Chapter 23 Chapter 22 Absconding

one Pretend you're writing a book, he thought, and turn left onto College Avenue, leaving the campus behind.Pretend you are a character in that book. This is a very magical idea.He was filled with extreme panic—like a mental whirlwind in which fragments of some possible plan whirled like torn landscapes.But the thought that he can pretend it's just an innocuous novel, that he can drive not only himself, but other characters in the story (Harrison, Manchester—) as if he were sitting in a well-lit study with With a can of iced Pepsi or a cup of hot tea, it is like driving the characters on the paper at will. ... At the thought of this, the violent wind in his head suddenly stopped.Some useless things went with the wind, leaving only fragments of his plan... He found that he could easily put these fragments together, and found that he had even thought of a feasible method.

Better make it work, Tad thought.If unsuccessful, you'll end up in protective custody, and Liz and the kids will surely die. But what about the sparrow?Who is the sparrow for? he does not know.Luo Li told him that they are soul ferrymen and the heralds of the living dead, which fits well, doesn't it?Yes, on one point it fits.Because Sly George is alive again, but Sly George is also dead...dead, rotten, so the sparrow fits him...but not quite.If the sparrows had drawn George from the underworld, how could George himself have known nothing about them?How could he not remember the phrase "The sparrows fly again"?He had written the words in blood on the walls of both apartments.

"Because I wrote it," Ted murmured, remembering what he had written in his diary when he was about to enter a trance. Q: Are those birds mine? Answer: Yes. Q: Who wrote about sparrows? A: Those who know... I am the one who knows.I am the owner. Suddenly, almost all the answers were within his grasp—horrible, unthinkable answers. Tad made a long, trembling sound that was a moan. Q: Who brought George Stark back to life? Answer: The owner, the insider. "That was not my intention," he cried. But is that true?Is that true?Didn't he like George Stark's simple and rough personality?Doesn't he look up to George, a man who never bumped into something?A strong man who never fears the devil in his liquor cabinet?A man without a wife or children to worry about, unbound by love?A man who gives straightforward answers to all of life's difficult questions?

A man who possesses darkness and therefore is not afraid of it? "Yes, but he's a bastard!" Ted yelled at the stuffy American four-wheeler. "Yeah—but you find that attractive too, don't you?" Maybe he, Ted Beaumont, didn't really create George...but it's not impossible that some kind of desire in him brought Stark back to life? "Q: If I own sparrows, can I use them?" no answer.He thought there would be an answer, he could feel it beating there, but he couldn't catch it yet.Tad was suddenly afraid that he himself would reject that answer, because he had something for Stark, and he kind of didn't want Stark to die.

"I'm the one in the know. I'm the owner. I'm the one who started it." He stopped at the traffic lights at the intersection, then drove on Highway 2 toward Bangor and Ludlow. Luo Li was part of his plan, and he hadn't fully thought about this plan himself.What if he did manage to get rid of the following police officers, only to find that Luo Li had left the office? he does not know. What if Luo Li was there but refused to help him? He doesn't know either. "When I'm in these troubles, I'm going to burn my boat, no matter what." Now he is passing the Golden Building on the right. The Golden Building is a long tubular building made of prefabricated aluminum alloy and coated with a particularly bad-smelling liquid. The surrounding area is filled with old cars.The windshields of these cars gleamed in the gray sun, a field of white stars.It was Saturday afternoon—twenty minutes had passed, and Liz and the wicked kidnapper might be on their way to Castle Rock.While there might be a clerk or two selling spare parts in the Golden Building, Ted was sure there would be no one in the junkyard.There were about twenty thousand cars in varying degrees of disrepair, jumbled up in a dozen rows, and that was where he should be able to hide his car...he had to hide it.The car was shoulder-high and boxlike, a gray car with shiny red paint on both sides, very eye-catching.

The road sign facing you said: Slow down on the campus.Tad felt a red-hot wire go into his gut.right here. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw the Plymouth still following, two cars behind.It wasn't as good as he'd hoped, but I'm afraid that was all there was to it, and the rest was luck and surprise.It did not occur to them that he would escape.Why did he run away?For a moment, he didn't want to run away.What would happen if he stopped the car?When they pulled up behind him and Harrison got out and asked him what was going on, he'd say, "Something important happened, Stark hijacked my family, and the sparrows were still flying, you see.

