Sleeping Beauties: A Novel

by Stephen King

  Barry took them. “I’ll find it. Miss Morgan, maybe you’d like to go back to the RV and wait there.”

  “No, thanks. I want to help. It will be quicker that way.”

  At the back of the main room was an unmarked metal door painted a particularly unappetizing shade of green. There were two locks. Barry found the key that fitted the top one easily enough. The second, however, was taking more time. Michaela thought Lila might have kept that key for herself. It might be in her pocket, buried under one of those white cocoons.

  “Do you see anyone coming?” she called to Garth.

  “Not yet, but hurry up. This is making me need to pee.”

  There were only three keys left on the ring when Barry found the one that turned the second lock. He opened the door, and Michaela saw a small closet-sized room with rifles stowed in racks and pistols nestled in Styrofoam-lined cubbies. There were shelves stacked with boxes of ammunition. On one wall was a poster showing a Texas Ranger in a ten-gallon hat, pointing a revolver with a huge black barrel. I FOUGHT THE LAW AND THE LAW WON, read the line beneath.

  “Get as much of the ammo as you can,” Barry said. “I’ll get the M4s and some of the Glocks.”

  Michaela started for the ammo shelves, then changed her mind and went back into the dispatch area. She grabbed Linny’s wastebasket and turned it over, dumping out a heap of crumpled paper and takeout coffee cups. Linny took no notice. Michaela loaded as many boxes of ammunition as she thought she could carry into the wastebasket and left the secure room with the basket clasped in her arms. Garth brushed past her to get his own armload of weaponry. Barry had left one of the triple entry doors open. Michaela staggered down the wide stone steps through the thickening rain in time to see Barry reach the Fleetwood. The bearded man got up from his bench, still holding his umbrella over his head. He said something to Barry, who replied. Then the bearded man, Willy, opened the RV’s rear door so Barry could put in his armload of guns.

  Michaela joined him, panting. Barry took the wastebasket from her and dumped the boxes of ammo on top of the jackstraw pile of guns. They went back together while Willy stood beneath his umbrella, watching. Garth came out with a second load of armament, his pants sagging under the weight of the ammo boxes he had shoved into all his pockets.

  “What did the old guy say to you?” Michaela asked.

  “He wanted to know if we were doing something Sheriff Norcross would approve of,” Barry replied. “I said we were.”

  They went back inside and hurried to the secure room. They had taken about half the weaponry. Michaela spotted something that looked like a submachine gun afflicted with the mumps. “We should definitely take that. I think it’s the teargas-launcher thingy. I don’t know if we need it, but I don’t want anyone else to have it.”

  Garth rejoined them. “I come bearing bad news, Counselor Holden. Truck with a jackpot light on the dash just pulled up behind your RV.”

  They hurried to the doors and peered out through the smoked glass. Two men were getting out of the truck, and Michaela recognized them both: the clown and his autograph hound partner.

  “Oh, Christ,” Barry said, “that’s Don Peters, from the prison. What’s he doing pretending to be a cop? The man has the brains of an insect.”

  “That particular insect was most recently seen manning a roadblock near the prison,” Garth said. “Same bug, same truck.”

  The bearded man approached the newcomers, said something, and pointed further up Main Street. Peters and his young partner ran to their truck and jumped in. The lightbars came on and they pulled out with the siren screaming.

  “What’s going on?” Linny asked in a distracted voice. “Just what in the doodly-fuck is going on?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Garth said, and gave her a smile. “Not to worry.” Then, to Barry and Michaela: “May I suggest we quit while we’re ahead?”

  “What’s going on?” Linny wailed. “Oh, this is all just a bad dream!”

  “Hang in there, miss,” Garth said. “It might get better.”

  The three of them left, running once they got to the concrete path. Michaela had the grenade launcher in one hand and a bag of teargas shells in the other. She felt like Bonnie Parker. Willy was standing beside the Fleetwood.

  “How did you get those guys out of here?” Barry asked.

  “Told em someone was shooting up the hardware store. They won’t be long, so I think you folks better roll.” Willy snapped his umbrella closed. “And I think I better roll with you. Those two ain’t going to be happy campers when they come back.”

