The Regulators - Stephen King [76]
'Some even younger,' he said. 'I was there. I saw them.' He got up, pulled the pistol from the waistband of his slacks with one hand, pulled the box of cartridges out of his shirt pocket with the other. 'I'll be glad to turn this over to your boys . . . but I'd like to go along with them.'
Cammie glanced down at Johnny's belly — not as large as Brad's, but still considerable. She didn't ask him why he wanted to go, or what good he thought he could do. Her mind was, at least for the time being, colder than that. She said, 'The boys play soccer in the fall and run track in the spring. Can you keep up with them?'
'Not in the mile or the four-forty, of course not,' he replied. 'On a path through the woods, and maybe through a viaduct? I think so.'
'Are you kidding yourself, or what?' Belinda asked abruptly. It was Cammie she was talking to, not Johnny. 'I mean, if there was still a working phone within earshot of Poplar Street, do you think we'd still be sitting here with dead people lying out front and a house burning to the ground?'
Cammie glanced at her, touched the blood-spot on her blouse again, then looked back at Johnny. Behind her, Ellie was peering around the corner into the living room. The girl's eyes were wide with shock and grief, her mouth and chin streaked with blood from her nose.
'If it's okay with the boys, it's okay with me,' Cammie said, not addressing Belinda's question at all. Cammie Reed currently had no interest in speculation. Maybe later, but not now. Now there was only one thing that did interest her: rolling the dice while she judged the odds were still heavily in her favor. Rolling them and getting her sons out the back door.
'It will be,' he said, and handed her the gun and the cartridges before heading back toward the kitchen. They were good boys, which was nice, and they were also boys who had been programmed to go along, in nine cases out of ten, with what their elders wanted. In this situation, that was even nicer. As Johnny walked, he touched the object he had stowed in his left front pants pocket. 'But before we go, it's important that I talk to someone. Very important.'
'Who?' Cammie asked.
Johnny picked Ellen Carver up. He hugged her, kissed one bloodstained cheek, and was glad when her arms went around his neck and she hugged him back fiercely. You couldn't buy a hug like that. 'Ralphie Carver,' he said, and carried Ralphie's sister back into the kitchen.
2
As it happened, Tom Billingsley did have a couple of guns kicking around, but first he found Collie a shirt. It wasn't much — an old Cleveland Browns tee with a rip under one arm — but it was an XL, and better than trying the path through the greenbelt naked from the waist up. Collie had used the route often enough to know there were blackberry bushes, plus assorted other prickers and brambles, out there.
'Thanks,' he said, pulling the shirt on as Old Doc led them past the Ping-Pong table at the far end of his basement.
'Don't mention it,' Billingsley said, reaching up and tugging the string that turned on the fluorescents. 'Can't even remember where it came from. I've always been a Bengals fan, myself.'
In the corner beyond the Ping-Pong table was a jumble of fishing equipment, a few orange hunting vests, and an unstrung bow. Old Doc squatted with a grimace, moved the vests, and uncovered a quilt that had been rolled and tied with twine. Inside it were four rifles, but two of them were in pieces. Billingsley held up the ones that were whole. 'Should do,' he said.
Collie took the .30-.06, which probably made a lot more sense for a woods patrol than his service pistol, anyway (and would raise fewer questions if he had to shoot someone). That left Ames with the other, smaller gun. A Mossberg. 'It's only chambered for .22s,' Doc said apologetically as he rummaged in a cabinet mounted next to the fusebox and laid out cartons of cartridges on the Ping-Pong table, 'but it's a damned fine gun, just the same. Holds nine in a row for more go. What do you think?'
Ames offered a grin Collie couldn't help liking. 'I think