Chapter 8 Chapter 5 Tasmore Virginia 1

Two days after the Menders Farm fire, Andy and Charlie McGee arrived at the cottage by Tasmore Pond.The Willys Jeep wasn't doing well from the start, and the mud on the trail Ive pointed out made the trip even more difficult. When night fell at last on the long day that had begun at Hastings Glen, they were not twenty yards from the end of the second - and worse - woods lane.Below them, hidden from view by thick bushes, was 22nd Avenue.Although they can't see the road yet, they can already hear the occasional passing car and truck.That night they slept in the jeep, hugging each other to keep warm.The next morning, just after five o'clock--yesterday morning--they were on their way again when it was still only daylight in the east.

Charlie looked pale and listless.She is exhausted.She didn't ask him what they would do if the barricades had moved east.In fact, this is not bad.Because if the barricades had moved east, they would have been caught, and that would have been the end of it.It was impossible for them to abandon the jeep; Charlie had lost the strength to walk, and neither had he. So Andy pulled the car onto the highway.All day they trudged along the secondary road; overhead was a white October sky that looked like it was going to rain but never kept it.Charlie slept a lot along the way, and Andy worried a little for her—worrying that she was using the sleep to escape what had happened instead of facing it bravely.

Twice he stopped by a roadside diner to get some burgers and fries.The second time he used the five-dollar bill that the truck driver, Jim Parson, had given him.Most of the remaining coins are gone.He must have dropped many of the coins out of his pocket during the chaos at the Menders house, but he couldn't remember exactly.Something else was missing, too: the numb patches of his face that had disturbed him during the night had faded. Getting rid of these things was exactly what he wanted. She didn't touch most of the hamburger and fries for Charlie. An hour after nightfall last night, they pulled into a deserted rest point on the highway.It's fall, the time for Winnebagoans to transition into the new year.A rusty sign reads: No camping, no fireworks, leashed your dog, no littering, $500 fine.

"They are the real adventurers here." Andy sighed in a low voice and drove the car down the slope, through a parking lot, and came to a bush next to a rushing stream.He and Charlie got out of the car and walked wordlessly toward the creek.The clouds in the sky are still thick, but not cold; Not a single star could be seen, and the night seemed extraordinarily dark.They sat by the stream and listened to the running water tell their stories.He took Charlie's hand in his own.Just then she burst into tears—a violent suddenness that seemed to tear her heart apart. He held her in his arms and shook her gently: "Charlie." He nursed, "Charlie, Charlie, don't cry, don't cry."

"Please don't make me do that again, Daddy," she cries, "because I think I'll kill myself if you say you want me to. So please...please...don't don't want……" "I love you," he said. "Be quiet and don't say anything that kills you. That's pure madness." "No," she said, "it's not. Promise me, Dad." He thought for a long time, then said slowly, "I don't know if I can, Charlie. But I promise you will do my best. Is that okay?" Her answer was silence. "I was scared too," he said softly. "Daddy was scared too. It's true."

This night; they still spent it in the jeep.At six in the morning they were on the road again.The sky had cleared, and by ten o'clock the sky was clear and the sun was shining brightly.Not long after crossing the Vermont state line, they saw people picking apples on mast-like ladders by the side of the road; the orchard was full of trucks full of fruit. At eleven-thirty they turned off 34th Avenue and onto a dirt road marked, "Private Property," a narrow, rutted dirt road. Something in Andy's chest relaxed: Here they are, they've finally It's Grandpa McGee's place.

They drove slowly toward Chichai, about seven and a half miles away.Colorful October leaves sway in front of the jeep.The path split in two when water ripples began to seep through the bushes.A heavy iron chain spanned the narrower path, and above it hung a rusty sign: No Trespassing Ordered by the Sheriff.There are six on the sign.There are seven pits, and the surrounding rust is particularly obvious.Andy figured it must have been some summer some kid had smothered the sign with his .22, but it must have been years ago. He got out of the jeep and pulled the key ring out of his pocket.On the ring was a small leather plaque bearing his initials: Ann Mak.The letters are almost worn away.

The little card was a Christmas present from Vicky one year—the Christmas before Charlie was born. He stood by the chain, looked at the little leather card, and then at the keys, there were almost two dozen of them.Keys are such a ridiculous thing: they accumulate on rings that keep track of your entire life.He imagined that some people—certainly those who were more organized than he—would simply throw out their keys when they weren't using them, the way organized people clean out their wallets about every six months.But Andy wasn't like that. This was the key to the east door of Prince Harrison's Hall, where his office was at the time.His office key.Office of the English Department.This is Ita killing his wife.The key to the last house he stayed in Harrison the day he kidnapped his daughter.There are two.San didn't even recognize him anymore.Keys are really ridiculous things.

His vision blurred.Suddenly he missed Vicki very much.He hadn't missed her so much in all the days he and Charlie had been on the run.He was tired, scared, and angry.At this very moment, if all of Ita's agents lined up on this path, if someone handed him a submachine gun... "Dad?" Charlie asked in a nervous voice. "Have you lost your keys?" "No, I found it," he said.It was in the middle, a little key that he had engraved with a pocketknife 'Ty Pond' for Tasmore Pond. The last time they were here was the year Charlie was born. So it took him a while to get the lock open, and put Chains lay on a carpet of autumn leaves.

