Cycle of the Werewolf   ::   Кинг Стивен

Only his Uncle Al, who blew into town late this morning to have the traditional salmon and fresh peaswith the family, had understood. He had listened closely, standing on the verandah tiles in his dripping bathing suit (the others were swimming and laughing in the Coslaws' new pool on the other side of the house) after lunch.

Marty finished and looked at Uncle Al anxiously.

“Do you see what I mean? Do you get it? It hasn't got anything to do with being crippled, like Katie says, or getting the fireworks all mixed up with America, like Granpa thinks. It's just not right, when you look forward to something for so long… it's not right for Victor Bowle and some dumb town council to come along and take it away. Not when it's something you really need. Do you get it?”

There was a long, agonizing pause while Uncle Al considered Marty's question. Time enough for Marty to hear the kick-rattle of the diving board at the deep end of the pool, followed by Dad's hearty bellow: “Lookin' good, Kate! Hey, hey! Lookin' reeeeeel… good!”

Then Uncle Al said quietly: “Sure I get it. And I got something for you, I think. Maybe you can make your own Fourth.”

“My own Fourth? What do you mean?”

“Come on out to my car, Marty. I've got something… well, I'll show you.” And he was striding away along the concrete path that circled the house before Marty could ask him what he meant.

His wheelchair hummed along the path to the driveway, away from the sounds of the pool-splashes, laughing screams, the kathummmm of the diving board. Away from his father's booming Big Pal voice. The sound of his wheelchair was a low, steady hum that Marty barely heard-all his life that sound, and the clank of his braces, had been the music of his movement.

Uncle Al's car was a low-slung Mercedes convertible. Marty knew his parents disapproved of it (“Twenty-eight-thousand-dollar deathtrap,” his mother had once called it with a brusque little sniff), but Marty loved it. Once Uncle Al had taken him for a ride on some of the back roads that crisscrossed Tarker's Mills, and he had driven fast-seventy, maybe eighty. He wouldn't tell Marty how fast they were going. “If you don't know, you won't be scared,” he had said. But Marty hadn't been scared. His belly had been sore the next day from laughing.

Uncle Al took something out of the glove-compartment of his car, and as Marty rolled up and stopped, he put a bulky cellophane package on the boy's withered thighs. “Here you go, kid,” he said. “Happy Fourth of July.”

The first thing Marty saw were exotic Chinese markings on the package's label.