The Regulators - Stephen King [69]
There has been a change over there since the coming of the shooters in the vans.
Just how much he cannot tell, mostly because he is a stranger here, he doesn't know the street, partly because the smoke from the burning house and the mist still rising off the wet street give the houses over there a look which is almost spectral, like houses seen in a mirage . . . but there has been a change.
Siding has been replaced with logs on the Wyler house, and where there was a picture window there are now three more conventional — old-fashioned, one might almost say — multi-pane windows. The door has wooden supports hammered across its vertical boards in a Z-shape. The house next to it on the left . . .
'Tell me something,' Collie says, looking at the same one. 'Since when did the Reeds live in a log-fucking-cabin?'
'Since when did the Gellers live in an adobe hacienda!' Cynthia responds, looking one farther down.
'You guys're kidding,' Steve says. Then, weakly: 'Aren't you?'
Neither of them replies. They look almost hypnotized.
'I'm not sure I'm really seeing it,' Collie says at last. His voice is uncharacteristically hesitant. 'It's . . . '
'Shimmery,' the girl says.
He turns to her. 'Yeah. Like when you look at something over the top of an incinerator, or — '
'Somebody help my wife!' Gary calls to them from the shadows of the living room. He has found a bottle of something — Steve can't see what — and is standing by the photo of Hester, a pigeon who liked to fingerpaint. Not, Steve thinks, that pigeons exactly have fingers. Gary isn't steady on his feet and his words sound slurry. 'Somebody help Mar'elle! Losser damn arm!'
'We need to get help for her,' Collie says, nodding. 'And — '
' — for the rest of us,' Steve finishes. He's relieved, actually, to know that someone else realizes this, that maybe he won't have to go on his own. The boy next door has stopped crying, but Steve can still hear the girl, sobbing in big, watery hitches. Margrit the Maggot, he thinks. That's what her brother called her. Margrit the Maggot loves Ethan Hawke, he said.
Steve has a sudden urge, as strong as it is unaccustomed, to go next door and find that little girl. To kneel in front of her and take her in his arms and hug her and tell her she can love anyone she pleases. Ethan Hawke or Newt Gingrich or just anybody. He looks down the street instead. The E-Z Stop, so far as he can tell, hasn't changed; its style is still Late-century Convenience Store, sometimes known as Pastel Cinderblock, sometimes known as Still Life with Dumpster. Not beautiful, far from it, but a known quantity, and under the circumstances, that's a relief. The Ryder truck is still parked in front, the blue phone-sign is still hanging down from its hook, the Marlboro Man is still on the door, and . . .
. . . and the bike rack is gone.
Well, not gone, exactly; replaced.
By something that looks suspiciously like a hitching-rail in a Western movie.
With an effort, he drags first his eyes and then his mind back to the cop, who is saying Steve is right, they all need help. At the Carvers' as well as at Old Doc's, by the sound.
'There's a greenbelt behind the houses on this side of the street,' Collie says. 'There's a path that runs through it. Kids use it, mostly, but I'm partial to it myself. It forks behind the Jacksons' house. One arm runs down to Hyacinth. Comes out by the bus shelter halfway down the block. The other one goes east, over to Anderson Avenue. If Anderson's, pardon my French, fucked up — '
'Why should it be?' Cynthia asks. 'There hasn't been any shooting from that direction.'
He gives her a strange, patient look. 'There hasn't been any help from that direction, either. And our street is fucked up in ways the shooting had nothing to do with, in case you haven't noticed.'
'Oh,' she says in a small voice.
'Anyway, if Anderson Avenue's as crazy as Poplar — I hope it isn't, but if it is — there's a viaduct that runs at least under the street, maybe farther. It could go all the way