After he drove the car in, he put on the chain and locked the lock. The road conditions were bad, which made Andy happy.When they used to come every summer, they usually stayed for three.four weeks; he'd find a few days to repair the pavement--carry a load of pebbles from Sam Moore and fill them in the deepest ruts, cut down the bushes that encroached on the road, and then let Sam Moore Came with his trailer to smooth out the road.The wider path at the fork leads to the two dozen cottages and villas clustered around the pond; the people who live there form their own road club, paying annual dues, meeting in August, etc. Wait.But the only place on this road is Grandpa McGee's villa, because he bought the whole lot at a low price during the Great Depression.

They used to have an old Ford.He doubted that the car could be driven on the road now; the current Jeep touched the ground once or twice despite its higher ride.Andy didn't care about the poor condition of the road, because it showed that no one had ever been here. "Is there electricity there, Dad?" Charlie asked. "No," he said, "and no telephone. We dare not use electricity, dear. That's the same as holding up a sign saying 'we're here'.But there are kerosene lamps and two barrels of kerosene for kitchen fuel.Hope they haven't been stolen yet. "He was really worried. Since the last time they were here, the price of fuel kerosene had gone up, and those things were well worth stealing. "Where's there—" Charlie asked. "Damn it." Andy cursed and slammed on the brakes.Ahead of the road lies a huge white Zen tree that was blown down by a winter storm, "Let's go from here, it's only about a mile away. Let's walk." He'll come again with Grandpa's sawhorse, Saw it and drag it away.He didn't want to park Yves' Jeep here.It stands out. He stroked her hair and said, "Let's go." They got off the jeep, and Charlie slipped under the tree without any trouble, and Andy climbed over it carefully, making sure he didn't hurt any vital parts.The leaves sneezed pleasantly under their feet, and the bushes were filled with the scent of autumn.A squirrel in the tree looked at them with its head tilted, watching their movements closely.Through the gaps in the trees," they saw the blue waves of water again. "What did you want to say at the big tree just now?" Andy asked her. "Ask if the oil is enough for a long time. Maybe we're going to stay all winter." "Not much, but enough to start with. And I'll be chopping a lot of wood later on. You can also get a lot back. " Ten minutes later the path came to a clearing by Tasmore Pond—and there they were.The two stood there silently.Andy didn't know what Charlie was thinking, but to him the memory was flooding in, and nostalgia wasn't enough to sum it up.The memory was mixed with the dream he had three days ago - the small fishing boat, the writhing big earthworm, and even the patch on Grandpa's boot. The villa is a wooden structure built on stone ground, with a total of five houses.A platform juts out towards the lake, and a stone pier juts into the water.Everything was the same as before except for the fluttering foliage and three winters of accumulated leaves.He almost thought Grandpa himself would be strolling out of the house in a moment, wearing a black and green plaid shirt, waving him up with a laugh and asking him if he had a fishing license, because in the evening brown squatfish Still biting the hook. This was once a happy land; a safe land.Across Tasmore Pond, patches of pine forest gleamed gray-green in the sun.Stupid tree, Grandpa used to say, doesn't even know the difference between summer and winter.Across the pond the only sign of modern civilization remains the Bradford Town Pier.No one is building shopping malls or amusement parks.The wind is still whispering in the woods.The green colonnades still look like moss-covered tree trunks, and the fallen pine needles still gather in corners and dripping cornices.Here, as a young boy, his grandfather taught him how to bait.Here he had his own good maple-panelled bedroom; he lay; Dreaming of a child in a cot, only to wake up to the sound of the lake lapping on the pier.Here he was also a man, making love to his wife on the big double bed that used to belong to grandpa and grandma.Grandma was a taciturn, somewhat melancholy woman, America: Member of the Society of Atheists.If you ask, she will tell you the thirty most egregious contradictions in the King James Version of the Bible with