by Stephen King
But Harold’s small house was dark, deserted . . . and locked.
That in itself was something of a freak in Boulder. In the old days you locked up when you went out so no one would steal your TV, stereo, your wife’s jewels. But now the stereos and TVs were free, much good they would do you with no juice to run them, and as for jewels, you could go to Denver and pick up a sackful any old time.
Why do you lock your door, Harold, when everything's free? Because nobody is as afraid of robbery as a thief? Could that be it?
She was no lockpicker. She had resigned herself to leaving when it occurred to her to try the cellar windows. They were set just above ground level, opaque with dirt. The first one she tried slid open sideways on its track, giving way grudgingly and sifting dirt down onto the basement floor.
Fran looked around, but the world was quiet. No one except Harold had settled in this far out on Arapahoe as yet. That was odd, too. Harold could grin until his face cracked and slap people on the back and pass the time of day with folks, he could and did gladly offer his help whenever it was asked for and sometimes when it wasn’t, he could and did make people like him—and it was a fact that he was highly regarded in Boulder. But where he had chosen to live . . . that was something else, now wasn’t it?
She wriggled in the window, getting her blouse dirty, and dropped to the floor. Now the cellar window was on a level with her eyes. She was no more a gymnast than she was a lockpicker, and she would have to stand on something to get back out.
Fran looked around. The basement had been finished off into a playroom/rumpus room. The kind of thing her own dad had always talked about but never quite got around to doing, she thought with little pang of sadness. The walls were knotty pine with quadraphonic speakers embedded in them, there was an Armstrong suspended ceiling overhead, a large case filled with jigsaw puzzles and books, an electric train set, a slotcar racing set. There was also an air-hockey game on which Harold had indifferently set a case of Coke. It had been the kids’ room, and posters dotted the walls—the biggest showed President Carter coming out of the Plains Baptist Church, hands raised high, a big grin on his face, revealing all 860 teeth. The caption, in huge red letters, said: YOU DON’T WANT TO LAY NO BOOGIE-WOOGIE ON THE KING OF ROCK AND ROLL!
She suddenly felt sadder than she had since . . . well, since she couldn’t remember, to tell the truth. She had been through shocks, and fear, and outright terror, and a perfect numbing savagery of grief, but this deep and aching sadness was something new. With it came a sudden wave of homesickness for Ogunquit, for the ocean, for the good Maine hills and pines. What was she doing here, poised between the plains and the mountains that broke the country in two? It wasn’t her place. She didn’t belong here.
One sob escaped her and it sounded so terrified and lonely that she clapped both hands over her mouth for the second time that day. No more, Frannie old kid old sock. You don’t get over anything this big so quickly. A little at a time. If you have to have a cry, have it later, not here in Harold Lauder's basement. Business first.
She walked past the poster on her way to the stairs, and a bitter little smile crossed her face as she passed Jimmy Carter’s grinning CinemaScope face. They sure laid some boogie-woogie on you, she thought. Someone did.
The door giving on the kitchen at the top of the cellar stairs was unlocked. The kitchen was neat and shipshape, the luncheon dishes done up and drying in the drainer, the little Coleman gas stove washed off and sparkling . . . but a greasy smell of frying still hung in the air, like a ghost of Harold’s old self. Nothing here. She went into the living room.
It was dark, so dark it made her uneasy. Harold not only kept his doors locked, he kept his shades pulled. That was more than strange; it was weird.
The living room, like the kitchen, was astringently neat, but the furniture was stodgy and a little seedy-looking. The room’s nicest feature was the fireplace, a huge stone job with a hearth wide enough to sit on. She did sit down for a moment, looking around thoughtfully. As she shifted, she felt a loose hearthstone under her fanny, and she was about to get up and look at it when someone knocked on the door.
Fear drifted down on her like a smothering weight of feathers. She was paralyzed with sudden terror. Her breath stopped, and she would not be aware until later that she had wet herself a little.
The knock came again, half a dozen quick, firm raps.
My God, she thought. The shades are down at least, thank Heaven for that.
