Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [88]
Conversation lapsed. They both looked east. A new and even more ominous sound now underlay the crunching, chewing noise: a high, inanimate screaming. It was a strangely mechanical sound, one that made Bob think of an automatic transmission low on fluid.
'It's a lot closer now, isn't it?'
Bob nodded reluctantly. He drew on his cigarette and the glowing ember momentarily illuminated a pair of tired, terrified eyes.
'What do you suppose it is, Mr Jenkins?'
He shook his head slowly. 'Dear girl, I hope we never have to find out.'
15
Halfway down the escalator, Nick saw a bent-over figure standing in front of the useless bank of pay telephones. It was impossible to tell if it was Albert or Craig Toomy. The Englishman reached into his right front pocket, holding his left hand against it to prevent any jingling, and by touch selected a pair of quarters from his change. He closed his right hand into a fist and slipped the quarters between his fingers, creating a makeshift set of brass knuckles. Then he continued down to the lobby.
The figure by the telephones looked up as Nick appeared. It was Albert. 'Don't step in the puke,' he said dully.
Nick dropped the quarters back into his pocket and hurried to where the boy was standing with his hands propped above his knees like an old man who has badly overestimated his capacity for exercise. He could smell the high, sour stench of vomit. That and the sweaty stink of fear coming off the boy were smells with which he was all too familiar. He knew them from the Falklands, and even more intimately from Northern Ireland. He put his left arm around the boy's shoulders and Albert straightened very slowly.
'Where are they, Ace?' Nick asked quietly. 'Gaffney and Toomy - where are they?'
'Mr Toomy's there.' He pointed toward a crumpled shape on the floor. 'Mr Gaffney's in the Airport Services office. I think they're both dead. Mr Toomy was in the Airport Services office. Behind the door, I guess. He killed Mr Gaffney because Mr Gaffney walked in first. If I'd walked in first, he would have killed me instead.'
Albert swallowed hard.
'Then I killed Mr Toomy. I had to. He came after me, see? He found another knife someplace and he came after me.' He spoke in a tone which could have been mistaken for indifference, but Nick knew better. And it was not indifference he saw on the white blur of Albert's face.
'Can you get hold of yourself, Ace?' Nick asked.
'I don't know. I never k-k-killed anyone before, and -' Albert uttered a strangled, miserable sob.
'I know,' Nick said. 'It's a horrible thing, but it can be gotten over. I know. And you must get over it, Ace. We have miles to go before we sleep, and there's no time for therapy. The sound is louder.'
He left Albert and went over to the crumpled form on the floor. Craig Toomy was lying on his side with one upraised arm partially obscuring his face. Nick rolled him onto his back, looked, whistled softly. Toomy was still alive - he could hear the harsh rasp of his breath - but Nick would have bet his bank account that the man was not shamming this time. His nose hadn't just been broken; it looked vaporized. His mouth was a bloody socket ringed with the shattered remains of his teeth. And the deep, troubled dent in the center of Toomy's forehead suggested that Albert had done some creative retooling of the man's skull-plate.
'He did all this with a toaster?' Nick muttered. 'Jesus and Mary, Tom, Dick and Harry.' He got up and raised his voice. 'He's not dead, Ace.'
Albert had bent over again when Nick left him. Now he straightened slowly and took a step toward him. 'He's not?'
'Listen for yourself. Out for the count, but still in the game.' Not for long, though; not by the sound of him. 'Let's check on Mr Gaffney - maybe he got off lucky, too. And what about the stretcher?'
'Huh?' Albert looked at Nick as though he had spoken in a foreign language.
'The stretcher,' Nick repeated patiently as they walked toward the open Airport Services door.
'We found it,' Albert said.
'Did