一千三？一千？” "I don't know, Mom." “这么大一笔交易，这个贝拉斯何会把东西送来吗？” “嗯，只要我们有那么多钱，我想他会。” 她的手伸向便服的口袋，彩票就在那里。 绿色的数字，76，和红色的数字，434，正好和州抽彩委员会两周前拍出的号码一致。她检查了几十遍，几乎难以相信。就像抽彩活动1975年开始之后的每周那样，她本周投资了五十美分，而这一次，她得了五千美元的大奖。她还没有去取这笔钱，但自从知道结果后，她总是把彩票放在睁眼就能看见，伸手就能摸到的地方。 “我们有那么多钱。”她说。布莱特的眼睛睁大了。