Firestarter

by Stephen King

  To him too one o'clock seemed an age away.

  3

  Rainbird didn't sleep at all that night. He arrived back from Washington around five-thirty A.M., garaged his Cadillac, and sat at his kitchen table drinking cup after cup of coffee. He was waiting for a call from Andrews, and until that call came, he would not rest easy. It was still theoretically possible for Cap to have found out what he had done with the computer. McGee had messed up Cap Hollister pretty well, but it still did not pay to underestimate.

  Around six-forty-five, the telephone rang. Rainbird set his coffee cup down, rose, went into the living room, and answered it. "Rainbird here."

  "Rainbird? This is Dick Folsom at Andrews. Major Puckeridge's aide."

  "You woke me up, man," Rainbird said. "I hope you catch crabs as big as orange crates. That's an old Indian curse."

  "You've been scrubbed," Folsom said. "I guess you knew."

  "Yes, Cap called me himself last night."

  "I'm sorry," Folsom said. "It's standard operating procedure, that's all."

  "Well, you operated in standard fashion. Can I go back to sleep now?"

  "Yeah. I envy you."

  Rainbird uttered the obligatory chuckle and hung up. He went back into the kitchen, picked up his coffee cup, went to the window, looked out, saw nothing.

  Floating dreamily through his mind was the Prayer for the Dead.

  4

  Cap did not arrive in his office that morning until almost ten-thirty, an hour and a half later than usual. He had searched his small Vega from stem to stern before leaving the house. He had become sure during the night that the car was infested with snakes. The search had taken him twenty minutes--the need to make sure there were no rattlers or copperheads (or something even more sinister and exotic) nesting in the darkness of the trunk, dozing on the fugitive warmth of the engine block, curled up in the glove compartment. He had pushed the glove-compartment button with a broomhandle, not wanting to be too close in case some hissing horror should leap out at him, and when a map of Virginia tumbled out of the square hole in the dash, he had nearly screamed.

  Then, halfway to the Shop, he had passed the Greenway Golf Course and had pulled over onto the shoulder to watch with a dreamy sort of concentration as the golfers played through the eighth and ninth. Every time one of them sliced into the rough, he was barely able to restrain a compulsion to step out of the car and yell for them to beware of snakes in the tall grass.

  At last the blare of a ten-wheeler's airhorn (he had parked with his lefthand wheels still on the pavement) had startled him out of his daze and he drove on.

  His secretary greeted him with a pile of overnight telex cables, which Cap simply took without bothering to shuffle through them to see if there was anything hot enough to demand immediate attention. The girl at the desk was going over a number of requests and messages when she suddenly looked up at Cap curiously. Cap was paying no attention to her at all. He was gazing at the wide drawer near the top of her desk with a bemused expression on his face.

  "Pardon me," she said. She was still very much aware of being the new girl, even after all these months, of having replaced someone Cap had been close to. And perhaps had been sleeping with, she had sometimes speculated.

  "Hmmmm?" He looked around at her at last. But the blankness did not leave his eyes. It was somehow shocking ... like looking at the shuttered windows of a house reputed to be haunted.

  She hesitated, then plunged. "Cap, do you feel all right? You look ... well, a little white."

  "I feel fine," he said, and for a moment he was his old self, dispelling some of her doubts. His shoulders squared, his head came up, and the blankness left his eyes. "Anybody who's going to Hawaii ought to feel fine, right?"

  "Hawaii?" Gloria said doubtfully. It was news to her.

  "Never mind these now," Cap said, taking the message forms and interdepartmental memos and stuffing them all together with the telex cables. "I'll look at them later. Anything happening with either of the McGees?"

  "One item," she said. "I was just getting to it. Mike Kellaher says she asked to go out to the stable this afternoon and see a horse--"

  "Yes, that's fine," Cap said.

  "--and she buzzed back a little later to say she'd like to go out at quarter of one."

  "Fine, fine."

  "Will Mr. Rainbird be taking her out?"

  "Rainbird's on his way to San Diego," Cap said with unmistakable satisfaction. "I'll send a man to take her over."

  "All right. Will you want to see the ..." She trailed off.