the unflinching, unalterable logic of a devout preacher. "You're thinking about Mom, aren't you?" Charlie asked in a sad voice. "Yes," he said, "yes, I miss her." "Me too," said Charlie. "You were happy here, weren't you?" "Yes," he said. "Come on, Charlie." She looked back at him. "Dad, will things be the same as before? Will I still be able to go to school?" He wanted to lie, but a lie was not a good answer. "I don't know," he said.He tried to laugh, but couldn't; he found himself unable to even use words convincingly. "I don't know, Charlie." Grandpa's tools were still neatly arranged in the boathouse's tool shed, and Andy had found the reward he wanted but didn't want too much: two bundles of chopped firewood on the bank under the boathouse.Most of it he had split with his own hands, still covered with the old, dirty canvas he had thrown upon it.Two bundles of firewood would not be enough for them to survive the winter, but they would be well stocked when he collected the litter near camp and the blaze tree on the road. He returned to the tree with the saw and sawed it open to allow the jeep to pass. It was almost dark after these days, and he was tired and hungry.No one had bothered to visit the well-stocked pantry yet; if there had been snowmobile burglars during the winters of the past six years, they had gone to the more populous camps further down the pond.The five shelves in the pantry are filled with cans of all kinds: soup, sardines.Steak and various vegetables.There was still half a can of dog food on the floor--an inheritance from Grandpa's old dog Bindu--but, Andy thought, not enough to eat that. Charlie found a lot of books on the bookshelf in the large living room and stood still; Andy went to the root vegetable cellar under the pantry.He struck a match on the beam, put his finger in a knothole in a board in the wall, and pulled it out. ’ The board fell, and Andy looked in.After a while, he smiled.In this hole are four food bottles filled with a clear.A liquid that looked a bit like oil—the gin that Grandpa called "the source of the energy." The match burned Andy's fingers.He shook it out and lit another.Like the austere New England missionaries of yore (of whom she was a direct descendant), Grandma Hulda McGee neither liked nor understood nor tolerated the simple and somewhat foolish fascinations of men.And that's Grandpa McGee's little secret; he told Andy the year before he died. Next to the gin is a tea caddy.Andy took it out and ran his hand over the hole.With a clicking sound, he pulled out a small stack of bills—a few tens, fives, and some ones, about eighty dollars in all.Grandpa's weakness is that he always loses when he plays cards. These are what he calls "private money". The second match caught Andy's hand again, and he shook it out.In the dark, he put the tea caddy and money back where they belonged.Knowing it's there is enough.He put the boards back in place and walked through the pantry to the living room. "Do you drink tomato soup?" he asked Charlie, who was completely engrossed in the book. "Of course." She said without looking up. He made a big pot of tomato soup and opened two cans of sardines.He carefully removed the shade of a kerosene lamp, lit the lamp and placed it in the center of the dining table.The two sat down and started eating without talking much.After dinner he lit a cigarette over the kerosene lamp and smoked.Charlie found the poker drawer in Grandma's Welsh dressing table; there were eight or nine decks in it, and a jack was missing or a two was missing.All night, while Andy went around the camp, Charlie played poker. At night, when Andy put her to bed, he asked her how she was feeling. "It's safe," she said without hesitation. "Good night, Dad." If Charlie felt good, then he was satisfied too.He sat next to Charlie for a while, but she fell asleep in no time.Andy walked out of the room and left the door open.so. If Charlie had trouble sleeping at night, he could hear it. Before bed, Andy went to the root vegetable cellar again.He took out a bottle of gin, poured himself some into a juice glass, and walked through the sliding doors onto the landing.He sat down in a canvas chair (some musty smell; wondered if he could get rid of it--the thought flashed through his mind) and looked out over the sluggish black water.There was a little chill in the air, but after a sip or two of Grandpa's wine, I felt much better.For the first time since the stalking on New York's