The Regulators - Stephen King [102]
Bad . . . but thank God his range isn't widening as I suspected it might be. That would be even worse.
June 26, 1995
Waited until Herb was at work — I didn't want him to go, he looked so pale and ill, but he said he had an important report to finish and a big presentation this afternoon — then went out back to talk to Seth.
He was sitting in the sandbox, playing quietly with his MotoKops guys, the HQ Crisis Center, and what Herb jokingly calls 'the Ponderosa'. This is a ranch-and-corral set-up that Herb saw at a yard-sale on his way home from work one day in March or April. He made a U-turn to go back get it. It's not really the Ponderosa Ranch from Bonanza, of course, but the main house with its log sides does look a little like it. There is also a bunkhouse (part of the roof broken in but it's otherwise in good shape) and a number of plastic horses (a couple with only three legs) for the corral. Herb paid two bucks for it, it's been one of Seth's favorite toys ever since. What's funny ( a little weird) is how quickly effortlessly he incorporated the ranch into his MotoKops play-fantasies. I suppose all kids are that way, arbitrary boundaries don't interest 'em, especially when they're playing, but it's still a dizzy blending of genres to see Cassie or No Face riding a three-legged plastic nag around the old corral.
Not that I was thinking about any of that this morning, I can tell you. I was scared, heart pounding like a drum in my chest, but when he looked up at me, I felt a little better. It was Seth, not the other one. Every time I see Seth's pale, sweet little face, I love him more. It's crazy, maybe, but it's true. I want to protect him more, and I hate the other one more.
I asked him what was happening to the Hobarts — no sense kidding myself any longer that he's in the dark about what happened to Dream Floater — he didn't answer. Just sat looking at me. I asked him if he'd snuck out on Saturday morning and gone down there to break their windows. Still no answer. Then I asked him what he wanted, what had to happen before he would stop. I didn't think he was going to answer that, either. Then he said, very clearly for Seth: 'They should move. They should move soon. I can't hold it back much longer.'
'Hold what back?' I asked him, but he wouldn't say anything else, just went away to wherever it is he goes. Later on, while he was eating his lunch (the usual, Chef Boyardee choco milk), I came upstairs sat on the bed thought. After my brother and his family were killed, the witnesses talked about a red van that maybe had a radar-dish or some other form of telecommunications equipment on the roof. A mystery-van, the paper called it. Tracker Arrow is red. And it has a dish on the roof.
I told myself I was completely crazy, and then I thought about the Dream Floater Herb I saw in the back yard. It wasn't real, of course, but it was full-sized . . . and Seth was asleep when we saw it. Maybe not operating at full power.
Suppose the SLB gets tired of just breaking windows'? Suppose he sends Tracker Arrow (or Dream Floater, the Justice Wagon, or Freedom) to do a little drive-by at the Hobarts'?
I can't hold it back much longer, Seth said.
June 27, 1995
Spent most of the day at Mohonk with Jan Goodlin. 1 know I shouldn't — it's as much a retreat as drugs or alcohol would be — but it's hard to resist. We talked about our folks, and embarrassing things that happened to us in high school, all the usual. Trivial and wonderful. Until the very end. I saw the little phone was gone, which means it's time to go back, Jan said to me: (Tou know where he's getting the energy to work on the Hobarts, don't you, Aud?'
Sure I do: from Herb. He's stealing it like a vampire steals blood. And I think that Herb knows it, too.
June 28, 1995
Late this morning I was sitting at the kitchen table, making up a shopping list, when I heard