The Regulators - Stephen King [55]
The boy was looking at her. And she thought it was the boy. She wasn't completely sure, but —
'Seth?'
For a moment he only crouched there, not nodding, not shaking his head. Then he reached out with one dirty hand and wiped honey off her chin with fingers she could hardly feel.
'Seth, where did it go? Where's Tak?'
He struggled. She could see him struggling. With his fear, perhaps, but she wasn't sure he felt fear. Even if he did, it was more likely his own defective communications equipment he was working against right now. He made a gurgling noise, a sound like air in the bathroom pipes, and she thought that was probably all he'd be able to get out. Then, just as she was about to try for her feet, two choked words came from him.
'Gone. Building.'
She looked at him, still breathing through a film of honey but not noticing it for the moment. She felt her heart begin to beat a little faster at the word gone. She should know better, especially after what had just happened, but —
'Is he in a building, honey? Gone to a building? Is that what you're saying? What building?'
'Building,' Seth repeated. He struggled, his head shaking from side to side. Finally: 'Making.'
Building, yes. But the verb, not the noun. Tak was building. Tak was making. What was he making . . . besides trouble?
'He,' Seth said. 'He. He. He — !'
The boy struck down on his own thigh with a frustration she had never seen in him before. She picked up the fist he had hit himself with and soothed it back into a hand.
'No, Seth.' Her diaphragm pulled in again, trying to retch — the honey was a heavy ball in her stomach — but she controlled it. 'Don't, don't. Just relax. Tell me if you can. If you can't, it's okay.' A lie, but if she wound him up any tighter than he was already, he would never be able to get it out. Worse, he might go away. Go away and leave the warm boy-vacancy that Tak inhabited so easily.
'He — !' Seth reached for her, touched her ears. Then he put the backs of his hands behind his own ears and pushed them forward. She saw that they were also dirty from his long hours in the sandbox — filthy — and her eyes stung with tears. But he was looking at her intently, and she nodded. Yes, she understood. When Seth really tried, he was quite good — as good as he had to be, anyway.
He listens to you, the boy was saying. Tak listens to you with my ears. And of course he did. It did. Tak the Magnificent, creature of a thousand voices, most of which came equipped with Western drawls, and one set of ears.
Tak had dropped down in front of her, but it was Seth that got up, just a skinny little boy in grimy underpants. He started for the door, then turned back. Audrey herself was still on her knees, trying to decide if she could reach out for the counter from where she was or if she should crawl a little closer first.
She cringed when she saw him coming back, thinking that Tak had returned, thinking she saw the hard shine of its intelligence in Seth's eyes. When he got closer, she saw that she had made a natural enough mistake. Seth was crying. She had never seen him cry before, not even when he came to her with scraped knees or a banged head. Until now she hadn't been entirely sure that he could cry.
He put his arms around her neck and dropped his forehead against hers. It hurt, but she didn't draw away. For a moment she had a blurred but very emphatic image of the red telephone, only grown to enormous size. Then it was gone, and she heard Seth's voice in her head. She'd thought on several occasions that she was hearing him, that he was trying to contact her telepathically. The sensation came most commonly as she was drifting off to sleep or just as she was waking up. It was always distant, like a voice calling through blankets of fog.