Third Avenue, he felt safe and comfortable. He smoked and looked across Tasmore Pond. Safe and cozy, but not for the first time since that day in New York.It was that terrible day a year ago in August when Ita re-entered their lives for the first time.They have been either on the run or in hiding since then.In either case there is no peace. He thought of talking to Quincy on the phone, the smell of burnt carpet in his nostrils. He was in Ohio, and Quincy was far away in California (in his few letters, Quincy always called it the magical kingdom of earthquakes). He thought he must have been terrified.He had never known fear before.And now horror has come to your home to find your wife dead with fingernails pulled out.They pulled out her nails to find out where Charlie was.Charlie at her friend Terry.Du Gang's family played for two days and two nights.They had planned to have Terry come over for the same amount of time in a month or two.Veitch called this the megatrend of the 1980s. Although Andy was surrounded by great grief, fear and anger at the time, now, sitting on the terrace and smoking a cigarette, he is able to reorganize what happened: the blindest luck (perhaps not just luck) made his The mind can keep up with these developments. They are being watched all the time, everyone in the family.It must have been a while. When Charlie didn't come home from camp that Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday and Thursday night, they must have thought it was Andy and Vicky who had discovered their surveillance.They didn't know that Charlie was just staying at a friend's house less than two miles away, and they thought they were hiding the baby. This is absurd.Stupid mistake, but it's been made by Ita more than once - in an article that Andy saw in Rolling Stone, Ita said that Ita was involved in a Red Army hijacking (hijacked by sixty people) thwarted at the cost of their lives); it also sold heroin in exchange for intelligence on Cubans in Miami; and it played a major role in the Communist takeover of power on a small Caribbean island. With a record of such major blunders, it's not hard to understand why Ita's agents spying on the McGee's would have mistaken a child playing at a friend's house for two days as going underground.As Quincy might have said (and perhaps he has), if a thousand of Ita's most productive employees went to work in the private sector, they would be on unemployment benefits before their probationary period expired. But both sides made absurd mistakes, and Andy thought painfully about the thought, bringing hope that the bitterness has become a little blurred with the passage of time, but the bitterness was once bloody tentacles, and each sharp tentacles were full of blood. The venom of guilt.The day Charlie rolled down the stairs, he'd been terrified by Quincy's hints on the phone, but apparently he wasn't terrified enough.Otherwise, they might actually go underground. By the time he finds out that life, or family life, goes beyond the usual range into the passionate romantic world that is portrayed on TV or movies, and people's minds can be paralyzed, it is too late. After his conversation with Quincy was over, a strange feeling developed: he seemed to be constantly feeling a little delusional.Phone tapped?Someone is watching them?Is it really possible that they will be taken away and locked in the basement of some government concentration camp? There was a sudden commotion on Tasmore Pond in the distance, and several wild geese flew westward into the night sky.The rising half-moon casts a bark of silvery light on their wings.Andy lit another cigarette.He had smoked quite a few, but he wanted to smoke them all; there were only four left.Five. Yes, he did suspect that the phone had been tapped.Sometimes when you pick up the handset and say "Hello," you can hear a weird click.Once or twice, while he was speaking with a student or one of his colleagues who called to ask about an assignment, the phone disconnected for no apparent reason.He had suspected bugs in the rooms, but he never turned the house upside down to find them (for fear he might find them).There were also times when he suspected -- no, he was almost sure -- that someone was watching them. They were living in Harrison's Lakeside area at the time.It was a perfect example of suburban life.On a drunken night, you'd walk four or six blocks for hours without finding your own home, with neighbors who worked at the 1BM factory