That thought was followed by a sudden cold certainty that she had left her bike out where anyone could see it. Had she? She tried desperately to think, but for a long moment she could summon nothing to mind except a babble of gibberish that was unsettlingly familiar: Before removing the mote from thy neighbor's eye, remove the pie from thine own—
The knock came again, and a woman’s voice: “Anybody home?”
Fran sat stockstill. She suddenly remembered that she had parked her bike around back, under Harold’s clothesline. Not visible from the front of the house. But if Harold’s visitor decided to try the back door—
The knob of the front door—Frannie could see it down the short length of hall—began to turn back and forth in half-circles. Whoever she is, I hope she’s no better at locks than I am, Frannie thought, and then had to squeeze both hands over her mouth to stop an insane bray of laughter. That was when she looked down at her cotton slacks and saw how badly she had been frightened. At least she didn’t scare the shit out of me, Fran thought, and the laughter bubbled again, hysterical and frightened, just below the surface.
Then, with an indescribable sense of relief, she heard footfalls clicking away from the door and down Harold’s concrete path.
Fran ran quietly down the hall to the front door and put her eye to the small crack between the shade and the edge of the window. She saw a woman with long dark hair that was streaked with white. She climbed onto a small Vespa motorscooter that was parked at the curb. As the motor burped into life, she tossed her hair back and clipped it.
Its the Cross woman—the one who came over with Larry Underwood! Does she know Harold?
Nadine started off with a little jerk and was soon out of sight. Fran uttered a huge sigh, and her legs turned to water. She opened her mouth to let out the laugh that had been bubbling below the surface, knowing already how it would sound—shaky and relieved. Instead, she burst into tears.
Five minutes later, too nervous now to search any further, she was boosting herself back through the cellar window from the seat of a wicker chair she had pulled over. Once out, she was able to push the chair far enough so that it wouldn’t be obvious someone had used it to climb out. It was still out of position, but people rarely noticed things like that . . . and it didn’t even look as if Harold used the basement, except to store his Coca-Cola.
She reclosed the window and got her bike. She still felt weak and stunned from her scare. At least my pants are drying, she thought. Next time you go housebreaking, Frances Rebecca, remember to wear your continence pants.
She pedaled out of Harold’s yard and left Arapahoe as soon as she could, coming back into the downtown area on Canyon Boulevard. She was back in her own apartment fifteen minutes later.
The place was utterly silent.
She opened her diary and looked down at the muddy chocolate fingerprint and wondered where Stu was.
She wondered if Harold was with him.
Oh Stu please come home. I need you.
After lunch, Stu had left Glen and had come home. He had been sitting blankly in the living room, wondering where Mother Abagail was and also wondering if Nick and Glen could possibly be right about just letting it be, when there was a knock.
“Stu?” Ralph Brentner called. “Hello, Stu, you home?”
Harold Lauder was with him. Harold’s smile was muted today but not entirely gone; he looked like a jolly mourner trying to be serious for the graveside service.
Ralph, heartsick over Mother Abagail’s disappea
rance, had met Harold half an hour ago, Harold being on his way home after helping with a water-hauling party at Boulder Creek. Ralph liked Harold, who always seemed to have time to listen and commiserate with whoever had a sad tale to tell. . . and Harold never seemed to want anything in return. Ralph had poured out the whole story of Mother Abagail’s disappearance, including his fears that she might suffer a heart attack or break one of her brittle bones or die of exposure if she stayed out overnight.
“And you know it showers just about every damn afternoon,” Ralph finished as Stu poured coffee. “If she gets soaked, she’d be sure to take a cold. Then what? Pneumonia, I guess.”
“What can we do about it?” Stu asked them. “We can’t force her to come back if she doesn’t want to.”
“Well, no,” Ralph conceded. “But Harold had a real good idea.” Stu’s eyes shifted. “How you doing, Harold?”
“Pretty good. You?”
“Fine.”