  “Why would you help us like this?” Garth asked.

  “Well, it’s strange days now, and a man has got to trust his instincts. Mine have always been pretty good. Barry here’s always been a friend to Lila, even though he bats for the other team in court, and I recognize this girl here from the TV news.” He peered at Garth. “You I don’t like the looks of so much, but you’re with them, so what the hell. Besides, the die is cast, as they say. Where we going?”

  “First to pick up Lila’s son,” Barry said, “then up to the prison. How would you like to take part in a siege, Willy? Because that may be what’s shaping up.”

  Willy smiled, showing tobacco-stained teeth. “Well, I had a coonskin cap when I was a kid, and I always like movies about the Alamo, so why not? Help me up the steps of this rig, would you? The goddam rain plays hell with my rheumatism.”

  6

  Jared, waiting at the door of the demo house, was getting ready to call his father again when a huge RV pulled up in front. Jared recognized the driver; like his mother’s deputies and many other town officials, Barry Holden had been a dinner guest at the Norcross house on occasion. Jared met him on the stoop.

  “Come on,” Barry said. “We have to go.”

  Jared hesitated. “My mom and four others are in the attic. It was really hot up there before the rain started, and it will be hot again tomorrow. You should help me get them down.”

  “It will cool off fast tonight, Jared, and we have no time.”

  Barry didn’t know if the cocooned women could feel heat or cold, but he did know that their window of opportunity was rapidly closing. He also thought that Lila and the others might be better off stashed away here on this quiet street. He had insisted on bringing his own wife and daughters along, because of the RV. It was well known in Dooling, and he was afraid of reprisals.

  “Can we at least tell someone—”

  “That’s a decision your father can make. Please, Jared.”

  Jared allowed himself to be led down the walk to the idling Fleetwood. The back door opened, and his old Pop Warner coach leaned out. Jared smiled in spite of himself. “Coach Burke!”

  “Well, lookit this!” Willy exclaimed. “The only peewee quarterback I ever had who didn’t drop every other snap. Climb in here, son.”

  But the first thing Jared saw was the array of guns and ammo on the floor. “Holy shit, what are these for?”

  A woman sat on the plaid couch just inside the door. She was young, extremely pretty, and vaguely familiar, but the most remarkable thing about her was how awake she looked. She said, “Hopefully just insurance.”

  A man standing in the passage in front of her laughed. “I wouldn’t bet on that, Mickey.” He held out his hand. “Garth Flickinger.”

  Behind Garth Flickinger, on a matching couch, were arranged five cocooned bodies, each smaller than the previous, like a set of separated nesting dolls.

  “That’s Mr. Holden’s wife and daughters, I’m told,” Coach Burke said.

  The RV started rolling. Jared staggered. Willy Burke steadied him, and as Jared shook with Mr. Flickinger, he thought that maybe all of this was a dream. Even the guy’s name seemed like something out of a dream—who, in the real world, was named Garth Flickinger?

  “Pleased to meet you,” he said. In his peripheral vision the Holden women rolled against one another as the RV went around a corner. Jared told himself not to see them,
but there was no not seeing them, reduced to mummified dolls. “I’m—ah—Jared Norcross.” And dream or no dream, he had a certain resentment—there had been time for Mr. Holden to get his family, hadn’t there? And why was that? Because it was his RV?

  Jared’s phone rang as Barry hooked them around the Tremaine Street cul-de-sac. They were leaving his mother, Molly, Mary, the baby, and Mrs. Ransom behind. It felt wrong. Everything felt wrong, though, so what else was new?

  The caller was his father. They spoke briefly and then Clint asked to speak to Michaela. When she took the phone, Clint said, “Here’s what you need to do.”

  She listened.

  7

  Deputy Sheriff Reed Barrows had parked Unit Three directly across the byroad leading to the prison. This was high ground; he and Vern had a clear view down at least six miles of Route 31. Reed had expected a ration of shit from Peters about being relieved so soon after they had taken up their post, but Peters had been surprisingly agreeable. Probably eager to get an early start on the day’s drinking. Maybe the kid was, too. Reed doubted if they were checking IDs at the Squeaky Wheel this week, and currently the cops had better things to do than enforce alcohol laws.