outside of town and who taught at the university.You could have drawn two straight lines on the average household income slip, with the lower one being $18,500 a year and the upper one being about $30,000, and almost everyone in Lake Shore was somewhere in the middle. Living there, you got to meet people.In the street you give Bacon a big nod of hello - she lost her husband and has been married to vodka ever since; anyone can see that: the honeymoon with that particular gentleman has done a great disservice to her looks and figure .You beckon to the two girls who were standing with the drunk (they own a house on the corner of Wingley Avenue and Lake Shore Drive) and imagine how wonderful it would be to spend the night with them.You talk about baseball with Mr. Hammond, who lives on Corolla Street.Mr. Hammond, who works for 1BM, previously lived in Atlanta and was an avid Atlanta Braves fan.He hated the Cincinnati Reds; no doubt that earned him the loathing of his neighbors.Mr Hammond didn't care about that. He is waiting for 1BM to give him a new job. But it wasn't Mr. Hammond that mattered; nor Da Bacon;What matters is that it doesn't take long for your brain to subconsciously form its own clique: what kind of people belong in the Lake District. But in the months leading up to Vicky's killing and Charlie's kidnapping at the Dougon's house, there were people around them who weren't part of the group.Andy stubbornly pushed them out of his mind, saying to himself—it seemed stupid to startle Vicky because a few words from Quincy made him suspicious. The people in the light gray van.He had seen the red-haired man behind the wheel of a Metador one night, and in the passenger seat of a Plymouth one night two weeks later.Too many salesmen come to the door to sell goods.Sometimes when they came home at night after a day out or took Charlie to see the latest Disney movie, he would have the feeling that someone had been in the house, something had been moved. The feeling of being watched. But he didn't believe at the time that things would go beyond surveillance.This is his ridiculous mistake.He still wasn't entirely convinced it had happened because the people had been spooked by Charlie's disappearance.They might already be planning to kidnap him and Charlie.Kill Vicky because she's relatively useless - who really needs a lowly psychic whose biggest trick is closing the refrigerator door across the room? But the sloppiness and haste with which it had happened made him feel that Charlie's sudden disappearance had at least made them move sooner than expected.If it was Andy who disappeared, they might follow) Continue to wait, but it is not him.It was Charlie who was missing, and she was the one they were most interested in. Andy was sure of that now. He stood up and stretched, hearing the bones in his back rattle.It's time for him to go to bed, and it's time for him to stop thinking about these sad memories.He couldn't spend the rest of his life blaming himself for Vicky's death.Before the fact, he was only an accessory after all.Besides, the rest of his life might not be long.Andy McGee hasn't forgotten their action on Yves Mendes' porch.They were going to kill him.All they need now is Charlie. He got into bed and, a moment later, fell asleep.His dreams were restless. Over and over again he saw the tongue of flame crawling along the dirt road of the driveway, saw it make a magic ring of fire around the splitter pad, saw the chickens fly through the air like exploding Molotov cocktails.In the dream, he felt the heat enveloping him again, gradually condensing. She said she never wanted to start a fire again. Maybe that's for the best. Outside, an icy October moon shines on Tasmore Pond in Bradford, New Hampshire, and across New England.Farther south, the same moonlight fell on Longmont, Virginia. Andy has since participated in the trials at Jason Gilney Hall.McGee sometimes had premonitions with uncanny clarity.He didn't know if these hunches were some kind of low-level intuition, but he already knew to trust them when they came. About noon on that August day in 1980, he had a feeling of foreboding. He was eating lunch in the staff lounge—the Buck Love Room—on the top floor of the Union Building when the feeling came.He can even pinpoint exact moments.He was eating creamy chicken nugget bibimbap with Ev Oblin, Bill Vares and Don Gribski of the English department.They are all good friends.As usual, someone brought a new joke