  Cap's eyes had wandered away from her and he appeared to be staring at the wide drawer again. It was partway open. It always was, per regulations. There was a gun in there. Gloria was a crack shot, just as Rachel before her had been.

  "Cap, are you sure there's nothing wrong?"

  "Ought to keep that shut," Cap said. "They like dark places. They like to crawl in and hide."

  "They?" she asked cautiously.

  "Snakes," Cap said, and marched into his office.

  5

  He sat behind his desk, the cables and messages in an untidy litter before him. They were forgotten. Everything was forgotten now except snakes, golf clubs, and what he was going to do at quarter of one. He would go down and see Andy McGee. He felt strongly that Andy would tell him what to do next. He felt strongly that Andy would make everything all right.

  Beyond quarter of one this afternoon, everything in his life was a great funneling darkness.

  He didn't mind. It was sort of a relief.

  6

  At quarter of ten, John Rainbird slipped into the small monitoring room near Charlie's quarters. Louis Tranter, a hugely fat man whose buttocks nearly overflowed the chair he sat in, was watching the monitors. The digital thermometer read a steady sixty-eight degrees. He looked over his shoulder when the door opened and his face tightened at the sight of Rainbird.

  "I heard you were leaving town," he said.

  "Scrubbed," Rainbird said. "And you never saw me this morning at all, Louis."

  Louis looked at him doubtfully.

  "You never saw me," Rainbird repeated. "After five this afternoon I don't give a shit. But until then, you never saw me. And if I hear you did, I'm going to come after you and cut me some blubber. Can you dig it?"

  Louis Tranter paled noticeably. The Hostess Twinkie he had been eating dropped from his hand onto the slanted steel panel that housed the TV monitors and microphone pickup controls. It rolled down the slant and tumbled to the floor unheeded, leaving a trail of crumbs behind. Suddenly he wasn't a bit hungry. He had heard this guy was crazy, and now he was seeing that what he had heard was certainly true.

  "I can dig it," he said, whispering in the face of that weird grin and glittering one-eyed stare.

  "Good," Rainbird said, and advanced toward him. Louis shrank away from him, but Rainbird ignored him altogether for the moment and peered into one of the monitors. There was Charlie, looking pretty as a picture in her blue jumper. With a lover's eye, Rainbird noted that she had not braided her hair today; it lay loose and fine and lovely over her neck and shoulders. She wasn't doing anything but sitting on the sofa. No book. No TV. She looked like a woman waiting for a bus.

  Charlie, he thought admiringly, I love you. I really do.

  "What's she got going for today?" Rainbird asked.

  "Nothing much," Louis said eagerly. He was, in fact, nearly babbling. "Just going out at quarter of one to curry that horse she rides. We're getting another test out of her tomorrow."

  "Tomorrow, huh?"

  "Yep." Louis didn't give a tin shit about the tests one way or the other, but he thought it would please Rainbird, and maybe Rainbird would leave.

  He seemed to be pleased. His grin reappeared.

  "She's going out to the stables at quarter of one, huh?"

  "Yeah."

  "Who's taking her? Since I'm on my way to San Diego?"

  Louis uttered a highpitched, almost female giggle
to show that this piece of wit was appreciated.

  "Your buddy there. Don Jules."

  "He's no buddy of mine."

  "No, course he isn't," Louis agreed quickly. "He ... he thought the orders were a little funny, but since they came right from Cap--"

  "Funny? What did he think was funny about them?"

  "Well, just to take her out and leave her there. Cap said the stable boys would keep an eye on her. But they don't know from nothing. Don seemed to think it would be taking a helluva--"

  "Yeah, but he doesn't get paid to think. Does he, fatty?" He slapped Louis on the shoulder, hard. It made a sound like a minor thunderclap.

  "No, course he doesn't," Louis came back smartly. He was sweating now.

  "See you later," Rainbird said, and went to the door again.

  "Leaving?" Louis was unable to disguise his relief.

  Rainbird paused with his hand on the doorknob and looked back. "What do you mean?" he said. "I was never here."

  "No sir, never here," Louis agreed hastily.

