The Dark Half - Stephen King [162]
'Thad, he says he killed the two that were watching the house. I don't know how he did it, but he says he did . . . and I . . . I believe him.'
Thad believed him, too. That was the hell of it. And that was the reason he couldn't just stop and ask for help. If he tried anything funny, Stark would know. He didn't think Stark could read his thoughts, at least not the way aliens read thoughts in comic books and science fiction movies, but he could 'tune in' on Thad . . . could get a very good idea of what he was up to. He might be able to prepare a little surprise for George — if he was able to clarify his idea about the goddam birds, that was — but for now he intended to play it by the script.
If he could, that was.
Here was the school intersection and the four—way stop. It was far too busy, as always; for years there had been fender-benders at this intersection, mostly caused by people who simply couldn't grok the idea of a four-way stop where everybody took turns, and just went bashing through instead. A spate of letters, most of them written by worried parents, demanding that the town put in a stop-light at the intersection, followed each accident, and a statement from the Veazie selectmen saying a stop-light was 'under consideration' would follow that . . . and then the issue would simply go to steep until the next fender-bender.
Thad joined the line of cars waiting to cross southbound, checked to make sure the brown Plymouth was still two cars back, then watched the your-turn-to-curtsey-my-turn-to-bow action at the intersection. He saw a car filled with blue-haired ladies almost crash into a young couple in a Datsun Z, saw the girl in the Z shoot the blue-haired ladies the bird, and saw that he himself would cross north-south just before a long Grant's Dairy tanker crossed east-west. That was an unexpected break.
The car in front of him crossed, and Thad was up. The hot wire poked into his belly again. He checked the rearview mirror a final time. Harrison and Manchester were still two cars back.
A pair of cars crisscrossed in front of him. On his left, the milk tanker moved into position. Thad took a deep breath and rolled the Suburban sedately through the intersection. A pick-up truck, northbound toward Orono, passed him in the other lane.
On the far side, he was gripped by an almost irresistible urge — a need — to tromp the pedal to the metal and blast the Suburban up the road. Instead, he went rolling along at a calm and perfectly school-zone-legal fifteen miles an hour, eyes glued to the rearview mirror. The Plymouth was still waiting in line to cross, two cars back.
Hey, milk-truck! he thought, concentrating, really bearing down, as if he could make it come by simple force of will . . . as he made people and things come and go in a novel by force of will. Milktruck, come now!
And it did come, rolling across the intersection in slow, silver dignity, like a mechanized dowager.
The moment it blotted out the dark brown Plymouth in his rearview mirror, Thad did floor the Suburban's gas-pedal.
2
There was a right turn half a block up. Thad took it and roared up a short street at forty, praying no little kid would pick this instant to chase his rubber ball out into the road.
He had a nasty moment when it seemed the street must be a dead end, then saw he could make another right after all — the cross-street had been partially blocked by the high fine of hedge which belonged to the house on the corner.
He made a California stop at the T—junction, then swerved right with the tires waiting softly.