Desperation   ::   Кинг Стивен

Just room enough, Johnny thought.

He became aware that a stillness had fallen here in the well, and in the an tak above; there was only that faint whispering, which could have been the calling of ghosts that had been penned up in here ever since the twenty-first of September, 1859.

If so, he intended to give them their parole.

He fumbled in the pocket of his chaps for what seemed an age, fighting the fog that wanted to blur his thoughts, fighting his own growing weakness. At last his fingers touched something, slipped away, came back, touched it again, grasped it, brought it out.

Afat green shotgun shell.

Johnny slipped it into the eyehole at the bottom of the mi, and wasn’t surprised to find it was a perfect fit, its blunt circular top seated firmly against the ANFO pellets.

“You’re primed, you bastard,” he croaked.

No, a voice whispered in his head. No, you dare not.

Johnny looked at the brass circlet plugging the hole at the bottom of the mi. He gripped the handle of the hammer, his strength flagging badly now, and thought of what the cop had told him just before he stuck him in the back of the cruiser. You ’re a sorry excuse for a writer, the cop had said. You’re a sorry excuse for a man, too.

Johnny shoved the helmet off with the heel of his free left hand. He was laughing again as he raised the hammer high above his head, and laughing as he brought it down squarely on the base of the shell.

“GOD FORGIVE ME, I HATE CRITICS!”

He had one fraction of a moment to wonder if he had succeeded, and then the question was answered in a bloom of brilliant, soundless red. It was like swooning into a rose.

Johnny Marinville let himself fall, and his last thoughts were of David-had David gotten out, had David gotten clear, was he all right now, would he be all right later.

Excused early, Johnny thought, and then that was gone, too.

PART V

HIGHWAY 50: EXCUSED EARLY There were dead animals lying in a rough ring around the truck-buzzards and coyotes, mostly-but Steve barely noticed them. He was all but eaten alive with a need to get out of here. The steep sides of the China Pit seemed to loom over him like the sides of an open grave. He reached the truck a little ahead of the others (Cynthia and Mary were flanking David, each of them holding one of the boy’s arms, although be did not seem to be stag-gering) and tore open the passenger door.

“Steve, what-” Cynthia began.

“Get in! Ask questions later!” He butt-boosted her up into the seat.