Gerald's Game - Stephen King [147]
I don't know what I would have done if the car battery had been dead — sat there until someone came along, I guess, even if it meant sitting there all day but it wasn't, and the motor started on the first crank. I backed away from the tree I'd hit and managed to get the car pointed down the lane again. I kept wanting to look in the rearview mirror, but I was afraid to do it. I was afraid I might see him. Not because he was there, you understand — I knew he wasn't — but because my mind might make me see him.
Finally, just as I got to Bay Lane, I did look up. I couldn't help it. There was nothing in the mirror but the back seat, of course, and that made the rest of the trip a little easier. I drove out to 117 and then up to Dakin's Country Store — it's one of those places where the locals hang out when they're too broke to go over to Rangeley or to one of the bars in Motton. They mostly sit at the lunch counter, eating doughnuts and swapping lies about what they did on Saturday night. I pulled in behind the gas pumps and just sat there for five minutes or so, watching the loggers and the caretakers and the power company guys go in and come back out. I couldn't believe they were real — isn't that a hoot? I kept thinking they were ghosts, that pretty soon my eyes would adjust to the daylight and I'd be able to see right through them. I was thirsty again, and every time someone came out with one of those little white Styrofoam cups of coffee, I'd get thirstier, but I still couldn't quite bring myself to get out of the car . . . to go among the ghosts, you might say.
I suppose I would have, eventually, but before I could muster enough courage to do more than pull up the master-lock, Jimmy Eggart pulled in and parked beside me. Jimmy's a retired CPA from Boston who lives at the lake year-round since his wife died back in 1987 or '88. He got out of his Bronco, looked at me, recognized me, and started to smile. Then his face changed, first to concern and then to horror. He came to the Mercedes and bent down to look through the window, and he was so surprised that all the wrinkles were pulled out of his face. I remember that very clearly: how surprise made Jimmy Eggart look young.
I saw his mouth forming the words 'Jessie, are you all right?' I wanted to open the door, but all at once I didn't quite dare. This crazy idea came into my head. That the thing I'd been calling the space cowboy had been in Jimmy's house, too, only Jimmy hadn't been as lucky as I had been. it had killed him, and cut off his face, and then put it on like a Halloween mask. I knew it was a crazy idea, but knowing that didn't help much, because I couldn't stop thinking it. I couldn't make myself open the fucking car door, either,
I don't know how bad I looked that morning and don't want to know, but it must have been bad, because pretty soon Jimmy Eggart didn't look surprised anymore. He looked scared enough to run and sick enough to puke. He didn't do either one, God bless him. What he did was open the car door and ask me what had happened, had it been an accident or had someone hurt me.
I only had to take one look down to get an idea what had put a buzz under him. At some point the wound in my wrist must have opened up again, because the sanitary pad I'd taped around it was entirely soaked. The front of my skirt was soaked, too, as if I'd had the world's worst period. I was sitting in blood, there was blood on the steering wheel, blood on the console, blood on the shift-lever . . . there were even splatters on the windshield. Most of it had dried to that awful maroon color blood gets — to me it looks like chocolate milk — but some of it was still red and wet. Until you see something like that, Ruth, you just don't have any idea how much blood there really is in a person. It's no wonder