Desperation   ::   Кинг Стивен

He glanced up into the rearview at Kirsten, who had stopped playing with Melissa Sweetheart and was now holding the doll against her chest. Kirstie knew something was going on, just not what.

“Kirsten, sit down!” he called. “Belt in!”

Except by then it was over. He wrestled the Wayfarer off the road, killed the engine, and wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. All in all he didn’t think he’d done badly. Hadn’t even toppled the vase of desert flowers standing on the table in back.

Ellie and Kirstie had picked them behind the motel in Ely this morning, while he and David were first loading up and then checking out.

“Good driving, Dad,” David said in a matter-of-fact voice.

Ellie was sitting up now, looking around blearily. “Bathroom break.” she asked.

“Why’re we tilted this way, Ralph.”

“We had a—”

He broke off, looking into the outside mirror. A police—car was rushing toward theni from behind, blue lights flashing. It came to a screaming stop about a hundred yards back, and the biggest cop Ralph had ever seen in his life almost hounded out. Ralph saw that the cop had his gun drawn, and felt adrenaline light up his nerves.

The cop stared right and left, his gun held up to shoul—der height with the muzzle pointing at the cloudless morn-ing sky. Then he actually turned in a circle. When he was facing the RV again, he looked directly into the outside rearview, seeming to meet Ralph’s eyes. The cop raised both hands over his head, brought them down violently, then raised and brought them down again. The pantomime was impossible to misinterpret—Stay inside, stay where you are.

“Ellie, lock the back doors.” Ralph banged down the button beside him as he spoke.

David, who was watching him, did the same thing on his side of the car without having to be asked.

“What.” She looked at him uncertainly. “What’s going on.”

“I don’t know, but there’s a cop back there and he looks excited.” Back where I had the flat, he thought, then amended that. The flats.

The cop bent and picked something up off the surface of the road. It was a meshy strip with little twinkles of light bouncing off it the way light bounces off the sequins on a woman’s evening dress. He carried it back to his car, dragging one end along the shoulder, his gun still in his other hand, still held up at a kind of port arms. He seemed to be trying to look in all directions at once.

Ellie locked the aft door and the main cabin door, then came forward again. “What in the samhill is going on.