The Regulators - Stephen King [132]
'Get out of here, Kim,' Johnny said. He could still see himself driving his fist into her mouth, but the madness was passing and his voice was almost steady. 'You're not yourself.'
'Susi? You get over here. We're going away from these hateful people.'
Susi turned her back on her mother, trembling all over. Johnny supposed this did not change his opinion of the girl as a shallow, flighty creature . . . but she seemed a link or two up the food-chain from her mother, at least.
Slowly, like a rusty robot, Dave Reed raised his arms and put them around her. Cammie seemed about to object to this, then subsided.
'All right,' Kim said. Her voice was clear and composed again, the voice of someone giving a speech in a dream. 'When you want me, I'll be in the living room.' Her eyes switched to Johnny, whom she seemed to have identified as the source of all her misery. 'And you — '
'Stop it,' Audrey said harshly. Startled, they all turned to look at her, except for Kim, who slipped off into the darkness of the living room. We have no time for this shit. We might have a chance to get out of this — a small one — but if you fools stand around squabbling, all we're going to do is die.'
'Who're you, ma'am?' Steve asked.
'Audrey Wyler.' She was tall, her legs long and coltish and not unsexy below her blue shorts, but her face was pale and haggard. That face made Johnny think of the way the Carver kids looked as they lay sleeping in each other's arms, and suddenly he found himself trying to remember when he'd last seen Audrey, passed the time of day with her. He couldn't. It was as if she had dropped out of the casual, back-and-forth life of the street entirely.
Little bitty baby Smitty, he thought suddenly, I seen you bite your mommy's titty. Then he thought of the vans that had been on the floor of the Wyler den the afternoon he'd spent some time watching Bonanza with Seth. And once he had that, a kind of landslide started in his head. Outlaws that looked like movie stars. Major Pike, a good nailien gone bad. The Western scenery. That most of all. He loves the old Westerns, Audrey had said that day. She'd picked up a few of his toys as she spoke, doing it the way people do stuff when they're nervous. Bonanza and The Rifleman are his favorites, but anything they'll bring back on the cable, he'll watch. If it has horses in it, that is.
'It's your nephew, Audrey. Isn't it? It's Seth doing this.' 'No.' She raised a hand and wiped her eyes with it. 'Not Seth.
What's inside Seth.'
4
I'll tell you what I can, but there's not much time. The Power Wagons will be back before long.'
'Who's inside them?' Old Doc asked. 'Do you know, Aud?'
'Regulators. Outlaws. Sci-fi policemen. And this place where we are is partly the Old West as it exists on TV and partly a place called the Force Corridor, which only exists in a TV-cartoon version of the twenty-third century.' She took a deep breath and ran her hands through her hair. 'I don't know everything, but — '
'Take us through as much as you can,' Johnny said.
She looked at her watch and made a sour face. 'Stopped.'
'Mine, too,' Steve said. 'Everybody's, I imagine.'
'I think there's time,' Audrey said. Which is to say, I think it's too early for any . . . any movement just yet.' She laughed suddenly, startling Johnny. Startling all of them, from the look. It wasn't the hysterical undertone so much as the genuine merriness on top. She saw their stares and brought herself under control. 'Sorry — it's a kind of pun. No reason you should understand. Yet, anyway. We have to wait. If he brings the regulators back in the meantime, we'll have to just . . . endure them, I suppose.'
'Are they getting stronger?' Cammie asked suddenly. 'These regulators, are they getting more powerful?'
'Yes,' Audrey said. 'And if the thing doing this caught the energy from the people who died out there in the woods, the next run will be the worst yet. I pray that didn't happen, but I think it probably did.'
She looked around at them, drew in