Christine - Stephen King [135]
'It wasn't as bad as it probably looked to you,' Arnie said. 'Mind some music?'
'No, of course not.'
Arnie turned on the radio - The Silhouettes were kip-kipping and boom-booming through 'Get a Job.' Leigh made a face. 'DIL, yuck. Can I change it?'
'Be my guest.'
Leigh switched it to a Pittsburgh rock station and got Billy Joel. 'You may be right,' Billy admitted cheerfully, 'I may be crazy.' This was followed by Billy telling his girl Virginia that Catholic girls started much too late - it was the Block Party Weekend. Now, Arnie thought. Now she'll start to hitch back off something. But Christine only went rolling along.
The mall was thronged with hectic but mostly good-natured shoppers; the last frantic and sometimes ugly Christmas rush was better than two weeks off. The Yuletide spirit was still new enough to be novel, and it was possible to look at the tinsel strung through the wide mall hallways without feeling sour and Ebenezer Scroogey. The steady ringing of the Salvation Army Santas' bells had not yet become a guilty annoyance; they still chanted good tidings and good will rather than the monotonous, metallic chant of The poor have no Christmas the poor have no Christmas the poor have no Christmas that Arnie always seemed to hear as the day grew closer and both the shopgirls and the Salvation Army Santas grew more harried and hollow-eyed.
They held hands until the parcels grew too many for that, and then Arnie complained goodnaturedly about how she was turning him into her beast of burden. As they were going down to the lower level and B. Dalton, where Arnie wanted to look for a book on toy-making for Dennis Guilder's old man, Leigh noticed that it had begun to snow. They stood for a moment at the window of the glassed-in stairwell, looking out like children. Arnie took her hand and Leigh looked at him, smiling. He could smell her skin, clean and a bit soapy; he could smell the fragrance of her hair. He moved his head forward a bit; she moved hers a bit toward him. They kissed lightly and she squeezed his hand. Later, after the bookstore, they stood above the rink in the centre of the mall, watching the skaters as they dipped and pirouetted and swooped to the sound of Christmas carols.
It was a very good day right up until the moment that Leigh Cabot almost died.
She almost surely would have died, if not for the hitchhiker.
They had been on their way back then, and an early December twilight had long since turned to snowy dark. Christine, surefooted as usual, purred easily through the four inches of fresh light powder.
Arnie had made a reservation for an early dinner at the British Lion Steak House, Libertyville's only really good restaurant, but the time had gotten away from them and they had agreed on a quick to-go meal from the McDonald's on JFK Drive. Leigh had promised her mother she would be in by eight-thirty because the Cabots were having friends in" and it had been quarter of eight when they left the mall.
'Just as well,' Arnie said. 'I'm damn near broke anyway.'
The headlights picked out the hitchhiker standing at the intersection of Route 17 and JFK Drive, still five miles outside of Libertyville. His black hair was shoulder-length, speckled with snow, and there was a duffel-bag between his feet.
As they approached him, the hitchhiker held up a sign painted with Day-Glo letters It read: LIBERTYVILLE, PA. As they drew closer, he flipped it over. The other side read: NON-PSYCHO COLLEGE STUDENT.
Leigh burst out laughing. 'Let's give him a ride, Arnie.' Arnie said, 'When they go out of their way to advertise their non-psychotic status, that's when you got to look out. But okay.' He pulled over. That evening he would have tried to catch the moon in a bushel basket if Leigh had asked him to give it a shot.
Christine rolled smoothly to the verge of the road, tyres barely slipping. But as they stopped, static blared across the radio, which had been playing some hard rock tune, and when the static cleared, there was the Big Bopper, singing 'Chantilly Lace'.
'What happened to the Block