Wolves of the Calla - Stephen King [176]
She reached in, grasped the sides of the roasting pan, then pulled back with a gasp, shaking her fingers and grinning. It was a grin of pain, yet not entirely devoid of humor. Mr. Rat had either been a trifle more immune to the heat than she was, or maybe hongrier. Although it was hard to believe anyone or anything could be hongrier than she was right now.
“I’se hongry!” she yelled, laughing, as she went down the line of drawers, opening and closing them swiftly. “Mia’s one hongry lady, yessir! Didn’t go to Morehouse, didn’t go to no house, but I’se hongry! And my chap’s hongry, too!”
In the last drawer (wasn’t that always the way), she found the hotpads she’d been looking for. She hurried back to the oven with them in her hands, bent down, and pulled the roast out. Her laughter died in a sudden shocked gasp…and then burst out again, louder and stronger than ever. What a goose she was! What a damned silly-billy! For one instant she’d thought the roast, which had been done to a skin-crackling turn and only gnawed by Mr. Rat in one place, was the body of a child. And yes, she supposed that a roasted pig did look a little bit like a child…a baby…someone’s chap…but now that it was out and she could see the closed eyes and the charred ears and the baked apple in the open mouth, there was no question about what it was.
As she set it on the counter, she thought again about the reflection she’d seen in the foyer. But never mind that now. Her gut was a roar of famishment. She plucked a butcher’s knife out of the drawer from which she had taken the meat-fork and cut off the place where Mr. Rat had been eating the way you’d cut a wormhole out of an apple. She tossed this piece back over her shoulder, then picked up the roast entire and buried her face in it.
From the door, Jake watched her.
When the keenest edge had been taken off her hunger, Mia looked around the kitchen with an expression that wavered between calculation and despair. What was she supposed to do when the roast was gone? What was she supposed to eat the next time this sort of hunger came? And where was she supposed to find what her chap really wanted, really needed? She’d do anything to locate that stuff and secure a good supply of it, that special food or drink or vitamin or whatever it was. The pork was close (close enough to put him to sleep again, thank all the gods and the Man Jesus), but not close enough.
She banged sai Piggy back into the roasting pan for the nonce, pulled the shirt she was wearing off over her head, and turned it so she could look at the front. There was a cartoon pig, roasted bright red but seeming not to mind; it was smiling blissfully. Above it, in rustic letters made to look like barn-board, was this: THE DIXIE PIG, LEX AND 61ST. Below it: “BEST RIBS IN NEW YORK”—GOURMET MAGAZINE.
The Dixie Pig, she thought. The Dixie Pig. Where have I heard that before?
She didn’t know, but she believed she could find Lex if she had to. “It be right there between Third and Park,” she said. “That’s right, ain’t it?”
The boy, who had slipped back out but left the door ajar, heard this and nodded miserably. That was where it was, all right.
Well-a-well, Mia thought. It all does fine for now, good as it can do, anyway, and like that woman in the book said, tomorrow’s another day. Worry about it then. Right?
Right. She picked up the roast again and began to eat. The smacking sounds she made were really not much different from those made by the rat. Really not much different at all.
Two
Tian and Zalia had tried to give Eddie and Susannah their bedroom. Convincing them that their guests really didn’t want their bedroom—that sleeping there