  Peters reported they had stopped just a single car, some reporter who’d gone up to the prison hoping to get an interview, and been turned away. Reed and Vern had stopped no one at all. Even traffic on the main road was so sparse it was nearly nonexistent. The town was in mourning for its women, Reed thought. Hell, the world was in mourning.

  Reed turned to his partner, who was reading something on his Kindle and picking his nose. “You’re not wiping boogers under the seat, are you?”

  “Jesus, no. Don’t be disgusting.” Vern raised his rump, pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket, wiped a little green treasure into it, and replaced it. “Tell me something—what exactly are we doing here? Do they really think Norcross is stupid enough to take that woman out into the world when he’s got her behind bars right now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If a food truck or something comes along, what are we supposed to do?”

  “Stop it and radio for instructions.”

  “Radio who? Terry or Frank?”

  About this Reed was less sure. “Guess I’d try Terry’s cell first thing. Leave a message just to cover our asses if he doesn’t pick up. Why don’t we worry about that if it happens.”

  “Which it probably won’t, the mess everything’s in.”

  “Yeah. Infrastructure’s shot to hell.”

  “What’s infrastructure?”

  “Look it up on your Kindle, why don’t you?”

  Vern did so. “ ‘The basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of a society or an enterprise.’ Huh.”

  “Huh? What does huh mean?”

  “That you’re right. It’s shot to hell. I went to the Shopwell this morning, before I came on. Place looks like a bomb hit it.”

  Down the hill, in the gray afternoon light, they could see an approaching vehicle.

  “Reed?”

  “What?”

  “With no women, there’s going to be no babies.”

  “You’ve got a scientific mind, all right,” Reed said.

  “If this doesn’t end, where will the human race be in another sixty or a hundred years?”

  This was something Reed Barrows did not want to think about, especially with his wife in a cocoon and his toddler being babysat (probably inadequately) by ancient Mr. Freeman next door. Nor did he have to. The vehicle was now close enough to see it was a humungous zebra-striped camper, and slowing down as if it meant to turn onto the prison road. Not that it could, with Three parked across it.

  “That RV belongs to Holden,” said Vern. “The lawyer. My brother services it over in Maylock.”

  The Fleetwood came to a stop. The driver’s door opened, and Barry Holden got out. At the same time, the officers got out of Three.

  Holden greeted them with a smile. “Gentlemen, I come bearing good tidings of great joy.”

  Neither Reed nor Vern returned the smile.

  “No one goes up to the prison, Mr. Holden,” Reed said. “Sheriff’s orders.”

  “Now, I don’t think that’s strictly true,” Barry said, still smiling. “I believe a gentleman named Frank Geary gave that order, and he’s what you might call self-appointed. Isn’t that so?”

  Reed wasn’t sure how to respond to this, so he kept silent.

  “In any case,” Barry said, “I got a call from Clint Norcross. He’s decided that turning the woman over to local law enforcement is the right thing to do.”

  “Well, thank God for that!” Vern exclaimed. “The man sees reason!”

  “He wants me at the prison to facilitate the deal and make it clear for the public record as to why he went outside of protocol. Just a formality, really.”

  Reed was about to say, You couldn’t find a smaller vehicle to come up here in? Car wouldn’t start, maybe?, but that was when Three’s dash radio blared. It was Terry Coombs, and he sounded upset. “Unit Three, Unit Three respond! Right now! Right now!”

  8

  Just as Reed and Vern were first noticing the approach of Barry Holden’s RV, Terry Coombs entered the Olympia Diner and walked to the booth where Frank and Deputy Pete Ordway were sitting. Frank was less than happy to see Coombs up and about, but concealed his displeasure as best he could. “Yo, Terry.”