  Rainbird nodded and slipped out. He closed the door behind him. Louis stared at the closed door for several seconds and then uttered a great and gusty sigh of relief. His armpits were humid and his white shirt was stuck to his back. A few moments later he picked up his fallen Twinkie, brushed it off, and began to eat it again. The girl was still sitting quietly, not doing anything. How Rainbird--Rainbird of all people--had got her to like him was a mystery to Louis Tranter.

  7

  At quarter to one, an eternity after Charlie had awakened, there was a brief buzz at her door, and Don Jules came in, wearing a baseball warmup jacket and old cord pants. He looked at her coldly and without much interest.

  "Cmon," he said.

  Charlie went with him.

  8

  That day was cool and beautiful. At twelve-thirty Rainbird strolled slowly across the still-green lawn to the low, L-shaped stable with its dark-red paint--the color of drying blood--and its brisk white piping. Overhead, great fair-weather clouds marched slowly across the sky. A breeze tugged at his shirt.

  If dying was required, this was a fine day for it.

  Inside the stable, he located the head groom's office and went in. He showed his ID with its A-rating stamp.

  "Yes, sir?" Drabble said.

  "Clear this place," Rainbird said. "Everyone out. Five minutes."

  The groom did not argue or bumble, and if he paled a bit, his tan covered it. "The horses too?"

  "Just the people. Out the back."

  Rainbird had changed into fatigues--what they had sometimes called gook-shooters in Nam. The pants pockets were large, deep, and flapped. From one of these he now took a large handgun. The head groom looked at it with wise, unsurprised eyes. Rainbird held it loosely, pointed at the floor.

  "Is there going to be trouble, sir?"

  "There may be," Rainbird said quietly. "I don't really know. Go on, now, old man."

  "I hope no harm will come to the horses," Drabble said.

  Rainbird smiled then. He thought, So willshe. He had seen her eyes when she was with the horses. And this place, with its bays of loose hay and its lofts of baled hay, with its dry wood all about, was a tinderbox with NO SMOKING signs posted everywhere.

  It was a thin edge.

  But, as the years had drawn on and he had become more and more careless of his life, he had walked thinner ones.

  He walked back to the big double doors and looked out. No sign of anyone just yet. He turned away and began to walk between the stall doors, smelling the sweet, pungent, nostalgic aroma of horse.

  He made sure all of the stalls were latched and locked.

  He went back to the double doors again. Now someone was coming. Two figures. They were still on the far side of the duckpond, five minutes' walk away. Not Cap and Andy McGee. It was Don Jules and Charlie.

  Come to me, Charlie, he thought tenderly. Come to me now.

  He glanced around at the shadowed upper lofts for a moment and then went to the ladder--simple wooden rungs nailed to a support bearn--and began to climb with lithe ease.

  Three minutes later, Charlie and Don Jules stepped into the shadowed, empty coolness of the stable. They stood just inside the doors for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the dimness. The .357 Mag in Rainbird's hand had been modified to hold a silencer of Rainbird's own construction; it crouched over the muzzle like a strange black spider. It was not, as a matter of fact, a very silent silencer: it is nearly impossible to completely quiet a big handgun. When--if--he pulled the trigger, it would utter a husky bark the first time, a low report the second time, and then it would be mostly useless. Rainbird hoped not to have to use the gun at all, but now he brought it down with both hands and leveled it so that the silencer covered a small circle on Don Jules's chest.

  Jules was looking around carefully.

  "You can go now," Charlie said.

  "Hey!" Jules said, raising his voice and paying no attention to Charlie. Rainbird knew Jules. A book man. Follow each order to the letter and nobody could put you in hack. Keep your ass covered at all times. "Hey, groom! Somebody! I got the kid here!"

  "You can go now," Charlie said again, and once more Jules ignored her.

  "Come on," he said, clamping a hand over Charlie's wrist. "We got to find somebody."

  A bit regretfully, Rainbird prepared to shoot Don Jules. It could be worse; at least Jules would die by the book, and with his ass covered.

  "I said you could go now," Charlie said, and suddenly Jules let go of her wrist. He didn't just let go; he pulled his hand away, the way you do when you've grabbed hold of something hot.

  Rainbird watched this interesting development closely.