"Ted, he said he killed the two policemen guarding the house. I don't know how he did it, but he said he did it... and I... I believe him." Ted took his word for it too, and that was the catch, and that was why he couldn't stop and ask for help.If he was going to do something stupid, Stark would know.He didn't think Stark could read his mind, at least not in the way that aliens read Earthlings' minds in humor books and sci-fi movies, but he could "listen" to Ted... and had a pretty good idea of ​​what Ted was up to.Ted might be able to surprise - if he can figure out what the hell the sparrow is about - but right now he just wants to stick to the plan.

That is, if he can do it. This is the school intersection, as usual, crowded.Cars have been running into each other for years, mostly because people ignore that it's a turn-by-turn intersection and keep going straight through it.After each accident, there are a large number of letters, mainly written by anxious parents, asking the town to install traffic lights at the intersection. Thinking about "putting traffic lights in...then it's going to go down the drain until there's another crash. Ted joined the long line of cars waiting to drive south through the intersection, looked back to make sure the brown Plymouth was still behind the two cars, and then looked at the jumble of traffic at the intersection.He saw a car full of blue-haired girls nearly crash into a Model Z truck driven by a young couple, and the girls in the Z were booing the blue-haired girl.He saw an unexpected chance that a long milk truck was going to pass east to west just after he had crossed from north to south.

The car in front of him passed and Ted came to the intersection.The red wire pierced into his stomach again.He checked his rearview mirror one last time. Harrison and Manchester were still behind the two cars. Two cars crossed in front of him.On his left, the milk truck came to the intersection.Ted took a deep breath and drove the car steadily across the intersection.A pickup truck heading north past Orono passed him on another road. There was an overwhelming urge—a need—to slam on the gas and blow up his car deep inside him.Yet he was driving steadily forward at a school zone speed of fifteen miles an hour, his eyes on the rearview mirror, and the Plymouth was still waiting to cross, two cars behind.

Hey, milk truck!He thought so engrossed, as if he could make cars go by with his thoughts... as he could move characters and events in novels with his thoughts.Milk truck, come here now! The milk truck does come, and it rolls slowly across the intersection like a robotic dame. As soon as it blocked the brown Plymouth in the rearview mirror, Ted really slammed on the gas. two There was a right half a block ahead, and Ted took it, and sprinted up a side street at forty miles an hour, praying that no kid would rush into the road to pick up a ball at this moment. He felt a pang of exasperation when he found that the street seemed to be a dead end, and then he saw that he could still turn right—the fork was partly hidden by the tall fence at the corner.

