The Running Man - Stephen King [46]
A hand whacked the top of the trunk casually in passing. Richards bit back a scream. Dust in his nostrils, throat, tickling. High school biology, sitting in the back row, scratching his initials and Sheila’s on the ancient desk-top: The sneeze is a function of the involuntary muscles. I’m going to sneeze my goddam head off but it’s pointblank and I can still put that bullet right through his squash and—
“What’s in the trunk, mister?”
Bradley’s voice, jocular, a little bored: “A spare cylinder that doesn’t work half right. I got the key on my ring. Wait, I’ll get it.”
“If I wanted it, I’d ask.”
Other back door opened; closed.
“Drive on.”
“Hang tight, fella. Hope you get him.”
“Drive on, mister. Move your ass.”
The cylinders cranked up. The car lifted and accelerated. It slowed once and must have been waved on. Richards jolted a little as the car rose, sailed a little, and kicked into drive. His breath came in tired little moans. He didn’t have to sneeze anymore.
…Minus 059 and COUNTING…
The ride seemed much longer than an hour and a half, and they were stopped twice more. One of them seemed to be a routine license check. At the next one a drawling cop with a dull-witted voice talked to Bradley for some time about how the goddam commie bikers were helping that guy Richards and probably the other one, too. Laughlin had not killed anyone, but it was rumored that he had raped a woman in Topeka.
After that there was nothing but the monotonous whine of the wind and the scream of his own cramped and frozen muscles. Richards did not sleep, but his punished mind did finally push him into a dazed semiconsciousness. There was no carbon monoxide with the air cars, thank God for that.
Centuries after the last roadblock, the car kicked into a lower gear and banked up a spiraling exit ramp. Richards blinked sluggishly and wondered if he was going to throw up. For the first time in his life he felt carsick.
They went through a sickening series of loops and dives that Richards supposed was a traffic interchange. Another five minutes and city sounds took over again. Richards tried repeatedly to shift his body into a new position, but it was impossible. He finally subsided, waiting numbly for it to be over. His right arm, which was curled under him, had gone to sleep an hour ago. Now it felt like a block of wood. He could touch it with the tip of his nose and feel only the pressure on his nose.
They took a right, went straight for a little, then turned again. The bottom dropped out of Richards’s stomach as the car dipped down a sharp incline. The echoing of the cylinders told him that they were inside. They had gotten to the garage.
A little helpless sound of relief escaped him.
“Got your check, buddy?” A voice asked.
“Right here, pal.”
“Rampway 5.”
“Thanks.”
They bore right. The car went up, paused, turned right again, then left. They settled into idle, then the car dropped with a soft bump as the engine died. Journey’s end.
There was a pause, then the hollow sound of Bradley’s door opening and closing. His footsteps clicked toward the trunk, then the chink of light in front of Richards’s eyes disappeared as the