by Stephen King
And just like that the urge was gone. Dan laughed. "Okay, I needed that. But if you ever do the Michael Jackson voice again, I will drink."
"You should hear me on 'Billie Jean.' I'm a karaoke monster. Can I ask you something?"
"Sure." Through the windshield, Dan could see the Cowboy Boot patrons come and go, probably not talking of Michelangelo.
"Whatever you've got, did drinking . . . I don't know . . . shut it up?"
"Muffled it. Put a pillow over its face and made it struggle for air."
"And now?"
"Like Superman, I use my powers to promote truth, justice, and the American Way."
"Meaning you don't want to talk about it."
"No," Dan said. "I don't. But it's better now. Better than I ever thought it could be. When I was a teenager . . ." He trailed off. When he'd been a teenager, every day had been a struggle for sanity. The voices in his head were bad; the pictures were frequently worse. He had promised both his mother and himself that he would never drink like his father, but when he finally began, as a freshman in high school, it had been such a huge relief that he had--at first--only wished he'd started sooner. Morning hangovers were a thousand times better than nightmares all night long. All of which sort of led to a question: How much of his father's son was he? In how many ways?
"When you were a teenager, what?" John asked.
"Nothing. It doesn't matter. Listen, I better get moving. I'm sitting in a bar parking lot."
"Really?" John sounded interested. "Which bar?"
"Place called the Cowboy Boot. It's two-buck pitchers until nine o'clock."
"Dan."
"Yes, John."
"I know that place from the old days. If you're going to flush your life down the toilet, don't start there. The ladies are skanks with meth-mouth and the men's room smells like moldy jockstraps. The Boot is strictly for when you hit your bottom."
There it was, that phrase again.
"We all have a bottom," Dan said. "Don't we?"
"Get out of there, Dan." John sounded dead serious now. "Right this second. No more fucking around. And stay on the phone with me until that big neon cowboy boot on the roof is out of your rearview mirror."
Dan started his car, pulled out of the lot, and back onto Route 11.
"It's going," he said. "It's going . . . annnd . . . it's gone." He felt inexpressible relief. He also felt bitter regret--how many two-buck pitchers could he have gotten through before nine o'clock?
"Not going to pick up a six or a bottle of wine before you get back to Frazier, are you?"
"No. I'm good."
"Then I'll see you Thursday night. Come early, I'm making the coffee. Folgers, from my special stash."
"I'll be there," Dan said.
12
When he got back to his turret room and flipped on the light, there was a new message on the blackboard.
I had a wonderful day!
Your friend,
ABRA
"That's good, honey," Dan said. "I'm glad."
Buzz. The intercom. He went over and hit TALK.
"Hey there, Doctor Sleep," Loretta Ames said. "I thought I saw you come in. I guess it's still technically your day off, but do you want to pay a house call?"
"On who? Mr. Cameron or Mr. Murray?"
"Cameron. Azzie's been visiting with him since just after dinner."
Ben Cameron was in Rivington One. Second floor. An eighty-three-year-old retired accountant with congestive heart failure. Hell of a nice guy. Good Scrabble player and an absolute pest at Parcheesi, always setting up blockades that drove his opponents crazy.
"I'll be right over," Dan said. On his way out, he paused for a single backward glance at the blackboard. "Goodnight, hon," he said.
He didn't hear from Abra Stone for another two years.
During those same two years, something slept in the True Knot's bloodstream. A little parting gift from Bradley Trevor, aka the baseball boy.
PART TWO
EMPTY DEVILS
CHAPTER SEVEN
"HAVE YOU SEEN ME?"
1
On an August morning in 2013, Concetta Reynolds awoke early in her Boston condo apartment. As always, the first thing she was aware of was that there was no dog curled up in the corner, by the dresser. Betty had been gone for years now, but Chetta still missed her. She put on her robe and headed for the kitchen, where she intended to make her morning coffee. This was a trip she had made thousands of times before, and she had no reason to believe this one would be any different. Certainly it never crossed her mind to think it would prove to be the first link in a chain of malignant events. She didn't stumble, she would tell her granddaughter, Lucy, later that day, nor did she bump into anything. She just heard an unimportant snapping sound from about halfway down her body on the right-hand side and then she was on the floor with warm agony rushing up and down her leg.