He slammed on the brakes at the nail intersection and turned sharply to the right, the tires made a slight friction sound.A hundred and eighty yards ahead, he turned right again, backing quickly toward the intersection of this street and Route 2.He was now back on the main road a quarter of a mile north of the intersection.If the milk truck blocked his view on his right turn, as he had hoped, the brown Plymouth was still heading south on Route 2 for now.They probably didn't know what was going on...although Thad doubted that Harrison would be that stupid.Manchester might, but Harrison won't. He turned to the left, saw the brief gap where no cars were passing, and rushed over.The driver of a Ford heading south had to slam on the brakes and punched Ted as he crossed in front of him.Ted hit the gas pedal again.It would be too bad if a patrolman saw him blatantly speeding.He couldn't delay, he had to get the big, shiny car off the road as quickly as possible. It's a half mile back to the junkyard.As Ted drove, he looked in the rearview mirror to see if the Plymouth car was there.When he turned left into the Golden Building, he didn't see the car either. He drove the car slowly through the gate.A dirty white sign reads in faded red letters: NO ENTRY.On a weekday he would have been spotted and thrown out in no time, but it was Saturday and it happened to be lunchtime. Tad pulled into a passage lined with broken cars two stories high.The car on the bottom has been deformed, and it seems to be slowly melting into the ground.The ground is dark oil, and it should be barren, but it is covered with lush green grass, and the tall sunflowers are swaying silently, like survivors after an atomic bomb explosion.A tall sunflower grows through the shattered windshield of a food truck lying on its back like a dead dog.The fuzzy green roots of sunflowers wrap around the wheels like one clenched fist, while a second fist grips the hood of an old Cadillac stacked on top of a food truck.Sunflower stared at Tad like the black and yellow eyes of a dead monster. It was a huge, silent car graveyard, and Ted felt the creeps. He turned the car to the right and then to the left.Suddenly, he saw sparrows all over the place, standing on the roof, the compartment and the oily old engine.He saw three little sparrows bathing in the water-filled wheel shell, and instead of flying away as he drove in, they stopped and watched him with beady black eyes.A row of sparrows rested on a windshield against the side of an old Plymouth car.He passed within three feet of them, and they flapped their wings restlessly but did not fly away. Herald of the living dead, Tad thought.He reached for the white scar on his forehead and began to rub it nervously. As he passed a Daifa sedan, he saw a meteorite-like hole in the windshield of that car, and looking through the hole, he saw a large puddle of dried blood on the dashboard. The hole wasn't made by a meteorite, he thought, feeling sick and dizzy. A large flock of sparrows stood on the front seat of the Daihatsu. "What do you want to do to me?" he asked hoarsely. "What do you want to do?" He seemed to hear some kind of answer in him, as if he heard them all screaming together: "No, Ted—what do you want us to do? You're the owner, you're the one who started it, you're the one who knows." "I don't fucking know a thing," he whispered. At the head of the row, there was a new ultra-luxury Cartel, the entire front half of which had been amputated, and there was an open space in front of the car.Ted backed the car in and got out.Looking from one end to the other, Tad felt a bit like a mouse in a maze.There was a smell of gasoline and bad transmission fluid, and it was quiet except for the hum of cars on Route 2 in the distance. Sparrows watched him from all sides—a silent gathering of little brown birds. Suddenly, they spread their wings and took off at the same time—hundreds of sparrows flew up together, and the air was filled with the sound of flapping wings.Together they took to the sky and headed west--towards Castle Rock.Suddenly he felt that squirm again...inside the skin this time. "Shall we spy on each other a little more, George?" He began to sing Bob Dylan under his breath: "John Wesley Harding was a friend of the poor...he walked with two guns in his hand..." The wriggling, itching sensation seemed to intensify, centered on the wound on his left hand.He might be all wrong, wishful thinking, but Tad seemed to sense Stark's anger...and frustration. "With the telegram...his name echoing..." Thad crooned.On the oily ground ahead, there was a rusted engine chassis, like the wreckage of a twisted iron statue, very unobtrusive.Tad picked it up and went back to his car, still singing "John Wesley Harding" brokenly, thinking of the raccoon of the same name.If he smashes his car a few times and camouflages it, if he has another two hours, it could mean a narrow escape for Liz and the kids. "Along the country...sorry, I was hurt more than you...he opened a lot of doors..." Ted slammed the engine chassis into the cab door, creating a crater the size of a washbasin.He picked up the chassis again, went around to the front of the car, and threw it at the radiator grille. He used too much force and his shoulder hurt.The plastic was smashed and flew around.Tad opened the hood and lifted it slightly, and the car grinned grimly, looking like the latest addition to the junkyard. "...but I heard he never hurt honest people..." He threw the undercarriage one last time, shattering the windshield with a loud crash that made him feel as absurd as the heartache might have been. He thinks the car, like other broken cars, will not attract people's attention. Ted started out of the tunnel.He took a right turn at the first fork, returning to the entrance and the spare parts store next to it.When he drove in, he saw a pay phone on the wall at the door.Halfway there, he stopped and