to Don, who collects little Polish humor.This time it was brought by Eve.The joke is about how to tell the difference between a Polish ladder and a normal ladder because the top rung on a Polish ladder says "Stop".Everyone laughed.Just then there was a small.A calm voice said in Andy's head (Something happened at home.) Only these few words.But that was enough, the feeling was getting heavier and heavier, almost like the headache would get worse after he overused his special powers.It wasn't just a head thing now though; all his senses seemed to be slowly being mobilized, as if they were wool and a grumpy cat was running down his nervous system and pulling them up. His good mood was gone.Buttered chicken nuggets lost all the oomph it had to begin with.His stomach started to cramp, and his heart jumped, as if he'd just had a big shock.Then his right finger suddenly began to throb, as if squeezed by a door. He stood up suddenly, with layers of cold sweat on his forehead. "I don't feel well," he said. "Can you take my one hour lesson, Bill?" "About the radical poets? Of course. No problem. What's the matter with you?" "I don't know. Maybe something was eaten." "You look pale," Don Gribski said. "You should go to the infirmary, Andy." "I'll go," said Andy. He left without any intention of going to the infirmary.It is a quarter past twelve, and the late summer campus is drowsy in the last week before the holiday.He hurried out, waving goodbye to Eve, Bill, and Don.After that day, he never saw any of them again. He stopped on the lower floor of the Union Building, walked into a phone booth and dialed home.No one answered.It wouldn't have been surprising: Charlie was at Duggan's, Vicky might be out shopping or getting her hair done, she might be at Upmore's or having lunch with Enrien Bacon.But again his nerves were in warning, almost screaming now. He walks out of the Union Buildings and sprints to the van parked in the parking lot of Princes Hall) car.He stumbled and stumbled as he drove through the city toward the lakeside.He rear-ended a red light and nearly knocked a hipster off his ten-speed bike.Andy paid little attention to the man.The obscene gesture the hippie made at him.His heart was beating wildly. They live on Taiga Avenue - in the Lake District, like many others built in the fifties: Like suburban developments in the 1990s, most streets seem to be named after trees or shrubs: The streets were strangely deserted in the midday heat of August.This is more enhanced: gave him an ominous premonition.There were only a few cars parked along the sidewalk, and the street looked wider than usual.Here and there were a few children playing in the street, but that still didn't take away the feeling of desolation.Mrs. Flynn of Corolla Street pushed a cart full of groceries down the street.She is strong.The round belly looks like a football under the elastic pants; On both sides of the street, lawn sprinklers spin lazily, spraying water on the grass or into the air, creating rainbows. Andy turns the outside wheel of the sedan up the curb right next to the sidewalk and slams the spear down!car.He shut down the engine and ran up the potholed concrete road.He'd been meaning to fix the concrete walkway, but couldn't seem to find the "opportunity." Their broker calls it a wall window, and look, here's a real wall window) with the shutters down to make the house look closed. Secret. He doesn't like that. Does she keep the shutters down often, though Possibly keeping the summer heat out? He didn't know. It occurred to him that there were many things in her life that he didn't know about when he wasn't home. He reached for the door knob, but it didn't budge, just slipped through his fingers.She locked the door after he left?He doesn't believe it.That's not Vicky's style.His fear—no, fear now—had grown.But for a moment (though he never wanted to admit it later), for a brief moment, he felt only the urge to run away from the locked door.Run away, leave Vicky or Charlie behind, and the feeble justifications to come. run. However, he began to rummage in his pocket for his key. Nervously, he dropped them on the floor and had to bend over to pick them up—the car keys; the key to the door on the east side of the Prince's Hall; the key to the iron chain he hung across the path of his grandpa's villa every summer after his vacation.Keys has a ridiculous way of depositing life experiences. He selected the door key from the middle and opened