Desperation   ::   Кинг Стивен

He didn’t realize it was the gun, not the cop’s oversized sausage of a finger, until Mary shrieked: “No! Oh, no!’ “Don’t—” Peter began.

“I don’t care if you’re a Jew or a Hindu,” the cop said, hugging Peter against him. He squeezed Peter’s shoulder chummily with his left hand as he cocked the.45 with his right. “In Desperation we don’t care about those things much.”

He pulled the trigger at least three times. There might have been more, but three reports were all Peter Jackson heard. They were muffled by his stomach, but still very loud. An incredible heat shot up through his chest and down through his legs at the same time, and he heard something wet drop on his shoes. He heard Mary, still screaming, but the sound seemed to come from far, far away.

Now I’ll wake up in my bed, Peter thought as his knees buckled and the world began to draw away, as bright as afternoon sunlight on the chrome side of a receding rail-road car.

Now I’ll—That was all. His last thought as the darkness swal-lowed him forever really wasn’t a thought at all, but an image: the bear on the dashboard next to the cop’s compass. Head jiggling. Painted eyes staring. The eyes turned into holes, the dark rushed out of them, and then he was gone.

Ralph Carver was somewhere deep in the black and didn’t want to come up. He sensed physical pain waiting—a hangover, perhaps, and a really spectacular one if he could feel his head aching even in his sleep—but not just that. Something else. Something to do with (Kirsten) this morning. Something to do with (Kirsten) their vacation. He had gotten drunk, he supposed pulled a real horror show, Ellie was undoubtedly pissed at him, but even that didn’t seem enough to account for how horrible he felt…

Screaming. Someone was screaming. But distant.

Ralph tried to burrow even deeper into the black, but now hands seized his shoulder and began shaking him Every shake sent a monstrous bolt of pain through his poor hungover head.

“Ralph! Ralph, wake up! You have to wake up!”

Ellie shaking him. Was he late for work. How could he be late for work. They were on vacation.

Then, shockingly loud, penetrating the blackness like the beam of a powerful light, gunshots. Three of them then a pause, then a fourth.

His eyes flew open and he bolted into a sitting position no idea for a moment where he was or what was hap-pening, only knowing that his head hurt horribly and felt the size of a float in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Something sticky that fell like jam or maple syrup all down the side of his face.