stopped singing.He tilted his head as if listening to some faint voice.In effect, he is listening to his own body. The squirming, itching sensations are gone. The Sparrow is gone, and so is George Stark, at least for now. Ted smiled and began to pick up his pace. three After the phone rang twice, Ted started to sweat.If Luo Li is still there, he should pick up the microphone by now.The offices in the English-Math building are not very big.Who else could he call?Who on earth would be there?He couldn't figure it out. Halfway through the third ring, Luo Li picked up the phone: "Hi, I'm Dresses." Tad closed his eyes as soon as he heard the sound thickened by smoking, and leaned against the cold tin wall of the retail store for a moment. "Hey?" "Hello, Raleigh. I'm Ted." "Hello, Ted." Luo Li didn't seem surprised to hear his voice, "Forgot something?" "No, Luo Li. I'm in trouble." "Go on." After Luo Li finished speaking, he just waited for him to continue. "You know those two"—Ted hesitated—"who are those two fellows with me?" "I know," Luo Li said calmly, "the police who protect you." "I dumped them," Ted said.At this time, a car drove to the customer parking lot of the Golden Building, and he quickly looked back after hearing the sound.For a split second he was sure he was seeing a brown Plymouth...but it was a foreign car, and what he had first seen as brown was really a deep red, darkened by a trail of dust.The driver just turned around. "At least I hope I've gotten rid of them." He hesitated.Now is the critical moment, and he must make a choice immediately.When this step is reached, it is actually impossible to talk about making any choice, because he has no choice. "I need help, Rawley. I need a car they don't know." Luo Li remained silent. "You said that if I need anything from you, I can tell you." "I know what I said," Luo Li replied mildly, "I still remember that I said that if the two guys following you are to protect you, you should try to cooperate with them, that's wise. He paused. "I think I can conclude that you have not taken my advice." Ted almost blurted out: "I can't listen to your advice, Rawley. The guy who kidnapped my wife and children will kill them too." It wasn't because he was afraid that Rawley would think he was crazy that he was afraid to tell him the truth. Fact: University professors have a much more flexible view of insanity than the average person, and sometimes they don't even have the concept of insanity.They would rather think that people are weird or very weird than that they are mentally insane.The reason why he kept silent was because Rory Dresses was the kind of introverted person, nothing Ted said could convince him... and no matter what he said, it might be bad... But, although Rory was introverted But he is a kind-hearted person... He is also very brave... Ted believes that Luo Li is very interested in a series of things such as the police and sparrows who protect him.In the end, Ted believed—or just hoped—that silence was the best course of action. However, waiting for Luo Li's answer is very difficult. "Okay," Luo Li finally said, "I'll lend you the car, Ted." Tad closed his eyes and had to straighten his knees to keep himself from falling over.He wiped his neck with his hands, which were covered with sweat. "But I hope that if the car is broken when you return it, you promise to fix it," Luo Li said. "If you are a fugitive, my insurance company will not pay for the repair." fugitive?Because he escaped from the police who couldn't protect him?He wondered if that made him a fugitive.It was an interesting question, one he would consider later, when he was less anxious and fearful than he was now. "You know I will." "I have one more condition." Luo Li said. Tad closed his eyes again, this time in frustration. "What terms?" "After this is over, I want to know everything," said Luo Li, "I want to know why you are so interested in the folklore about the sparrow, and why you turned pale when I told you the meaning of the ferryman." .” "Am I turning pale?" "As white as paper." "I'll tell you the whole story," Thad agreed with a grin. "You might believe it a little." "Where are you?" Luo Li asked. Ted told him and asked him to come over as soon as possible. Four He hung up the phone, walked back inside, and sat on the wide bumper of a school bus that had somehow snapped in half.This is a good place when you have to wait for someone.He couldn't be seen from the road, but when he leaned over he could see the parking lot in front of the retail store.He looked around for sparrows, but saw none—just a big, fat crow carelessly pecking at bits of shiny chrome in the aisle of the wrecked car.It seemed unreal to him to think that he had just had his second conversation with George Stark half an hour ago, as if it had been hours ago.Despite his constant worry, he still felt sleepy, as if it was bedtime. About fifteen minutes after talking to Luo Li, the itching began to appear again.He sang a few lines from "John Wesley Harding," and after a minute or two, the feeling was gone. Maybe it's psychological, he thought, but he knew it wasn't.It felt like George was trying to punch a hole in his heart, and because Ted was aware of it, he was very sensitive to it.He guessed there were other ways to get in touch with Stark, and figured he might have to try something else...but that would mean inviting sparrows, and he didn't want that.In addition, although he had successfully peeped into George Stark's heart last time, he stabbed his left hand with a pencil. Time passed by very slowly.Twenty-five minutes later, Ted began to suspect that Luo Li had changed his mind and was not coming.He left the bumper of the broken school bus and stood at the gate between the junkyard and the garage, whether anyone could see him from the road or not.He began to consider whether to risk a ride. He decided to call Luo Li's office again. He was halfway