  Jules had turned and was looking at Charlie. He was rubbing his wrist, but Rainbird was unable to see if there was a mark there or not.

  "You get out of here," Charlie said softly.

  Jules reached under his coat and Rainbird once more prepared to shoot him. He wouldn't do it until the gun was clear of Jules's jacket and his intention to march her back to the house was obvious.

  But the gun was only partway out when he dropped it to the barnboard floor with a cry. He took two steps backward, away from the girl, his eyes wide.

  Charlie made a half turn away, as if Jules no longer interested her. There was a faucet protruding from the wall halfway up the long side of the L, and beneath it was a bucket half full of water.

  Steam began to rise lazily from the bucket.

  Rainbird didn't think Jules noticed that; his eyes were riveted on Charlie.

  "Get out of here, you bastard," she said, "or I'll burn you up. I'll fry you."

  John Rainbird raised Charlie a silent cheer.

  Jules stood looking at her, indecisive. At this moment, with his head down and slightly cocked, his eyes moving restlessly from side to side, he looked ratlike and dangerous. Rainbird was ready to back her play if she had to make one, but he hoped Jules would be sensible. The power had a way of getting out of control.

  "Get out right now," Charlie said. "Go back where you came from. I'll be watching to see that you do. Move!Get out of here!"

  The shrill anger in her voice decided him.

  "Take it easy," he said. "Okay. But you got nowhere to go, girl. You got nothing but a hard way to go."

  As he spoke he was easing past her, then backing toward the door.

  "I'll be watching," Charlie said grimly. "Don't you even turn around, you... you turd...

  Jules went out. He said something else, but Rainbird didn't catch it.

  "Just go!" Charlie cried.

  She stood in the double doorway, back to Rainbird, in a shower of drowsy afternoon sunlight, a small silhouette. Again his love for her came over him. This was the place of their appointment, then.

  "Charlie," he called down softly.

  She stiffened and took a single step backward. She didn't turn around, but he could feel the sudden recognition and fury flooding through her, although it was visi
ble only in the slow way that her shoulders came up.

  "Charlie," he called again. "Hey, Charlie."

  "You!" she whispered. He barely caught it. Somewhere below him, a horse nickered softly.

  "It's me," he agreed. "Charlie, it's been me all along."

  Now she did turn and swept the long side of the stable with her eyes. Rainbird saw her do this, but she didn't see him; he was behind a stack of bales, well out of sight in the shadowy second loft.

  "Where are you?" she rasped. "You tricked mel It was youl My daddy says it was you that time at Granther's!" Her hand had gone unconsciously to her throat, where he had laid in the dart. "Where are you?"

  Ah, Charlie, wouldn't you like to know?

  A horse whinnied; no quiet sound of contentment this, but one of sudden sharp fear. The cry was taken up by another horse. There was a heavy double thud as one of the thoroughbreds kicked at the latched door of his stall.

  "Where are you?" she screamed again, and Rainbird felt the temperature suddenly begin to rise. Directly below him, one of the horses--Necromancer, perhaps--whinnied loudly, and it sounded like a woman screaming.

  9

  The door buzzer made its curt, rasping cry, and Cap Hollister stepped into Andy's apartment below the north plantation house. He was not the man he had been a year before. That man had been elderly but tough and hale and shrewd; that man had possessed a face you might expect to see crouching over the edge of a duck blind in November and holding a shotgun with easy authority. This man walked in a kind of distracted shamble. His hair, a strong iron gray a year ago, was now nearly white and baby-fine. His mouth twitched infirmly. But the greatest change was in his eyes, which seemed puzzled and somehow childlike; this expression would occasionally be broken by a shooting sideways glance that was suspicious and fearful and almost cringing. His hands hung loosely by his sides and the fingers twitched aimlessly. The echo had become a ricochet that was now bouncing around his brain with crazy, whistling, deadly velocity.

  Andy McGee stood to meet him. He was dressed exactly as he had been on that day when he and Charlie had fled up Third Avenue in New York with the Shop sedan trailing behind them. The cord jacket was torn at the seam of the left shoulder now, and the brown twill pants were faded and seat-shiny.