  Terry nodded to both men. He had shaved and changed his shirt. He looked rocky but sober. “Jack Albertson told me you guys were here.” Albertson was one of the retired deputies who had been pressed back into service two days before. “I got some pretty bad news from Bridger County fifteen minutes ago.” There was no smell of booze about Terry. Frank hoped to change that. He didn’t like encouraging a man who was probably an incipient alcoholic, but Coombs was easier to work with when he’d had a few.

  “What’s going on in Bridger?” Pete asked.

  “Wreck on the highway. Judge Silver went into Dorr’s Hollow Stream. He’s dead.”

  “What?” Frank’s shout was loud enough to bring Gus Vereen out of the kitchen.

  “It’s a damn shame,” Terry said. “He was a fine man.” He pulled up a chair. “Any idea what he was doing over there?”

  “Went to speak to an ex-FBI guy he knew in Coughlin about helping to talk sense into Norcross,” Frank said. It had to have been a heart attack. The judge had looked horrible, washed out and shaky. “If he’s dead . . . I guess that’s out.” With an effort, he composed himself. He’d liked Judge Silver and had been willing to go along with him—up to a certain point. That point was erased now.

  “And that woman is still at the prison.” Frank leaned forward. “Awake. Norcross was lying about her being in a cocoon. Hicks told me.”

  “Hicks’s got a poor reputation,” Terry said.

  Frank wasn’t hearing it. “And there’s other strange things about her. She’s the key.”

  “If the bitch started it, she’ll know how to stop it,” Pete said.

  Terry’s mouth twitched. “There’s no proof of that, Pete. And since Aurora started halfway around the world, it seems kind of farfetched. I think we all need to take a deep breath and just—”

  Frank’s walkie came to life. It was Don Peters. “Frank! Frank, come in! I need to talk to you! You better answer this thing, because they fucking—”

  Frank raised the walkie to his lips. “This is Frank. Come back. And watch the profanity, you’re going out over the ai—”

  “They fucking robbed the guns!” Don yelled. “Some decrepit old piece of shit sent us on a wild-goose chase and then they robbed the fucking guns right out of the fucking sheriff’s station!”

  Before Frank could reply, Terry snatched the walkie-talkie out of his hand. “Coombs here. Who did?”

  “Barry Holden, in a big motherhumper of an RV! Your dispatcher said there were others with them, but she’s three-quarters out of it and don’t know who!”
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br />   “All the guns?” Terry asked, astounded. “They took all the guns?”

  “No, no, not all, I guess they didn’t have time, but plenty of them! Jesus Christ, that RV was huge!”

  Terry stared at the walkie in his hand, frozen. Frank told himself he ought to keep his mouth shut and let Terry work through the computation on his own—and he just couldn’t do it. It seemed he never could, once he was angry. “Do you still think we just need to take a deep breath and wait Norcross out? Because you know where they’re going with those weapons, don’t you?”

  Terry looked up at him, his lips pressed so tightly together his mouth was almost gone. “I think you might have forgotten who’s in charge here, Frank.”

  “Sorry, Sheriff.” Under the table, his hands were so tightly clenched they were shaking, the nails digging crescents into his palms.

  Terry was still staring at him. “Tell me you put someone out there on the road to the prison.”

  It would be your own damn fault if I didn’t, drunk as you were. Ah, but who had been plying him with the booze?

  “I did. Rangle and Barrows.”

  “Good. That’s good. Which unit are they in?”

  Frank didn’t know, but Pete Ordway did. “Three.”

  Don was blabbering on, but Terry cut him off and pressed SEND. “Unit Three, Unit Three respond! Right now! Right now!”

  CHAPTER 8

  1

  At the squawk of the radio, Reed Barrows told Barry to stay put.

  “No problem,” Barry said. He gave the side of the Fleetwood three knocks, a message to Willy Burke—crouched behind the curtain that separated the front of the RV from the back—that it was on to Plan B. Plan B was pretty simple: beat it while Barry provided as much of a distraction as possible. It was paramount that the guns got to the prison, and that his girls were safe from harm. Barry didn’t have to think twice about it. They’d arrest him, of course, but he knew a terrific lawyer.

  He placed a hand on Vern Rangle’s shoulder, gently easing him past the front of the RV.