there when a dusty Volkswagen drove into the parking lot.He recognized him immediately and ran over.When he thought of Luo Li's worries about insurance, he found it ridiculous.He figured he could work out how much the car was worth, and return a case of soda bottles would cover the damages. Luo Li stopped the car at one end of the retail store and walked out.To Tad's surprise, his pipe was lit, and he exhaled a cloud of smoke that would have been quite choking in a closed room. "You shouldn't smoke, Luo Li." These were the first words that came to his mind. "You shouldn't run away." Luo Li replied seriously. The two of them looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing. "How did you get home?" Ted asked.He should have jumped into Raleigh's car immediately and driven down the long, winding road to Castle Rock.At this point, he didn't know what to say. "Call a taxi," Rawley said, looking at the large glistening mass of abandoned cars. "I guess taxis come here often to pick up people who have thrown away their cars." "I'll give you five dollars—" Ted took his wallet from his trouser pocket, but Raleigh waved it away. "I've got money," he said. "I've got forty dollars. It's incredible that Billie let me go around with so much money without a bodyguard." He smoked his pipe happily, and then Taking it away from his mouth, he gave Tad a small smile, "But in due course, I'll give you the taxi receipt, Tad, don't worry." "I'm starting to worry that you won't come." "I stopped by the little grocery store," Rawley said, "for something you might need, Ted." He leaned into the car, muttering and puffing smoke, and rummaged for a while , took out a paper bag.He handed the paper bag to Ted, who looked inside and saw a pair of dark glasses and a red baseball cap just enough to cover his hair.He looked up at Luo Li, very moved. "Thank you, Raleigh." Luo Li waved his hand and smiled secretly at Ted. "Perhaps I should thank you," he said, "for ten months I've been looking for an excuse to smoke. There have been bad things—my younger son got divorced, lost five at Tom Carroll's that night. Ten bucks, but none of them...really kicked me back into smoking." "It's exciting enough this time," Thad said, shuddering.He looked at his watch, it was getting closer.Stark was at least an hour ahead of him, maybe more. "I have to go, Luo Li." "Okay—it's urgent, isn't it?" "I have one more thing - I tuck it in my coat pocket so I don't lose it, it wasn't at the grocery store, I found it at my desk." Luo Li began to rummage through the pockets of his old plaid tracksuit that he wore all year round. "If the gas light is on, turn around and get a can of gasoline," he said, looking for it. "It's a reusable thing. Ah! Here it is! I almost thought it was in the office." He took a sharpened wooden pipe from his pocket.It was as long as Tad's index finger, hollow and notched at one end, and looked old. "What's this?" Ted asked as he took it from Rawley.But he already knew what it was, and he felt his thoughts a little clearer again. "It's a bird whistle," said Rawley, studying him over the burning pipe. "I want you to take it if you think it will be useful." "Thank you," Thad said, putting the whistle in his breast pocket.His hands trembled a little, "It might be useful." Luo Li's eyes widened under his furrowed brows, and he took the pipe from his mouth. "I'm not sure you need it," he said in a low, trembling voice. "what?" "Look behind you." Ted turned his head, and before he saw it, he knew what Luo Li saw. Instead of hundreds or thousands of sparrows now, there were sparrows all over the scrapped cars within a ten-acre radius of the yard, sparrows everywhere... Thed had no idea when they came. Two people looked at the sparrow with four eyes, and the sparrow looked at them with twenty thousand or forty thousand eyes, standing silently on the car hood, window, roof, exhaust pipe, radiator grille, engine, frame. "My God," Luo Li said hoarsely, "Soul Ferryer... what does this mean, Ted? What does this mean?" "I'm just beginning to understand," Ted said. "My God," said Luo Li, clapping his hands above his head.The sparrows didn't move, they were not interested in Rawley, they were only looking at Ted Beaumont. "Find George Stark," Thad whispered, as if in a whisper, "George Stark, find him. Take off!" The sparrow flew up into the misty blue sky like a dark cloud, its wings whirring, faintly like the afterglow of thunder, and chirping at the same time.Two people standing in front of the retail store ran out to look.Overhead, a group of sparrows circled in darkness, then turned around and flew west. Tad looked up at them, and for a moment the reality merged with the vision he had first entered into the trance, the past and the present merged together like a strangely beautiful braid. The sparrow flew away. "Jesus!" cried a man in a gray mechanic's uniform. "Did you see those birds? Where did those goddamn birds come from?" "I have a better question," Raleigh said, looking at Ted.He regained control, but he was clearly shocked. "Where are they going? You know, don't you, Tad?" "Of course I do," Thad whispered, opening the car door. "I've got to go too, Raleigh—I've got to go. Thank you so much." "Beware, Tad, be very careful. No one can control the messenger after death, not for long—there's always a price to pay." "I'll try to be careful." The VW's gear lever groaned in protest, but finally moved obediently.Ted put on sunglasses and a baseball cap, then waved to Rowley and drove away. As he turned onto Route 2, he saw Raleigh staggering toward the payphone he used, and Ted thought, "Now I've got to keep Stark out, because I have a secret now, and maybe I can't control it." Soul Ferryers, but at least I now have them—or they own me—and can't let him know that." He shifted into second gear, and Rawley's car began to shudder and accelerate to an unprecedented thirty-five miles an hour.