The Regulators - Stephen King [72]
Is that Herb? Is it me? I want to say no, but sometimes it feels like hell. A lot of times, actually. Why else am I keeping this diary?
June 11, 1995
Seth sleeping. Exhausted, maybe. Herbie outside in the back yard, looking everywhere. Although I think Seth has already been looking. We know what's missing now, at least: his Dream Floater Power Wagon. He's got all the MotoKops shit — action figures, HQ Crisis Center, Cassie's Party Pad, Power Wagon Corral, two stun pistols, even 'floatpad sheets' for his bed. But more than anything he loves the Power Wagons. They're battery-powered vans, quite large, very futuristic. Most have wings he can pop out by pushing a lever on the bottom, plus radar dishes that really turn on the roofs (the one on Cassie Styles's Dream Floater is shaped like a Valentine, this after about thirty years' worth of talking about equal rights female role-models for girls; I could just about puke), flashing lights, siren noises, space-blaster noises, etc., etc.
Anyway, Seth came back from California with all six that are currently on the market: the red one (Tracker Arrow), the yellow one (Justice Wagon), the blue one (Freedom), the black one (Meatwagon, belongs to the bad guy), the silver one (Rooty-Toot, just think, someone gets paid, to think this shit up), and the stupid pink one, driven by Cassie Styles, the love of our young nephew's life. His crush is actually sorta funny sweet, but there's nothing funny about what's currently going on around here: Seth's 'Dweem Fwoatah' is gone, and all this is a kind of tantrum.
Herbie shook me awake at six this morning, pulled me out of bed. His hand was cold as ice. I asked him what it was, what was wrong, and he wouldn't say. Just pulled me over to the window asked me if I saw anything out there. I could tell what he meant was did I see what he was seeing?
I saw it, all right. It was Dream Floater, which looks sorta art deco, like something from the old Batman comic books. But it wasn't Seth's Dream Floater, not the toy. That's about two feet long maybe a foot high. The one we were seeing was full-sized, probably twelve feet long and maybe seven feet high. The roof-hatch was partway up, the heart-shaped radar dish was turning, just as it does on the show.
'Jesus Christ,' I said. 'Where did that come from ?' All I could think was that it must have flown in on its stubby little retractable wings. It was like getting out of bed with one eye open and discovering a flying saucer has landed in your back yard. I couldn't get my breath. I felt like someone had punched me in the stomach!
At first when he told me it wasn't there I didn't understand what he meant, and then the sun came up a little more and I realized I could see the aspens behind our fence right through it. It really wasn't there. But at the same time it was.
'He's showing us what he couldn't tell us,' Herb said.
I asked if Seth was awake Herb said no, he'd been down the hall to check and he was fast asleep. That gave me a chill I can't describe. Because it meant we were standing there at our bedroom window in our pj's looking out at our nephew's dream. It was there in the back yard like a big pink soap-bubble.
We stood there for about twenty minutes, watching it. I don't know if we expected Cassie Styles to come out or what, but nothing like that happened. The pink van just sat there with its roof-hatch partway up and its radar dish turning, and then it started to fade until it was just a shimmer. By the end you couldn't have told what it was, if you hadn't seen it when it was brighter. Then we heard Seth getting up and going down the hall. By the time the toilet flushed, it was gone.
At breakfast, Herb pulled his chair over next to Seth's, the way he does when he really wants to talk to him. In some ways I think Herb is braver than I ever could be. Especially since it's Herb that —
No, I