the door.He went into the house; shut the door behind him.The living room was an uncomfortably yellow light, hot, and still.Oh god it's so quiet. "Vitch?" No one answered.No answer means she's not here.She put on her Thunderbolt shoes and went shopping or visiting.It's just that she didn't do these things.He is willing to go.And his hand, his right hand...why does that finger hurt? "Vitch?" He goes into the kitchen.There is a small table and three chairs inside.He, Vicky, and Charlie usually ate breakfast in the kitchen.Now there is a chair lying on the ground like a dead dog.The salt shaker was knocked over and the table was spilled with salt.Without thinking about what he was doing, Andy picked up some salt with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and threw it behind his shoulder, muttering in his mouth (just like his father and grandpa used to do) "Salt noodles Salt flour malt malt bad luck go away." There was a pot of cold soup on the stove, and empty soup cans stood on the small counter. It's lunch alone.But where is she? "Vitch?" he called down the stairs.It was dark down there.There is the laundry room and family room, which is the size of the entire house. No one answered. He looked around the kitchen again, it was clean and tidy.Two of Charlie's paintings and a small plastic vegetable with a magnetic pad sit on top of the refrigerator.Bills for electricity and phone bills were stuck on the pegs, with a warning written next to them: pay last.Everything is in order. Just the chair fell over.Just the salt shaker spilled. There was not a speck of saliva in his mouth, and his throat was dry and slippery, like metal in summer. Andy went upstairs; checked Charlie's room, their room, the guest room, nothing.He went back to the kitchen, turned on the staircase light, and went down.The washer was wide open, and the handle of the dryer stared at him like a glassy eye.He went to the family room and fumbled to turn on the light; his fingers traced the walls.He felt absurdly that someone's cold fingers would cover his hand at any moment, guiding him to find the switch.Finally, he touched it, and the light came on. This is a beautiful house.He spends a lot of time here, fixing things and smiling to himself—because he ended up being the guy he swore not to be in college.The three of them spend a lot of time here.There is a TV on the wall, a ping-pong table.A small table that Vicki made out of warehouse planks is covered with books.One wall was covered with wallpaper, and on top of the paper were several Afghan rugs woven by Vicky, and Charlie's books were in a special children's bookcase, all arranged in alphabetical order.On a snowy night with nothing to do two years ago, Andy taught Charlie the twenty-six letters.Charlie still loves them to this day. a beautiful house. An empty room. He tried to relax.That intuition, that hunch (whatever you call it), was wrong.She's just not here.He turned off the light and went back to the laundry room. The washing machine (a bargain they bought for sixty bucks at a big sale) was still running wide open.He closed it without thinking, like he'd thrown the pinch of salt behind him.There was blood on the glass on the cover of the washing machine, not many, only three.Four drops.But it was blood. Andy stood there staring at it.It's kind of cold here, too cold, kind of like a morgue.He looked at the floor, there was more blood on it, not even dry.A small voice, a soft sound.A sharp sigh rushes down his throat] He starts pacing up and down the laundry room.The room was small, and the walls were plastered.He opened the basket of dirty clothes, and there was only one sock in it.He looked under the sink, there was only some washing powder.他看看楼梯下面，只有蜘蛛网和恰莉一只旧娃娃的一条塑料腿——这被遗弃的肢体耐心地躺在那里，等待着被重新发现。 他打开洗衣机和甩干机之间的那扇门。随着咣当一声响，熨衣板摔了下来。在它下面，是嘴里堵着一条抹布的维奇·汤林逊·麦克吉。她的腿被缚在一起，膝盖抵着下巴；一双已经死去的眼睛大大地睁着，上面蒙着一层眼翌。空气中弥漫着一股浓重。刺鼻的家具上光剂的味道。 他嗷地低哼一声向后退去，两手不停挥舞，像要把这可怖的一幕驱开；一只手碰上了甩干机的开关，机器轰地一声旋转起来。衣服开始纠缠着向里滑去。安迪尖叫起来，然后转身就跑。 他奔上楼梯，在绕过拐角要进厨房时绊了一下，直挺挺地摔了出去，额头撞在油地毡上。他挣扎着坐起来，大口喘着粗气。 那一幕又出现了，以慢镜头的形式出现了。在今后的日子里，这一景象将不时出现在他梦中。门开了，熨衣板倒了下来，发出吮当一声，使他想起断头台；他的妻子被塞在下面，嘴里塞着一条用来给家具上光的抹布。这一幕清晰地回来了，他知道自己马上又要放声尖叫，于是猛地把一只胳膊塞进嘴里紧紧咬住。 出来的是一声模糊。窒息般的嚎叫。这样两次之后，某种东西从体内散发出来，他安静了。这是震惊之后短暂的麻木，但对他却是有用的。害怕和恐惧消失了，右手的阵痛停止了。在这麻木带来的镇静中，他想到了恰莉。 他站起身想去拿电话，然而又转过头来到了楼梯边。他站在楼梯顶上，咬着嘴唇，努力使自己坚强起来，鼓足勇气又走了下杜刚大大的声音变小了些：“特瑞，恰莉什么时候走的？” 一个小孩的声音说了些什么，他听不清，拿着话筒的手已满是汗水。 “她说大概十分钟以前。”她有些抱歉，“我正在洗衣服，所以没注意。有一个人下来跟我说的。没事吧？麦克吉先生？他看上去没问题……” 一阵疯狂的冲动抓住了他。他想轻轻地笑着对她说洗衣服？ Yeah?我妻子也是。我发现她被塞在了熨衣板正面。琼，你今天真是走运。 他说：“那就好，我想知道他们是直接回家来吗？” 问题转达给了特瑞，她说她不知道。安迪想，好极了，我女儿的生命掌握在另一个六岁女孩的手里。 他抓住一根救命稻草。 “我要到拐角的市场去。”他对杜刚太太说，“请你问问特瑞，他们是坐轿车还是货车，也许我会看见他们。” 这次他听到特瑞说：“是货车。他们坐一辆灰色货车走的。 就像大卫。比西奥多的爸爸的那辆车。 " "Thank you," he said.杜刚太太答道不用谢，那种冲劲再次涌起。 这次，他想冲着话筒大吼我妻子死了！我女儿和两个陌生人上了一辆灰色货车，而你为什么却在洗衣服？ 他并没有大喊大叫；相反他挂上听筒走了出去。热浪扑面而来，他踉跄了一下。他来的时候也这么热吗？现在好像热了许多。邮递员已经来过。邮筒里插着一张原来没有的广告单。当他在楼下拥着他死去的妻子时，邮递员来过。他可怜的死了的维奇：他们拔掉了她的指甲。这真是件可笑的事一一比钥匙记录生活经历的方法可笑得多——死亡的事实不断从各个方面。各个角度向你袭来。你试图在一方面保护自己，而死亡的真象却在另一面登陆了。他想死亡就像一个橄榄球队员，一个硕大无比的家伙，不停地将你屁股朝下扔在争球线上。 赶快行动起来，他想着。他们只领先十五分钟——这并不算多，还算是一条新鲜的兽迹。除非特瑞·杜刚区分不开十五分钟和半小时或两个小时。无论如何，先别管这些。 He got into action.他回到停在人行道上的汽车旁。上车前，他又回头扫了一眼已经付完一半抵押款的房子。一座整洁。漂亮的房子。如果你需要，银行会一年给你两个月的“付款休假”。安迪从未需要过。他看着昏睡在阳光下的房子，受惊的日光再次被邮筒中伸出的红色广告单吸引。死亡再次击中了他，泪水模糊了他的视线，他紧咬牙关抑制住悲声。 他上了车，朝特瑞，杜刚家所在大街驶去。他并不真地认为自己能够追上他们，只是怀着一种盲目的希望。从那以后，他再也没有看见过自己在湖滨地区针叶林大街上的家。 现在他的车开得好些了。既然已经知道了最坏的事情，所以车也就开得好多了。他打开收音机，里面鲍伯·萨哲正在唱着（仍是老样子）。 他尽量以最快速度驾车驶过湖滨区。有那么可怕的一刹那，他忽然想不起那条街的名字了；过了一会儿，那名字才又浮现在脑海里。杜刚家是住在布拉斯摩大街上。他和维奇曾拿这名字开玩笑。想到这儿，他开始微笑。暮地一下她的死再次击中了他，使他有些晕眩。 十分钟后他到了那儿。布拉斯摩大街是一条不长的死胡同。 一辆灰色货车从那边是出不去的。只有一道栅栏标明是约翰·格兰初中的围墙。 安迪将车停在布拉摩和里治大街的交汇处，拐角上有一所上绿下白的房子，一个草坪喷头装置不停旋转着。房子前面有两个大约十岁的孩子，一个男孩一个女孩。他们正在轮流玩滑板。女孩穿着运动短裤，两只膝盖上伤痕累累。 他下了汽车朝他们走去。两个孩子上下仔细打量着他。 “你们好。”他说，“我正在找我女儿。大约半个小时前，她坐着一辆灰色货车从这儿经过。她和……我的几个朋友在一起。 你们看见一辆灰色货车过去吗？ " 男孩微微耸耸肩。 女孩说：“你担心她，先生？” “你看见那辆货车了，是吗？安迪和蔼地问道，并在脑子里给了她轻轻的一“推”。太重的话会产生相反效果。她会看见货车向任何他希望的方向开去，包括往天上开。 “是的，我看见了一辆货车。”她说着跳上滑板滑向拐角处的消防栓，然后又跳了下来，“它朝那边开了。”她指向布拦斯摩大街前方。two.三个路口前是查里斯尔大道，哈里森市的主要街道之一。安迪曾推测他们可能走那条路，不过确认一下当然更好。 “谢谢。”他说着走回汽车。 “你担心她？”女孩又问道。 “是的。有一点。”安迪说。 他掉转车头驶过三个街区来到布拉斯摩和查里斯尔大街的交汇路口。这是毫无希望的，彻底毫无希望。他感到了一丝惊恐，就像一个小小的热点，但它会播散开来。他将它驱散，强迫自己只去想如何尽可能地追踪他们。如果不得不利用特异功能，他会那样做的。他可以在脑子里多次给出帮助别人的轻轻一“推”，而自己不会感觉不适：。感谢上帝、整个夏季他都不曾动用过这种才能——如果你从另外一个角度看，也是种该诅咒的东西。不管前方会是怎样，他现在已经准备就绪，状况良好。 查里斯尔大街四条车道宽，在这个路口设有红绿灯。在他右边是个洗车站，左边是个倒闭的饭店。街对面是个加油站和一个照相器材商店。如果他们向左拐了，那他们就去了市中心。如果向右，那他们就是去了机场和第80号州际公路。 安迪把车开进洗车站。里面有个穿着深绿工作服的年轻人，长着一头令人惊叹的红发。他正在吃冰棒。 “洗不了了，'伙计。”没等安迪开口年轻人就说道，“清洗器一个小时前坏了。我们关门了。” “我不是要洗车。”安迪说，“我正在找一辆灰色货车。大约半个小时前，它刚经过路口。我女儿在上面，我有点担心她。” “你觉得可能有人绑架了她？”他继续吃着冰棒。 “不，根本不是。”安迪说，“你看见那辆货车了吗？” “灰色货车？嗨，好朋友，你知道一个小时内有多少汽车从这儿过吗？或者半个小时内？很多，伙计。查里斯尔是条非常繁忙的街道。” 安迪竖起拇指向身后指去：“它从布拉斯摩大街来。那条街车不大多／他已准备在脑子里给这年轻人轻轻地一“推”、不过这次却不必了。那人的眼睛突然亮了起来，他从中间掰开冰棒，用舌头非常不雅地将一根棍上残留的紫色冰块一下子全舔了进古。 “啊，是的，不错。”他说，“我是看见了。告诉你为什么我注意了那车。它从我们站里开过去想抢红灯。我自己倒不在乎。 不过这可把我们老板惹火了。这和今天机器坏没关系。他有什么别的事不顺心。 " “就是说那车往机场那边开了？” 年轻人点点头，将一根棍子扔到身后，开始进攻剩下的那一半。“希望你找到女儿，好朋友。不介意的话，我倒建议你去找警察，如果你真的很担心。” “在这种情况下，”安迪说，“我觉得那不会有什么用。” 他又上了车，穿过洗车站拐上了查里斯尔大道。现在他是往西开，这片地区到处都是加油站，洗车站。，快餐店和旧车市场。 一个汽车电影院的广告牌上写着双场电影预告《食尸鬼）和《死神的冷酷商人），他看着电影院的大帐篷，耳边听到熨衣板像断头台一样吮当一声掉出壁橱。他的胃翻腾起来。 他驶过一面限速八十英里的牌子。再往前有一面稍小的牌子，上面画着一架飞机。好，他已经到这儿了。What should we do now? 忽然他将车开进了一家比萨店的停车场。停车打听是没有用的。就像那洗车的年轻人说的，查里斯尔是条繁忙的大街。他会不断地利用特异功能直到脑浆从耳中溢出，而结果只会使自己更加迷惑。但不管怎么说，他们不是上了公路就是去了机场，不是女郎就是老虎，这点他可以肯定。 他还从没有意识地让自己的预感出现。他只是在它们到来时像礼物一样接受，并按它们行事。现在他在汽车驾驶座上蜷下身子，用手指尖轻轻拍打着太阳穴，想让什么东西出现。发动机在转，收音机在响。滚石乐队。跳吧，小妹妹跳吧。 他想着恰莉。她去了特瑞家，衣服塞在那个她到哪几都背着的圆书包里，也许这一点愚弄了那些人。他最后一次看见恰莉时，她穿着牛仔裤，戴一顶海螺帽，像平常一样扎着两个小辫子。临走前给了他一声心不在焉的“再见，爸爸”和一个吻。上帝啊，恰莉，你现在在哪儿？ 什么也没有出现。 没关系，再坐一会儿，听听滚石乐队。比萨店。你得自己做决定。芝麻或西瓜。滚石在鼓动小妹妹来跳舞，跳吧，跳吧。昆西说他们可能会把她关在一间小屋子，以保证两亿两千万美国人民的安全和自由。维奇。一开始时他和维奇在性生活上很不顺利。她当时吓得要死。在第一个非常不成功的夜晚，她哭着说，就叫我冰女人好了，求求你，我不要这个，我们不应该。但不知怎地，命运六号试验却帮了他们的忙——那种恰似一人的心灵感应从某个方面看，就像是在做爱。但仍然是困难的。每次只能一点，轻轻地。tears.维奇开始有反应，然后又僵直了，大叫道不要，会疼的，安迪，不要！但他一直没有放弃努力，就像一个撬保险箱的窃贼，他知道会有办法的，总会有办法的。终于有一天晚上，他们成功了。后来又有一天晚上，感觉不错了，然后突然有一天晚上，竟变得妙不可言了。跳吧；小妹妹，跳吧。恰莉出生时，他一直在她身边。分娩很快，很轻松。很快，二切都妥贴了…… 什么也没有出现。兽迹已不那么新鲜了，可他还一充所获。 是机场还是公路？是女郎还是猛虎？ 滚石唱完了。接着是杜比兄弟想知道没有了爱，你现在会在何方。安迪不知道。毒日当头。停车场里的停车线是新近漆过的，场里四分之三以上都停满了车。现在是午饭时间，恰莉吃饭了吗？他们会给她饭吃吗？Maybe…… （也许他们会在沿路某个地方停下，毕竟他们不能他们不能不能开车。） where?他们不能开车去哪里？ （不能一直开车到弗吉尼亚，而不停下来休息，。是不是？我是说一个小女孩总得时不时停下来方便一下，对不对)·他直起身，心底涌起一股巨大然而麻木的感激之情。它终于出现了。如果要他猜，他可能首先会猜机场。但不是机场。不是机场而是州际公路，他并不完全肯定这预感是好兆头，但他还是有些把握，至少这要比毫无头绪好多了。 他开车驶过指向外面的新漆的箭头，再次拐上了查里斯尔大街。十分钟后他来到了州际公路上并向东驶去。一张道路通行税票塞在他身边座位上一本破旧、带注释的（失乐园）里。又过了十分钟，俄亥俄的哈里森市就落在了他身后。他已经踏上了十四个月后会把他带到弗吉尼亚隆芒特的旅途。 他仍很镇定。他调大收音机的音量，这让他感觉好了些。里面的歌一首接一首，但他只听得出那些老歌来，因为他已有三周年没有听流行歌曲了．没什么特别原因）他就是不再听了。这些歌仍能使他感到兴奋。心情激荡）但脑中麻木的镇定以冰冷的逻辑告诉他，激动并不是什么好事一而且如果他开始以七十英里的速度开车的话，那就是在自找麻烦了。 他把车速打到刚过六十，心想那些带走恰莉的人不会超过五十五英里的限速。他们可以对任何以超速为理由拦下他们车的警察挥舞自己的证件，这是事实；但他们恐怕很难解释车上一个大喊大叫的六岁女孩。那会减慢他们的速度，会使他们和操纵这场表演的人发生麻烦。 他们可以把她麻醉藏起来。他的大脑低声说，那样如果他们因为车速七十。甚至八十英里而被拦下，他们只要出示证件就可以继续向前了。哪一个俄亥俄州警察会愿意搜查一辆属于伊塔的货车呢？ 安迪与这个想法斗争着。首先，他们可能不敢给恰莉眼药，除非你是个专家，否则给一个小孩服镇定剂可是件棘手的活儿，而且他们可能不清楚镇定剂对他们要调查的那种力量会有什么影响。第二，一个州警察也许真的会检查那辆货车，或至少在检查他们的证件时，会让他们把车停到路边。第三，他们有什么必要那么慌慌张张呢？他们并不知道有人在追赶他们。现在还不到一点。安迪在二点钟之前都应在学校。伊塔的人会以为他最早在二点二十分左右才能到家，再过二十分钟或两小时后才会发现出事。所以他们干吗不慢慢开呢？ 安迪加快了车速。