Diment Show.
" You might say he opened a hole into the basement of the
universe," she was saying now. "Bobby Hastings, I mean. And this
is what drove out. Nice, isn't it?"
Kinnell's feet slid then, not enough to go out from under him
completely, but enough to snap him to.
He opened his eyes, winced at the immediate sting of the soap
(Prell had run down his face in thick white rivulets while he had
been dozing), and cupped his hands under the shower-spray to
splash it away. He did this once and was reaching out to do it again
when he heard something. A ragged rumbling sound.
Don't be stupid, he told himself. All you hear is the shower. The
rest is only imagination.
Except it wasn't.
Kinnell reached out and turned off the water.
The rumbling sound continued. Low and powerful. Coming from
outside.
He got out of the shower and walked, dripping, across his bedroom
on the second floor. There was still enough shampoo in his hair to
make him look as if it had turned white while he was dozing-as if
his dream of Judy Diment had turned it white.
My did I ever stop at that yard sale? he asked himself, but for this
he had no answer. He supposed no one ever did.
The rumbling sound grew louder as he approached the window
overlooking the driveway-the driveway that glimmered in the
summer moonlight like something out of an Alfred Noyes poem.
As he brushed aside the curtain and looked out, he found himself
thinking of his ex-wife, Sally, whom he had met at the World
Fantasy Convention in 1978. Sally, who now published two
magazines out of
her trailer home, one called Survivors, one called Visitors. Looking
down at the driveway, these two tides came together in Kinnell's
mind like a double image in a stereopticon.
He had a visitor who was definitely a survivor.
The Grand Am idled in front of the house, the white haze from its
twin chromed tailpipes rising in the still night air. The Old English
letters on the back deck were perfectly readable. The driver's side
door stood open, and that wasn't all; the light spilling down the
porch steps suggested that Kinnell's front door was also open.
Forgot to lock it, Kinnell thought, wiping soap off his forehead
with a hand he could no longer feel. Forgot to reset the burglar
alarm, too . not that it would have made much difference to this
guy.
Well, he might have caused it to detour around Aunt Trudy, and
that was something, but just now the thought brought him no
comfort.
Survivors.
The soft rumble of the big engine, probably at least a 442 with a
four-barrel carb, reground valves, fuel injection.
He turned slowly on legs that had lost all feeling, a naked man with
a headful of soap, and saw the picture over his bed, just as he'd
known he would. In it, the Grand Am stood in his driveway with
the driver's door open and two plumes of exhaust rising from the
chromed tailpipes. From this angle he could also see his own front
door, standing open, and a long man-shaped shadow stretching
down the hall.
Survivors.
Survivors and visitors.
Now he could hear feet ascending the stairs. It was a heavy tread,
and he knew without having to see that the blond kid was wearing
motorcycle boots. People with DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR
tattooed on their arms always wore motorcycle boots, just as they
always smoked unfiltered Camels. These things were like a
national law.
And the knife. He would be carrying a long, sharp knife - more of
a machete, actually, the sort of knife that could strike off a person's
head in a single sweeping stroke.
And he would be grinning, showing those filed cannibal-teeth.
Kinnell knew these things. He was an imaginative guy, after all.
He didn't need anyone to draw him a picture.
"No," he whispered, suddenly conscious of his global nakedness,
suddenly freezing all the way around his skin. "No, please, go
away." But the footfalls kept coming, of course they did. You
couldn't tell a guy like this to go away. It didn't work; it wasn't the
way the story was supposed to end.
Kinnell could hear him nearing the top of the stairs. Outside the
Grand Am went on rumbling in the moonlight.
The feet coming down the hall now, worn bootheels rapping on
polished hardwood.
A terrible paralysis had gripped Kinnell. He threw it off with an
effort and bolted toward the bedroom door, wanting to lock it
before the thing could get in here, but he slipped in a puddle of
soapy water and this time he did go down, flat on his back on the
oak planks, and what he saw as the door clicked open and the
motorcycle boots crossed the room toward where he lay, naked and
with his hair full of Prell, was the picture hanging on the wall over
his bed, the picture of the Road Virus idling in front of his house
with the driver's side door open.
The driver's side bucket seat, he saw, was full of blood. I'm going
outside, I think, Kinnell thought, and closed his eyes.
Will We Close the Book on Books?
BY STEPHEN KING
From: Visions of the 21st Century
Time Magazine, June 2000
Book lovers are the Luddites of the intellectual world. I can no
more imagine their giving up the printed page than I can imagine a
picture in the New York Post showing the Pope technoboogieing
the night away in a disco. My adventure in cyberspace ("Riding the
Bullet", available on any computer near you) has confirmed this
idea dramatically. My mail and the comments on my website
(www.stephenking.com) reflect two things: first, readers enjoyed
the story; second, most didn't like getting it on a screen, where it
appeared and then disappeared like Aladdin's genie.
Books have weight and texture; they make a pleasant presence in
the hand. Nothing smells as good as a new book, especially if you
get your nose right down in the binding, where you can still catch
an acrid tang of the glue. The only thing close is the peppery smell
of an old one. The odor of an old book is the odor of history, and
for me, the look of a new one is still the look of the future.
I suspect that the growth of the Internet has actually been
something of a boon when it comes to reading: people with more
Beanie Babies than books on their shelves spend more time
reading than they used to as they surf from site to site. But it's not a
book, dammit, that perfect object that speaks without speaking,
needs no batteries and never crashes unless you throw it in the
corner. So, yes, there'll be books. Speaking personally, you can
have my gun, but you'll take my book when you pry my cold, dead
fingers off the binding.
NOT FOR SALE
This PDF file was created for educational,
scholarly, and Internet archival use ONLY.
With utmost respect & courtesy to the
author, NO money or profit will ever be
made from this text or it's distribu
tion.
xxXsTmXxx
06/2000
The Collective Page 41