“And Fran? You watching out for her?” Harold’s eyes didn’t waver from Stu’s, and they kept their slightly humorous, pleasant light, but Stu had a momentary feeling that Harold’s smiling eyes were like sunshine on the water of Breekman’s Quarry back home—the water looked so pleasant, but it went down and down to black depths where the sun had never reached, and four boys had lost their lives in pleasant-looking Breekman’s Quarry over the years.
“As best I can,” he said. “What’s your thought, Harold?”
“Well, look. I see Nick and Glen’s point They recognize that the
Free Zone sees her as a theocratic symbol . . . and they’re pretty close to speaking for the Zone now, aren’t they?”
Stu sipped his coffee. “What do you mean, theocratic symbol?”
“I’d call it an earthly symbol of a covenant made with God,” Harold said, and his eyes veiled a little. “Like Holy Communion, or the Sacred Cows of India.”
Stu kindled a little at that. “Yeah, pretty good. Those cows . . . they let em walk the streets and cause traffic jams, right? They can go in and out of the stores, or decide to leave town altogether.” “Yes,” Harold agreed. “But most of those cows are sick, Stu. They’re always near the point of starvation. Some are tubercular. And all because they’re an aggregate symbol. The people are convinced God will take care of them, just as our people are convinced God will take care of Mother Abagail. But I have my own doubts about a God that says it’s right to let a poor dumb cow wander around in pain.”
Ralph looked momentarily uncomfortable, and Stu knew what he was feeling. He felt it himself, and it gave him a measure of his feelings about Mother Abagail. He felt that Harold was edging into blasphemy.
“Anyway,” Harold said briskly, dismissing the Sacred Cows of India. “We can’t change the way people feel about her—”
“And wouldn’t want to,” Ralph added quickly.
“Right!” Harold exclaimed. “After all, she brought us together. But my idea was that we mount our trusty cycles and spend the afternoon reconnoitering the west side of Boulder. If we stay fairly close, we can keep in touch with each other by walkie-talkie.”
Stu was nodding. This was the sort of thing he had wanted to do all along. Sacred Cows or not, God or not, it just wasn’t right to leave her to wander around on her own.
“And if we find her,” Harold said, “we can ask her if she wants anything.”
“Like a ride back to town,” Ralph chipped in.
“At least we can keep tabs on her,” Harold said.
“Okay,” Stu said. “I think it’s a helluva good idea, Harold. Just let me leave a note for Fran.”
Harold had asked for and gotten the twisting stretch of road between Boulder and Nederland, because he considered it to be the least likely area. He didn’t think he could walk from Boulder to
Nederland in one day, let alone that crazy old cunt. But it made a pleasant ride and gave him a chance to think.
Now, at quarter to seven, he was on his way back. His Honda was parked in a rest area and he was sitting at a picnic table, having a Coke and a few Slim Jims. The walkie-talkie that hung over the Honda’s handlebars crackled faintly with Ralph Brentner’s voice.
“. . . Sunrise Amphitheater ... no sign of her . . . storm’s over up here.”
Then Stu’s voice, stronger and closer. He was in Chautauqua Park, only four miles from Harold’s location. “Say again, Ralph.”
Ralph’s voice came again, really bellowing. Maybe he would give himself a stroke. That would be a lovely way to end the day. “No sign of her up here! I’m coming down before it gets dark! Over!” “Ten-four,” Stu said, sounding discouraged. “Harold, you there?” Harold got up, wiping Slim Jim grease on his jeans. “Harold? Calling Harold Lauder! You copy, Harold?”
Harold pointed his middle finger—yer fuckfinger, as the high school Neanderthals back in Ogunquit had called it—at the walkie-talkie; then he depressed the talk button and said pleasantly, but with just the right note of discouragement: “I’m here. I was off to one side . . . thought I saw something down in the ditch. It was just an old jacket. Over.”
“Yeah, okay. Why don’t you come down to Chautauqua, Harold? We’ll wait there for Ralph.”
Love to give orders, don’t you, suckhole? I might have something for you. Yes, I just might.
“Harold, you copy?”