She lay there for three minutes or so, staring at her faint reflection in the polished hardwood floor, willing the pain to subside. At the same time she talked to herself. Stupid old woman, not to have a companion. David's been telling you for the last five years that you're too old to live alone and now he'll never let you hear the end of it.
But a live-in companion would have needed the room she'd set aside for Lucy and Abra, and Chetta lived for their visits. More than ever, now that Betty was gone and all the poetry seemed to be written out of her. And ninety-seven or not, she'd been getting around well and feeling fine. Good genes on the female side. Hadn't her own momo buried four husbands and seven children and lived to be a hundred and two?
Although, truth be told (if only to herself ), she hadn't felt quite so fine this summer. This summer things had been . . . difficult.
When the pain finally did abate--a bit--she began crawling down the short hall toward the kitchen, which was now filling up with dawn. She found it was harder to appreciate that lovely rose light from floor level. Each time the pain became too great, she stopped with her head laid on one bony arm, panting. During these rest stops she reflected on the seven ages of man, and how they described a perfect (and perfectly stupid) circle. This had been her mode of locomotion long ago, during the fourth year of World War I, also known as--how funny--the War to End All Wars. Then she had been Concetta Abruzzi, crawling across the dooryard of her parents' farm in Davoli, intent on capturing chickens that easily outpaced her. From those dusty beginnings she had gone on to lead a fruitful and interesting life. She had published twenty books of poetry, taken tea with Graham Greene, dined with two presidents, and--best of all--had been gifted with a lovely, brilliant, and strangely talented great-granddaughter. And what did all those wonderful things lead to?
More crawling, that was what. Back to the beginning. Dio mi benedica.
She reached the kitchen and eeled her way through an oblong of sun to the little table where she took most of her meals. Her cell phone was on it. Chetta grabbed one leg of the table and shook it until her phone slid to the edge and dropped off. And, meno male, landed unbroken. She punched in the number they told you to call when shit like this happened, then waited while a recorded voice summed up all the absurdity of the twenty-first century by telling her that her call was being recorded.
And finally, praise Mary, an actual human voice.
"This is 911, what is your emergency?"
The woman on the floor who had once crawled after the chickens in southern Italy spoke clearly and coherently in spite of the pain. "My name is Concetta Reynolds, and I live on the third floor of a condominium at Two nineteen Marlborough Street. I seem to have broken my hip. Can you send an ambulance?"
"Is there anyone with you, Mrs. Reynolds?"
"For my sins, no. You're speaking to a stupid old lady who insisted she was fine to live alone. And by the way, these days I prefer Ms."
2
Lucy got the call from her grandmother shortly before Concetta was wheeled into surgery. "I've broken my hip, but they can fix it," she told Lucy. "
I believe they put in pins and such."
"Momo, did you fall?" Lucy's first thought was for Abra, who was away at summer camp for another week.
"Oh yes, but the break that caused the fall was completely spontaneous. Apparently this is quite common in people my age, and since there are ever so many more people my age than there used to be, the doctors see a lot of it. There's no need for you to come immediately, but I think you'll want to come quite soon. It seems that we'll need to have a talk about various arrangements."
Lucy felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. "What sort of arrangements?"
Now that she was loaded with Valium or morphine or whatever it was they'd given her, Concetta felt quite serene. "It seems that a broken hip is the least of my problems." She explained. It didn't take long. She finished by saying, "Don't tell Abra, cara. I've had dozens of emails from her, even an actual letter, and it sounds like she's enjoying her summer camp a great deal. Time enough later for her to find her old momo's circling the drain."
Lucy thought, If you really believe I'll have to tell her--
"I can guess what you're thinking without being psychic, amore, but maybe this time bad news will give her a miss."
