The Regulators - Stephen King [59]
Who are you?' Belinda called.
'Steve Ames! I'm from New York! I was having trouble with my truck, pulled off the Interstate, got lost! I stopped at the store down there to use the phone!'
'Poor guy,' Dave Reed said. 'Like winning the lottery in hell.'
'What's going on?' the voice from the other side of the stake fence called. 'Do you know what's going on?'
'No!' Belinda shouted back. She thought furiously. There must be more to say, other things to ask, but she couldn't think of anything at all.
'Have you looked up the street? Is it clear?' Ames called.
Belinda opened her mouth to reply, and then was distracted momentarily by the spider's web outside the screen. The window's overhang had protected it from the worst of the squall, but raindrops hung from the gossamer threads like tiny, quivering diamonds. The owner-operator was at the center of the web. Not moving. Maybe dead.
'Ma'am? I asked — '
'I don't know!' she called back. 'Johnny Marinville and my husband looked, but now they've gone upstairs to — ' But she didn't want to mention the gun. Stupid, maybe — rathole thinking — but it didn't change the way she felt. — to get a better look! What about you?'
'It's been pretty busy here, ma'am! The woman from up the block — 'A pause. 'Does your phone work?'
'No!' Belinda called. 'No phone, no electric!'
Another pause. Then, lower, barely audible over the diminishing hiss of the rain, she heard him say 'Shit'. Then there was another voice, one she knew but couldn't immediately place. 'Belinda, is that you?'
'Yes!' she returned, and looked around at the others for help.
'It's Mr Jackson,' Jim Reed said, speaking around Ralphie's shoulder. The little boy had not quite managed to join his sister in the refuge of sleep, but Belinda didn't think it would be long; his thumb had already begun to sag between his lips.
'I've been to the front door!' Peter called. 'The street's deserted all the way down to the corner! Completely deserted! No gawkers or rubberneckers from Hyacinth or the next block of Poplar. Does that make any sense to you?'
Belinda thought, frowning, then looked around. She saw only puzzled eyes and dropped heads. She turned back to the window. 'No!'
Peter laughed. The sound chilled her the way that little Ralphie Carver's distraught muttering had chilled her. 'Join the club, Bee! Makes no sense to me, either!'
'Who'd come on the block?' Kim Geller scoffed. 'Who in their right minds? With guns going off and people screaming and everything?'
Belinda didn't know how to respond to that. It was logical, but it still didn't hold water . . . because people didn't behave logically when trouble broke out. They came and they gawked. Usually they did it at what they hoped was a safe distance, but they came.
'Are you sure there aren't people down below the corner?' she called.
This time the pause was so long she was about to repeat the question when a third voice spoke up. She had no trouble recognizing Old Doc. 'None of us sees anyone, but the rain has started a mist off the pavement! Until it clears, we can't tell for sure!'
'But there are no sirens!' Peter again. 'Do you hear any coming from the north?'
'No!' she returned. 'It must be the storm!'
'I don't think so,' Cammie Reed said. She spoke for herself, to herself, not the group; if YE OLDE PANTRIE hadn't been in close proximity to the sink, Belinda wouldn't have heard her. 'Nope, I don't think so at all.'
'I'm going out to get my wife!' Peter Jackson called. Other voices were immediately raised in protest against this idea. Belinda couldn't make out the words, but the emotional tone was unmistakable.
Suddenly the spider — the one she had assumed was dead — scattered from the center of its web and mounting one of the silk strands scrambled up until it had disappeared under the eave. Not dead after all, Belinda thought. Only playing possum.
Then Kirsten Carver was leaning past her, bumping Belinda so hard with her shoulder that Belinda would