“Sorry, I was woolgathering. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”
“You copying this, Ralph?” Stu bellowed, making Harold wince. He gave Stu’s voice the finger again, grinning furtively as he did so.
“I’m on my way,” Ralph’s voice came faintly through the roar of static. “Over and out.”
Harold turned off the walkie-talkie, collapsed the antenna, and hung the radio on the handlebars again, but he sat astride the Honda for a moment without operating the kick-starter. He was wearing an army surplus flak jacket; the heavy padding was good when you were riding a cycle above six thousand feet, even in August. But the jacket served another purpose. It had a great many zippered pockets and in one of these was a Smith & Wesson .38. Harold took the pistol out and turned it over and over in his hands.
Tonight? Why not?
He had initiated this expedition on the chance that he might be alone with Stu long enough to do it. Now it looked as though he was going to have that chance in Chautauqua Park.
He hadn’t meant to go all the way to Nederland, a miserable little town nestled high above Boulder, a town whose only claim to fame was that Patty Hearst had once allegedly stayed there as a fugitive. But as he drove up and up, the Honda purring smoothly between his legs, the air as cold as a blunt razorblade against his face, something had happened—there had been a frightening yet exhilarating sense of magnetic attraction.
And parked on his cycle at the end of Nederland’s cheesy main street with the Honda’s neutral light glowing like a cat’s eye, listening to the winterwhine of the wind in the pines and the aspens, he had felt something more than mere magnetic attraction. He had felt a stupendous, irrational power coming out of the west, an attraction so great that he felt to closely contemplate it now would be to go mad. He felt that, if he ventured much further out on the arm of balance, any selfwill would be lost. He would go just as he was, emptyhanded.
And for that, although he could not be blamed, the dark man would kill him.
So he had turned away feeling the cold relief of a pre-suicidal man coming away from a long period of regarding a long drop. But he could go tonight, if he liked. Yes. He could kill Redman with a single bullet fired at pointblank range. Then just stay put, stay cool, until the Oklahoma sodbuster showed up. Another shot to the temple. No one would take alarm at the gunshots; game was plentiful, and lots of people had taken to banging away at the deer who wandered down into town.
It was ten to seven now. He could waste them both by seven-thirty. Fran would not raise an alarm until ten-thirty or later, and by then he could be well away, working his way west on his Honda, with his ledger in his knapsack. B
ut it wouldn’t happen if he just sat here on his bike, letting time pass.
The Honda started on the second kick. It was a good bike. Harold smiled. Harold grinned. Harold positively radiated good cheer. He drove off toward Chautauqua Park.
Dusk was starting to close down when Stu heard Harold’s bike coming into the park. A moment later he saw the Honda’s headlamp flashing in and out between the trees that lined the climbing sweep of the drive. Then he could see Harold’s helmeted head turning right and left, looking for him.
Stu, who was sitting on the edge of a rock barbecue pit, waved and shouted. After a minute Harold saw him, waved back, and began to putt over in second gear.
After the afternoon the three of them had put in, Stu felt considerably better about Harold. Harold’s idea had been a damn good one even if it hadn’t panned out. And Harold had insisted on taking the Nederland road . . . must have been pretty cold in spite of his heavy jacket. As he pulled up, Stu saw that Harold’s perpetual grin looked more like a grimace; his face was strained and too white. Disappointed that things hadn’t worked out better, Stu guessed.
“Nothing at all, huh?” He asked Harold, jumping down nimbly from the top of the barbecue pit.
"Da nada ** Harold said. The grin reappeared, but it was automatic, without strength, like a rictus. His face still looked strange and deadly pale. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.
“Never mind. It was a good idea. For all we know, she’s back in her house right now. If not, we can look again tomorrow.”
“That might be like looking for a body.”
Stu sighed. “Maybe . . . yeah, maybe. Why don’t you come back to supper with me, Harold?”
“What?” Harold seemed to flinch back in the gathering gloom under the trees. His grin looked more strained than ever.
“Supper,” Stu said patiently. “Look, Frannie’d be glad to see you, too.”