"Maybe," Lucy said.
She had barely hung up when the phone rang. "Mom? Mommy?" It was Abra, and she was crying. "I want to come home. Momo's got cancer and I want to come home."
3
Following her early return from Camp Tapawingo in Maine, Abra got an idea of what it would be like to shuttle between divorced parents. She and her mother spent the last two weeks of August and the first week of September in Chetta's Marlborough Street condo. The old woman had come through her hip surgery quite nicely, and had decided against a longer hospital stay, or any sort of treatment for the pancreatic cancer the doctors had discovered.
"No pills, no chemotherapy. Ninety-seven years are enough. As for you, Lucia, I refuse to allow you to spend the next six months bringing me meals and pills and the bedpan. You have a family, and I can afford round-the-clock care."
"You're not going to live the end of your life among strangers," Lucy said, speaking in her she-who-must-be-obeyed voice. It was the one both Abra and her father knew not to argue with. Not even Concetta could do that.
There was no discussion about Abra staying; on September ninth, she was scheduled to start the eighth grade at Anniston Middle School. It was David Stone's sabbatical year, which he was using to write a book comparing the Roaring Twenties to the Go-Go Sixties, and so--like a good many of the girls with whom she'd gone to Camp Tap--Abra shuttled from one parent to the other. During the week, she was with her father. On the weekends, she shipped down to Boston, to be with her mom and Momo. She thought that things could not get worse . . . but they always can, and often do.
4
Although he was working at home now, David Stone never bothered to walk down the driveway and get the mail. He claimed the U.S. Postal Service was a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that had ceased to have any relevance around the turn of the century. Every now and then a package turned up, sometimes books he'd ordered to help with his work, more often something Lucy had ordered from a catalogue, but otherwise he claimed it was all junkola.
When Lucy was home, she retrieved the post from the mailbox by the gate and looked the stuff over while she had her mid-morning coffee. It was mostly crap, and it went directly into what Dave called the Circular File. But she wasn't home that early September, so it was Abra--now the nominal woman of the house--who checked the box when she got off the school bus. She also washed the dishes, did a load of laundry for herself and her dad twice a week, and set the Roomba robo-vac going, if she remembered. She did these chores without complaint because she knew that her mother was helping Momo and that her father's book was very important. He said this one was POPULAR instead of ACADEMIC. If it was successful, he might be able to stop teaching and write full-time, at least for awhile.
On this day, the seventeenth of September, the mailbox contained a Walmart circular, a postcard announcing the opening of a new dental office in town (WE GUARANTEE MILES OF SMILES!), and two glossy come-ons from local Realtors selling time shares at the Mount Thunder ski resort.
There was also a local bulk-mail rag called The Anniston Shopper. This had a few wire-service stories on the front two pages and a few local stories (heavy on regional sports) in the middle. The rest was ads and coupons. If she had been home, Lucy would have saved a few of these latter and then tossed the rest of the Shopper into the recycling bin. Her daughter would never have seen it. On this day, with Lucy away in Boston, Abra did.
She thumbed through it as she idled her way up the driveway, then turned it over. On the back page there were forty or fifty photographs not much bigger than postage stamps, most in color, a few in black and white. Above them was this heading:
HAVE YOU SEEN ME?
A Weekly Service Of Your Anniston Shopper
For a moment Abra thought it was some sort of contest, like a scavenger hunt. Then she realized these were missing children, and it was as if a hand had grasped the soft lining of her stomach and squeezed it like a washcloth. She had bought a three-pack of Oreos in the caf at lunch, and had saved them for the bus ride home. Now she seemed to feel them being wadded up toward her throat by that clutching hand.
Don't look at it if it bothers you, she told herself. It was the stern and lecturely voice she often employed when she was upset or confused (a Momo-voice, although she had never consciously realized this). Just toss it in the garage trashcan with the rest of this gluck. Only she seemed unable not to look at it.
