The Dark Half - Stephen King [67]
Then it just broke, as it had broken that other time, and he took a gasping breath. His heart took two rapid random galloping beats in his chest and then resumed its regular rhythm . . . although its pace was still fast, much too fast.
That scream. Jesus Christ Our Lord, that scream.
Liz was running across the room now, and he was aware that she'd snatched the telephone receiver out of his hand only when he saw her shouting Hello? and Who is this? into it again and again. Then she heard the hum of the broken connection and put it back down.
'Miriam,' he managed to say at last as Liz turned to him. 'It was Miriam and she was screaming.'
Except in books, I've never killed anyone.
The sparrows are flying.
Down here we call that fool's stuffing.
Down here we call it Endsville.
Gonna hook back north, hoss. You gotta lie me an alibi, because I'm gonna hook back north. Gonna cut me some beef. 'Miriam? Screaming? Miriam Cowley? Thad, what's going on?'
'It is him,' Thad said. 'I knew it was. I think I knew it almost from the first, and then today . . . this afternoon . . . I had another one.'
'Another what?' Her fingers pressed against the side of her neck, rubbing hard. 'Another blackout? Another trance?'
'Both,' he said. 'The sparrows again first. I wrote a lot of crazy shit on a piece of paper while I was knocked out. I threw it away, but her name was on the sheet, Liz, Miriam's name was part of what I wrote this time when I was out . . . and . . . '
He stopped. His eyes were widening, widening.
'What? Thad, what is it?' She seized one of his arms, shook it. 'What is it?'
'She has a poster in her living room,' he said. He heard his voice as though it were someone else's — a voice coming from far away. Over an intercom, perhaps. 'A poster from a Broadway musical. Cats. I saw it the last time we were there. Cats, NOW AND FOREVER. I wrote that down, too. I wrote it because he was there, and so I was there, part of me was, part of me was seeing with his eyes . . . '
He looked at her. He looked at her with his wide, wide eyes.
'This is no tumor, Liz. At least, not one that's inside of my body.'
'I don't know what you're talking about!' Liz nearly screamed.
'I've got to call Rick,' he muttered. Part of his mind seemed to be lifting off, moving brilliantly and talking to itself in images and crude bright symbols. It was this way when he wrote, sometimes, but it was the first time he could remember ever being this way in real life — was writing real life? he wondered suddenly. He didn't think it was. More like intermission.
'Thad, please!'
'I've got to warn Rick. He may be in danger.'
'Thad, you're not making sense!'
No; of course he wasn't. And if he stopped to explain, he would appear to be making even less . . . and while he paused to confide his fears to his wife, probably accomplishing nothing but causing her to wonder how long it took to get the proper committal papers filled out, George Stark could be crossing the nine city blocks in Manhattan that separated Rick's apartment from his ex wife's. Sitting in the back of a cab or behind the wheel of a stolen car, hell, sitting behind the wheel of the black Toronado from his dream, for all Thad knew — if you were going to go this far down the path to insanity, why not just say fuck it and go all the way? Sitting there, smoking, getting ready to kill Rick as he had Miriam —
Had he killed her?
Maybe he had just frightened her, left her sobbing and in shock. Or maybe he had hurt her