Here was Cynthia Abelard, DOB June 9, 2005. After a moment's thought, Abra realized DOB stood for date of birth. So Cynthia would be eight now. If she was still alive, that is. She had been missing since 2009. How does somebody lose track of a four-year-old? Abra wondered. She must have really crappy parents. But of course, the parents probably hadn't lost her. Probably some weirdo had been cruising around the neighborhood, seen his chance, and stolen her.
Here was Merton Askew, DOB September 4, 1998. He had disappeared in 2010.
Here, halfway down the page, was a beautiful little Hispanic girl named Angel Barbera, who had disappeared from her Kansas City home at the age of seven and had already been gone for nine years. Abra wondered if her parents really thought this tiny picture would help them get her back. And if they did, would they still even know her? For that matter, would she know them?
Get rid of that thing, the Momo-voice said. You've got enough to worry about without looking at a lot of missing ki--
Her eyes found a picture in the very bottom row, and a little sound escaped her. Probably it was a moan. At first she didn't even know why, although she almost did; it was like how you sometimes knew the word you wanted to use in an English composition but you still couldn't quite get it, the damn thing just sat there on the tip of your tongue.
This photo was of a white kid with short hair and a great big goofy-ass grin. It looked like he had freckles on his cheeks. The picture was too small to tell for sure, but
(they're freckles you know they are)
Abra was somehow sure, anyway. Yes, they were freckles and his big brothers had teased him about them and his mother told him they would go away in time.
"She told him freckles are good luck," Abra whispered.
Bradley Trevor, DOB March 2, 2000. Missing since July 12, 2011. Race: Caucasian. Location: Bankerton, Iowa. Current Age: 13. And below this--below all these pictures of mostly smiling children: If you think you have seen Bradley Trevor, contact The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
Only no one was going to contact them about Bradley, because no one was going to see him. His current age wasn't thirteen, either. Bradley Trevor had stopped at eleven. He had stopped like a busted wristwatch that shows the same time twenty-four hours a day. Abra found herself wondering if freckles faded underground.
"The baseball boy," she whispered.
There
were flowers lining the driveway. Abra leaned over, hands on her knees, pack all at once far too heavy on her back, and threw up her Oreos and the undigested portion of her school lunch into her mother's asters. When she was sure she wasn't going to puke a second time, she went into the garage and tossed the mail into the trash. All the mail.
Her father was right, it was junkola.
5
The door of the little room her dad used as his study was open, and when Abra stopped at the kitchen sink for a glass of water to rinse the sour-chocolate taste of used Oreos out of her mouth, she heard the keyboard of his computer clicking steadily away. That was good. When it slowed down or stopped completely, he had a tendency to be grumpy. Also, he was more apt to notice her. Today she didn't want to be noticed.
"Abba-Doo, is that you?" her father half sang.
Ordinarily she would have asked him to please stop using that baby name, but not today. "Yup, it's me."
"School go okay?"
The steady click-click-click had stopped. Please don't come out here, Abra prayed. Don't come out and look at me and ask me why I'm so pale or something.
"Fine. How's the book?"
"Having a great day," he said. "Writing about the Charleston and the Black Bottom. Vo-doe-dee-oh-doe." Whatever that meant. The important thing was the click-click-click started up again. Thank God.
"Terrific," she said, rinsing her glass and putting it in the drainer. "I'm going upstairs to start my homework."
"That's my girl. Think Harvard in '18."
"Okay, Dad." And maybe she would. Anything to keep herself from thinking about Bankerton, Iowa, in '11.
6
Only she couldn't stop.
Because.
Because what? Because why? Because . . . well . . .
Because there are things I can do.
She IM'ed with Jessica for awhile, but then Jessica went to the mall in North Conway to have dinner at Panda Garden with her parents, so Abra opened her social studies book. She meant to go to chapter four, a majorly boresome twenty pages titled "How Our Government Works," but instead the book had fallen open to chapter five: "Your Responsibilities As a Citizen."
